00:00Hello AD, I'm Joe Gordon-Levitt, born and raised here in LA. Welcome to Caltech.
00:15So Caltech is short for the California Institute of Technology. I love technology, dearly. I mean
00:21technology is what allows us to make movies, do the things that I've earned my living with
00:25my whole life. Everyone thinks LA is represented by Hollywood, but LA is the second biggest city in
00:31the country and it's one of the greatest cities in the world. And here at Caltech, this is one of
00:37the greatest scientific institutions in the world. The word science, as far as I understand it, it's
00:43like an old Greek word for knowledge. It's just what do we know to be true? How do we know
00:48that?
00:49Can we test it? Can we make sure it's actually true? Or are we just talking nonsense? And I'm not
00:57a scientist, but I'm deeply grateful for what the scientific method has given us, which is
01:05responsible for so much of the positive changes we've seen in the human race over the last number
01:11of centuries. But we have to face it that in addition to all the good that new technology
01:17has brought to us, it's really brought some bad as well. Everyone's talking about AI, right?
01:23The question is, what's that impact going to be? Is it going to be positive? Is it going to be
01:27negative? Well, probably it'll be both, of course. We collectively have it in us to use technology
01:34to help people, to make lives better. Let's have that future. And we're having a sort of a backwards
01:42moment right now where science is having trouble getting a foothold in this attention maximized
01:51landscape of public discourse. But I hold on to faith that science will endure. And Caltech right
01:59here in LA is one of the really preeminent hubs of science and technology throughout the world. People
02:06do research here and take classes here and teach and learn and read and study and come up with important
02:11ideas that define the world. If you listed all the things that have been thought of and invented here,
02:18it's really quite impressive. Americans would not have gone to the moon if it hadn't been for the work
02:23done here and at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which was spun out of this institution here.
02:29That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.
02:35They ended up founding an institution called the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory
02:41became essentially a part of NASA. And many of the uncrewed spacecraft that have been developed by the U.S.
02:47over the years, from Voyager to the Mars rovers, have been designed and built at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory
02:54before they're sent into space. Caltech is also part of the broader Los Angeles world, and that does
03:00include close relationships with the film industry and with Hollywood. Kip Thorne, who is a theoretical
03:06astrophysicist who's an emeritus professor here at Caltech, was deeply involved in the development of
03:11the Christopher Nolan film Interstellar. And the scientific ideas portrayed in that film are the
03:16ideas of Kip Thorne. That is theoretical astrophysics on the screen and wouldn't have happened without the
03:21relationships that develop between science and the creative arts.
03:28One of the greatest scientific communicators of our time, Carl Sig, talks about a balance between
03:37reason and wonder. Because early in any scientific process, they have to have an idea first. They have
03:45to think, well, maybe the world works like this. There's something similar between that and a storyteller.
03:51You have to use your imagination. So I feel like there really is a big overlap between art and science.
03:58Institutions like this one are being torn apart right now, defunded, undermined, disrespected. So
04:05many things that science gives to us. I can't believe that it's being so thoroughly disrespected
04:13in my country today. And so it's important to celebrate the institutions like Caltech
04:19that uphold it and have for a long time. Caltech was founded in 1891 as Troop University. The core of
04:29the campus was built in the 1920s and 1930s and was led by the architect Bertram Goodhue, who in 1915
04:37had done the architecture at the World's Fair in Balboa Park in San Diego. And those buildings follow
04:44Goodhue's philosophy and Goodhue's architectural style of Spanish colonial revival, which was meant to
04:51borrow features of the Spanish California missions. Those features in particular include arcades that
04:58connect buildings to each other and that provide these shaded arched outdoor spaces. One of the visions of
05:06the leaders of the institution at the time was that that shade would encourage people to move between
05:11buildings more, making it easier for scientists to visit each other's labs and work together.
05:16I mean, first of all, it's a beautiful and impressive environment to be in. So it shows a certain amount
05:24of kind of respect and reverence for the people here, whether they're young students that are going to
05:31become the scientists that move our society forward, or they're the more seasoned professors and researchers
05:38that are figuring it out today. I love seeing people doing that kind of work. It's affirming
05:46of the best of what humanity has to offer.
05:53So Lind Laboratory was built in 1932 as the astrophysical laboratory. The astronomer George
06:00Ellery Hale, who was chairman of Caltech's board of trustees, was leading the development of the largest
06:05telescope in the world. It was actually the third time in his life that he led the development of the
06:09largest telescope in the world because he kept beating his own records. Lind Laboratory features a
06:14telescope and an observatory dome, and the telescope is continually tracking the sun. It also typifies the
06:23way that Caltech does research because it was about building particular kinds of instruments and then
06:28being able to use those instruments to look at nature in new ways. In the 1960s, Caltech expanded,
06:35and Beckman Auditorium was one of the starting points of that expansion. And it deviated dramatically
06:40from the Spanish colonial revival style and introduced a sense of architectural novelty to the campus.
06:52So the Los Angeles fires, there was one to the very west of the city in the Palisades,
06:57and then there was one to the very east, which is quite close to here. It really did incredible damage.
07:04My heart certainly goes out to not just the folks in the Palisades, but all the people on the east
07:10side
07:11who suffered so greatly from these LA fires.
07:16The hills and mountains behind me are where the Altadena fire occurred. We have a number of members of the
07:23Caltech community, faculty and staff in particular, who lost homes. There was a really strong sense of
07:28community support. There was a program to provide temporary housing, all sorts of different elements
07:33of helping people with that unexpected and tragic transitional period in their lives.
07:53What makes Caltech essential to LA's future and not just its past? The future has got to be rooted
08:00in science. I think it can keep going, but it won't happen by itself. If we let the business people
08:09overtake science and technology and develop science and technology purely for profit motives,
08:17we're going to see a further concentration of power into the hands of people who don't care about
08:22humanity at large, but just care about money and power for themselves. So we have to keep our faith and
08:30love
08:31and respect for institutions like this and the people who work here, who can, I think,
08:36guide us towards something higher than just profits.
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