Joaquin Vieira

The Loomis Confessions: Joaquin Vieira

If you couldn’t be a physicist, what career would you choose?  

Choose or end up in? I think if I somehow had to quit my current gig I would become an engineer. But if I hadn't have gone back to school and become a a physicist, the track I was on was to be a writer.

What is your favorite place? 

I have a nostalgic fondness for the Sierras in California, where I am from.

What is the greatest scientific blunder in history? 

Intelligent design

Who is/are your favorite artist(s) in any medium—painters, composers, authors, filmmakers?

For authors of fiction, I like (in no particular order): Cormac McCarthy, Mary Renault, Earnest Hemingway, Robert Graves, James Joyce.
For authors of non-fiction, I like: Alan Hirshfield, Walter Isaacson, Jared Diamond. 
For filmmakers, I like: Stanley Kubrick, Jean-Luc Godard, the Coen Brothers, Terry Gilliam, Wes Anderson.

Who is/are your favorite hero(es) in life or in fiction?

Alexander the Great, Che Guevara, Albert Camus, Hunter S. Thompson

Who is/are the villain(s) you love to hate?

Billionaires and neo-fascists

What is your idea of happiness?

Being left alone in nature with a bunch of books.

What is your idea of misery?

Being stuck in a room with boring, uninteresting, or vapid people.

What quality do you most admire in others?

Hard work, creativity, brilliance, kindness.

What scientific question do you hope will be answered in your lifetime?

I hope we divine the nature of dark matter, observe the very first galaxies, figure out what caused the era of inflation, and discover life off our planet Earth.