#7 Kilian Lohmann - One Of The Most Brilliant People I Know. God, Science, Improv, and What Makes For A Good Physicist

The Jack Lawrence Podcast

"I was always motivated by the idea of - what if there was a way to break the system? If you know the system you can break the system. And if you can break the system, then you can do cool stuff"
Today's guest is Kilian Lohmann - he's an Oxford Physicist, who has recently submitted his PhD Researching Solar Cells. He's also an improvised comedian, and, I'm lucky enough to say, he's a very dear friend of mine.
Kilian studied Natural Sciences, specialising in Physics at Cambridge University for his undergrad which is where we met, as I was doing exactly the same course, at the same college. After completing his undergrad and masters, Kilian went to Oxford to do his PhD, where I also went at the same time to do my masters, and we lived together for a year.
Kilian is one of the most brilliant, kind and unique people I know. So often intellect is associated with harsh metaphors - razor sharp, cutting, piercing, but Kilian is an example of where we need different metaphors. He's warm, humble and quietly confident, while at the same time possessing great insight both within science and life generally. I've learned a great deal from him.
To my delight, this episode shows both those sides of Kilian really well. We talk about his research on solar cells, but then move on more broadly to his strong sense of morality, discussions of god and science, improv comedy and how it helps with the scientific process, and his advice to anyone aspiring to get into Physics.
During this episode, as an fyi, there's a couple of bits where Kilian's girlfriend Chelsea chimes in - this episode was recorded in their house, and it just so happens that she is also a physicist who also works on solar cells. I chose to leave those bits in as they show how a bit more about how Kilian thinks and it made me laugh.
More on Kilian's research: https://www.physics.ox.ac.uk/our-people/lohmann
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