By Ron Cowen
Most parents will tell you that the arrival of their firstborn was a life-altering event. Abraham Loeb, a first-time father and cosmologist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass., is no exception. Standing in front of an audience of NASA astronomers one recent Friday afternoon, Loeb begins his lecture by flashing a slide of his 1-year-old daughter, Klil. “It’s always fascinating to study the infant universe,” he jokes.
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Loeb says he now views his life in two parts–before and after the birth of his daughter. Similarly, he divides the history of the universe into two eras–before and after the birth of the first stars.