Episode 81
Safi Bahcall | Loonshots: Crazy Ideas that Win Wars, Cure Diseases, and Transform Industries
Episode 81
Safi Bahcall
Safi Bahcall | Loonshots: Crazy Ideas that Win Wars, Cure Diseases, and Transform Industries
summary
In this week’s episode of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Safi Bahcall, a physicist, biotech entrepreneur, and the author of “Loonshots,” a book about how to nurture the types of crazy ideas that win wars, cure diseases, and transform industries.
In the early days of World War II, the Third Reich’s commander of submarines Karl Dönitz submitted a memorandum to the German Navy, advocating for a system of submarine warfare that would devastate allied supply lines, merchant vessels, and warships. For a nation with a second-rate navy, this was asymmetrical warfare at its finest. With the implementation of the plan, known as “Rudeltaktik,” allied losses began to rise rapidly, from 750,000 tons of cargo lost in 1939 to 7.8 million in 1942. Every month, U-boats were sinking ships faster than the Allies could build them, and the losses kept mounting. By early 1943, food supplies to Britain had dwindled to two-thirds of normal levels. Less than three months of commercial oil reserves remained: The British were on the verge of defeat.
At just the time when all hope seemed lost in the Battle for the Atlantic, an American physicist by the name of Alfred Loomis appointed to assemble and lead a team of the country’s best engineers and physicists, presented the Army with the first of two timely innovations. When mounted on Americas’ B-24 Liberator bombers these tiny boxes with their microwave antennas could detect the periscopes of surfaced submarines, through daytime cloud cover or fog of night. By the spring of 1943, these long-range bombers, equipped with Loomis’ microwave radar and pulsed-radio navigation were fully operational and actively patrolling the Atlantic. What ensued was a massacre.
In the month of May alone, Allied bombers operating through fog and darkness and who could now see the once invisible German submarines lighting up their oscilloscope screens, sank 41 U-boats nearly one-third of the German commander’s total operational fleet and more in one month than in any of the first three years of the war. Allied shipping losses, in 90 days, decreased by 95 percent: from 514,000 tons in March to 22,000 tons in June. The lanes to resupply Europe had been opened making way for the ground invasion at Normandy only a year later. The Allies turned what had appeared by all accounts to be an imminent loss into the first great Allied victory of the War, all because a small group of scientists working out of an anonymous building at MIT, had the crazy idea to use an unproven technology to turn a German hunting ground into a turkey shoot for the allies and their microwave configured, B-24 bombers that were busy lighting up the Atlantic.
This week, on Hidden Forces, we explore how to nurture the types of crazy ideas that win wars, cure disease, and transform industries, with our guest Safi Bahcall.
Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas
Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou
Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod
bio
Safi Bahcall is a physicist, biotech entrepreneur, and the author of “Loonshohts,” a book about how to nurture the types of crazy ideas that win wars, cure diseases and transform industries. Safi received his BA summa cum laude from Harvard and his Ph.D. in physics from Stanford, where he worked with renowned theoretical physicist Leonard Susskind and Nobel laureate Bob Laughlin. He was a Miller Fellow in physics at UC Berklee and worked for three years as a consultant for McKinsey before going on to co-found Synta Pharmaceutical, a biotechnology company that specialized in developing new drugs to treat cancer, leading its 2007 IPO and serving as its President & CEO for 13 years.
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At enim hic etiam dolore. Quo plebiscito decreta a senatu est consuli quaestio Cn. Propter nos enim illam, non propter eam nosmet ipsos diligimus. Cum autem in quo sapienter dicimus, id a primo rectissime dicitur. Qui-vere falsone, quaerere mittimus-dicitur oculis se privasse;
Si mala non sunt, iacet omnis ratio Peripateticorum. Esse enim quam vellet iniquus iustus poterat inpune. Erit enim mecum, si tecum erit. Ergo adhuc, quantum equidem intellego, causa non videtur fuisse mutandi nominis. Ut in voluptate sit, qui epuletur, in dolore, qui torqueatur. Rem unam praeclarissimam omnium maximeque laudandam, penitus viderent, quonam gaudio complerentur, cum tantopere eius adumbrata opinione laetentur? Color egregius, integra valitudo, summa gratia, vita denique conferta voluptatum omnium varietate. Collatio igitur ista te nihil iuvat. Indicant pueri, in quibus ut in speculis natura cernitur. Cum autem in quo sapienter dicimus, id a primo rectissime dicitur.
Itaque sensibus rationem adiunxit et ratione effecta sensus non reliquit. Tu autem, si tibi illa probabantur, cur non propriis verbis ea tenebas? Nihil minus, contraque illa hereditate dives ob eamque rem laetus. Huic mori optimum esse propter desperationem sapientiae, illi propter spem vivere. Expressa vero in iis aetatibus, quae iam confirmatae sunt. Duo Reges: constructio interrete.
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Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Illud non continuo, ut aeque incontentae. Et quidem Arcesilas tuus, etsi fuit in disserendo pertinacior, tamen noster fuit; Satis est tibi in te, satis in legibus, satis in mediocribus amicitiis praesidii. Et nunc quidem quod eam tuetur, ut de vite potissimum loquar, est id extrinsecus; Duo Reges: constructio interrete. Servari enim iustitia nisi a forti viro, nisi a sapiente non potest. Ergo, si semel tristior effectus est, hilara vita amissa est?
Sed vos squalidius, illorum vides quam niteat oratio. Quamquam ab iis philosophiam et omnes ingenuas disciplinas habemus; Nam Pyrrho, Aristo, Erillus iam diu abiecti. Quacumque enim ingredimur, in aliqua historia vestigium ponimus. Idemne, quod iucunde?
Nam, ut sint illa vendibiliora, haec uberiora certe sunt. Estne, quaeso, inquam, sitienti in bibendo voluptas? Ex quo, id quod omnes expetunt, beate vivendi ratio inveniri et comparari potest. Non autem hoc: igitur ne illud quidem. Neque solum ea communia, verum etiam paria esse dixerunt. Et quidem, inquit, vehementer errat;
Dici enim nihil potest verius. Cum ageremus, inquit, vitae beatum et eundem supremum diem, scribebamus haec.
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Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Profectus in exilium Tubulus statim nec respondere ausus; Videmus igitur ut conquiescere ne infantes quidem possint. Saepe ab Aristotele, a Theophrasto mirabiliter est laudata per se ipsa rerum scientia; Tum ille: Tu autem cum ipse tantum librorum habeas, quos hic tandem requiris?
Illi enim inter se dissentiunt. Audax negotium, dicerem impudens, nisi hoc institutum postea translatum ad philosophos nostros esset. Te ipsum, dignissimum maioribus tuis, voluptasne induxit, ut adolescentulus eriperes P. Dolor ergo, id est summum malum, metuetur semper, etiamsi non aderit; Haec quo modo conveniant, non sane intellego. Ergo in utroque exercebantur, eaque disciplina effecit tantam illorum utroque in genere dicendi copiam.
Sed ad bona praeterita redeamus. Praeclare enim Plato: Beatum, cui etiam in senectute contigerit, ut sapientiam verasque opiniones assequi possit. Ergo ita: non posse honeste vivi, nisi honeste vivatur? Si mala non sunt, iacet omnis ratio Peripateticorum. Tu vero, inquam, ducas licet, si sequetur; Ex quo intellegitur officium medium quiddam esse, quod neque in bonis ponatur neque in contrariis. Quasi ego id curem, quid ille aiat aut neget. An vero displicuit ea, quae tributa est animi virtutibus tanta praestantia?
Duo Reges: constructio interrete. Omnia contraria, quos etiam insanos esse vultis. Terram, mihi crede, ea lanx et maria deprimet. Perturbationes autem nulla naturae vi commoventur, omniaque ea sunt opiniones ac iudicia levitatis. Et ille ridens: Video, inquit, quid agas; Tuo vero id quidem, inquam, arbitratu.
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Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. An potest cupiditas finiri? Qua ex cognitione facilior facta est investigatio rerum occultissimarum. Qui autem esse poteris, nisi te amor ipse ceperit? Magni enim aestimabat pecuniam non modo non contra leges, sed etiam legibus partam. Ait enim se, si uratur, Quam hoc suave! dicturum. Cur, nisi quod turpis oratio est?
Non autem hoc: igitur ne illud quidem. Huius ego nunc auctoritatem sequens idem faciam. Aliter enim nosmet ipsos nosse non possumus. Qui enim voluptatem ipsam contemnunt, iis licet dicere se acupenserem maenae non anteponere. Quo modo autem philosophus loquitur? Si mala non sunt, iacet omnis ratio Peripateticorum.
Sic enim censent, oportunitatis esse beate vivere. Duo Reges: constructio interrete. An ea, quae per vinitorem antea consequebatur, per se ipsa curabit? Omnes enim iucundum motum, quo sensus hilaretur. Tum mihi Piso: Quid ergo? Quos nisi redarguimus, omnis virtus, omne decus, omnis vera laus deserenda est. Recte, inquit, intellegis. Cupit enim dícere nihil posse ad beatam vitam deesse sapienti.
Magna laus. Septem autem illi non suo, sed populorum suffragio omnium nominati sunt. Si mala non sunt, iacet omnis ratio Peripateticorum. Et hi quidem ita non sola virtute finem bonorum contineri putant, ut rebus tamen omnibus virtutem anteponant; Cyrenaici quidem non recusant; Quare conare, quaeso. Quod quidem iam fit etiam in Academia. Primum in nostrane potestate est, quid meminerimus? Quid sequatur, quid repugnet, vident. Satisne ergo pudori consulat, si quis sine teste libidini pareat? Quamquam in hac divisione rem ipsam prorsus probo, elegantiam desidero. Quod ea non occurrentia fingunt, vincunt Aristonem;