|
7825a8f
|
The moral that Plato wished to draw out is that no man can resist the temptation of being able to steal and kill at will. All men are corruptible. Morality is a social construct imposed from the outside. A man may appear to be moral in public to maintain his reputation for integrity and honesty, but once he possesses the power of invisibility, the use of such power would be irresistible. (Some believe that this morality tale was the inspira..
|
|
|
Michio Kaku |
|
b4f0726
|
Either we are alone in the universe, or we are not. Either thought is frightening. -ARTHUR C. CLARKE
|
|
|
Michio Kaku |
|
1cfe13d
|
Second is N, equal to 1036, which is the strength of the electric force divided by the strength of gravity, which shows how weak gravity is.
|
|
|
Michio Kaku |
|
ccde856
|
I'm as fond of my body as anyone, but if I can be 200 with a body of silicon, I'll take it. --DANIEL HILL, COFOUNDER OF THINKING MACHINES CORP.
|
|
|
Michio Kaku |
|
fe7bee4
|
Physicists believe that at the instant of the Big Bang, the universe was in perfect symmetry and there was an equal amount of matter and antimatter. If so, the annihilation between the two would have been perfect and complete, and the universe should be made of pure radiation. Yet here we are, made of matter, which should not be around anymore. Our very existence defies modern physics.
|
|
|
Michio Kaku |
|
a629c80
|
If our scientists invent concepts like forces, it is only because they cannot visualize the invisible vibrations that fill the empty space around us. Some scientists sneer at the mention of higher dimensions because they cannot be conveniently measured in the laboratory.
|
|
|
Michio Kaku |
|
38ab1b7
|
Given that humanity must one day flee the solar system to the nearby stars to survive, or perish, the question is: how will we get there? The nearest star system, Alpha Centauri, is over 4 light-years away. Conventional chemical propulsion rockets, the workhorses of the current space program, barely reach 40,000 miles per hour. At that speed it would take 70,000 years just to visit the nearest star.
|
|
|
Michio Kaku |
|
57ce23e
|
the intuitive feeling we have that there's an executive 'I' that sits in a control room of our brain, scanning the screens of the senses and pushing the buttons of our muscles, is an illusion. Consciousness turns out to consist of a maelstrom of events distributed across the brain. These events compete for attention, and as one process outshouts the others, the brain rationalizes the outcome after the fact and concocts the impression that a..
|
|
|
Michio Kaku |
|
c8cd0ee
|
In other words, positive matter and energy that we see in stars can warp space-time so that it perfectly describes the motion of heavenly bodies. But negative matter and energy warp space-time in bizarre ways, creating an antigravitational force that can stabilize wormholes and prevent them from collapsing and propel warp bubbles to faster-than-light velocities by compressing space-time in front of them.
|
|
|
Michio Kaku |
|
35fa765
|
If we are right, big bangs are taking place even as you read this sentence.
|
|
|
Michio Kaku |
|
e4aec84
|
String theory, therefore, is rich enough to explain all the fundamental laws of nature. Starting from a simple theory of a vibrating string, one can extract the theory of Einstein, Kaluza-Klein theory, supergravity, the Standard Model, and even GUT theory. It seems nothing less than a miracle that, starting from some purely geometric arguments from a string, one is able to rederive the entire progress of physics for the past 2 milleninia. A..
|
|
|
Michio Kaku |
|
91b39c3
|
Nobel laureate Richard Feynman was fond of saying that no one really understands the quantum theory. Ironically, although the quantum theory is the most successful theory ever proposed by the human mind
|
|
|
Michio Kaku |
|
57e2c26
|
We recall that the warping of the bedsheet was determined by the presence of the rock. Einstein summarized this analogy by stating: The presence of matter-energy determines the curvature of the space-time surrounding it.
|
|
|
Michio Kaku |
|
7d955d1
|
In other words, symmetry is the preservation of the shape of an object even after we deform or rotate it. Several kinds of symmetries occur repeatedly in nature. The first is the symmetry of rotations and reflections.
|
|
|
Michio Kaku |
|
c500e24
|
The 3-D printers of the future might be able to re-create the delicate tissues that constitute functioning organs or the machine parts necessary to make a self-replicating robot.
|
|
|
Michio Kaku |
|
c7c9230
|
Last is D, the number of spatial dimensions. Due to interest in M-theory, physicists have returned to the question of whether life is possible in higher or lower dimensions.
|
|
|
Michio Kaku |
|
2019a85
|
With this exponential growth of robots, we could soon have a fleet large enough to do the work of altering the desert landscape. They would mine the soil, construct new factories, and make unlimited copies of themselves cheaply and efficiently. They could create a vast agricultural industry and propel the rise of modern civilization not just on Mars, but throughout space, conducting mining operations in the asteroid belt, building laser bat..
|
|
|
Michio Kaku |
|
eabad94
|
Of all the transitions, perhaps the most difficult is the transition from Type 0 to Type I, which we are undergoing at present. This is because a Type 0 civilization is the most uncivilized, both technologically and socially. It has risen only recently from the swamp of sectarianism, dictatorship, and religious strife, et cetera. It still has all the scars from its brutal past, which was full of inquisitions, persecutions, pogroms, and wars..
|
|
|
Michio Kaku |
|
71a2c21
|
I often surprise people with the simple fact that your cell phone today has more computer power than all of NASA when it put two men on the moon in 1969. Computers are now powerful enough to record the electrical signals emanating from the brain and partially decode them into a familiar digital language. This makes it possible for the brain to directly interface with computers to control any object around it. The fast-growing field is calle..
|
|
|
Michio Kaku |
|
3f3ad6f
|
If we shuffle three colored quarks and the equations remain the same, then we say that the equations possess something called SU(3) symmetry. The 3 represents the fact that we have three types of colors, and the SU stands for a specific mathematical property of the symmetry. We say that there are three quarks in a multiplet. The quarks in a multiplet can be shuffled among one another without changing the physics of the theory. Similarly, th..
|
|
|
Michio Kaku |
|
d109cb6
|
The secret of unification, we will see, lies in expanding Riemann's metric to N-dimensional space and then chopping it up into rectangular pieces. Each rectangular piece corresponds to a different force. In this way, we can describe the various forces of nature by slotting them into the metric tensor like pieces of a puzzle. This is the mathematical expression of the principle that higher-dimensional space unifies the laws of nature, that t..
|
|
|
Michio Kaku |
|
eb6917c
|
Riemann found that in four spatial dimensions, one needs a collection of ten numbers at each point to describe its properties.
|
|
|
Michio Kaku |
|
2573327
|
Fourth is Lambda, the cosmological constant, which determines the acceleration of the universe.
|
|
|
Michio Kaku |
|
6fea25d
|
By the time a society attains Type II status thousands of years into the future, it becomes immortal. Nothing known to science can destroy a Type II civilization. Since it will have long mastered the weather, ice ages can be avoided or altered. Meteors and comets can be also be deflected. Even if their sun goes supernova, the people will be able to flee to another star system, or perhaps prevent their star from exploding. (For example, if t..
|
|
|
Michio Kaku |
|
b780828
|
According to string theory, if we could somehow magnify a point particle, we would actually see a small vibrating string. In fact, according to this theory, matter is nothing but the harmonies created by this vibrating string. Since there are an infinite number of harmonies that can be composed for the violin, there are an infinite number of forms of matter that can be constructed out of vibrating strings. This explains the richness of the ..
|
|
|
Michio Kaku |
|
c57b112
|
We have not yet figured out why there is more matter than antimatter in the universe. Only one ten-billionth of the original matter in the early universe survived this explosion, and we are part of it. The leading theory is that something violated the perfect symmetry between matter and antimatter at the Big Bang, but we don't know what it is. There is a Nobel Prize waiting for the enterprising individual who can solve this problem.
|
|
|
Michio Kaku |
|
061f4d7
|
We are now entering a new golden age of neuroscience.
|
|
|
Michio Kaku |
|
9ba2ce1
|
Roughly speaking, the greater the value of the metric tensor, the greater the crumpling of the sheet. No mattet how crumpled the sheet of paper, the metric tensor gives us a simple means of measuring its curvature at any point. If we flattened the crumpled sheet completely, then we would retrieve the formula of Pythagoras.
|
|
|
Michio Kaku |
|
787b747
|
If we can somehow control the probability of certain improbable events, then anything, including faster-than-light travel, and even time travel, is possible. Reaching the distant stars in seconds is highly unlikely, but when one can control quantum probabilities at will, then even the impossible may become commonplace.
|
|
|
Michio Kaku |
|
6c40118
|
This world may be a phantasm and existence may be merely a dream, but this dream or phantasm to me is real enough if using reason well we are never deceived by it.
|
|
|
Michio Kaku |
|
12fc371
|
There was only one period of time when energy on this enormous scale was readily available, and that was at the instant of Creation. In fact, the hyperspace theory cannot be tested by our largest atom smashers because the theory is really a theory of Creation. Only at the instant of the Big Bang do we see the full power of the hyperspace theory coming into play. This raises the exciting possibility that the hyperspace theory may unlock the ..
|
|
|
Michio Kaku |
|
9b88868
|
Imagine fish swimming in a shallow pond, just below the lily pads, thinking that their "universe" is only two-dimensional. Our three-dimensional world may be beyond their ken. But there is a way in which they can detect the presence of the third dimension. If it rains, they can clearly see the shadows of ripples traveling along the surface of the pond. Similarly, we cannot see the fifth dimension, but ripples in the fifth dimension appear t..
|
|
|
Michio Kaku |
|
2301bb7
|
Water, for example, is a diamagnet. since all living things are made of water, they can levitate in the presence of a powerful magnetic field. In a magnetic field of about 15 teslas (30,000 times the Earth's field), scientists have levitated small animals, such as frogs. But if room-temperature superconductors become a reality, it should be possible to levitate large nonmagnetic objects as well, via their diamagnetic properties.
|
|
|
Michio Kaku |
|
1c22563
|
Brain Research Through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (or BRAIN) project announced by President Obama, and the Human Brain Project of the European Union, which will potentially allocate billions of dollars to decode the pathways of the brain, all the way down to the neural level.
|
|
|
Michio Kaku |
|
e98563b
|
Galileo believed that science and religion could coexist. He wrote that the purpose of science is to determine how the heavens go, while the purpose of religion is to determine how to go to heaven. In other words, science is about natural law, while religion is about ethics, and there is no conflict between them as long as one keeps this distinction in mind. But when the two collided during his trial, Galileo was forced to recant his theori..
|
|
|
Michio Kaku |
|
f59cc12
|
In 2017, the Pentagon announced a $65 million grant to develop a tiny, advanced chip that can analyze a million human neurons as the brain communicates with a computer and forms memories.
|
|
|
Michio Kaku |
|
c4954ee
|
Perhaps various branches of genetically enhanced humans will populate different parts of the solar system and eventually diverge into separate species. And one can imagine that rivalries and even warfare may break out between different branches of the human race.
|
|
|
Michio Kaku |
|
04794ab
|
Maybe somewhere telepaths walked the Earth, but I wasn't one of them. In the process, I began to realize that the wondrous exploits of telepaths were probably impossible--at least without outside assistance. But in the years that followed, I also slowly learned another lesson: to fathom the greatest secrets in the universe, one did not need telepathic or superhuman abilities. One just had to have an open, determined, and curious mind. In pa..
|
|
universe
physics
|
Michio Kaku |
|
f1230c5
|
Finally, in 1905, he found the answer. His name was Albert Einstein, and his theory was called special relativity. He discovered that you cannot outrace a lightbeam, because the speed of light is the ultimate velocity in the universe. If you approach it, strange things happen. Your rocket becomes heavier, and time slows down inside it. If you were to somehow reach light speed, you would be infinitely heavy and time would stop. Both conditio..
|
|
|
Michio Kaku |
|
d98bfc9
|
Because our own solar system has planets moving in nice circles, astronomers naturally assumed that the balls of dust and hydrogen and helium gas that become solar systems condensed evenly. We now realize that it is more likely that gravity compresses them in a haphazard, random way, resulting in planets that move in elliptical or irregular orbits that may intersect or collide with one another. This is imprtant because it may be that only s..
|
|
|
Michio Kaku |
|
345c31c
|
To make Harry Potter invisible, one would have to liquefy him, boil him to create steam, crystallize him, heat him again, and the cool him, all of which would be quite difficult to accomplish, even for a wizard
|
|
invisibility
|
Michio Kaku |
|
51a8d4f
|
Even with a rigorous exercise program, after a year on the space station, the bones and muscles of Russian cosmonauts are so atrophied that they can barely crawl like babies when they first return to Earth.
|
|
|
Michio Kaku |
|
45952b7
|
There are an estimated 100 billion neurons residing inside the skull with an exponential amount of neural connections
|
|
|
Michio Kaku |
|
d4c45a5
|
And at the speed of light, you have taken the fastest possible journey to the stars. From your point of view, the trip is instantaneous.
|
|
|
Michio Kaku |