Kind: captions
Language: en
the following is a conversation with
Michio Kaku he's a theoretical physicist
futurist
and professor at the City College of New
York he's the author of many fascinating
books that explored the nature of our
reality and the future of our
civilization
they include Einsteins cosmos physics of
the impossible feature of the mind
parallel worlds and his latest the
future of humanity terraforming Mars
interstellar travel immortality and our
destiny beyond earth I think is
beautiful and important when a
scientific mind can fearlessly explore
through conversation subjects just
outside of our understanding that to me
is where artificial intelligence is
today just outside of our understanding
a place we have to reach for it for to
uncover the mysteries of the human mind
and build human level and superhuman
level AI systems that transform our
world for the better this is the
artificial intelligence podcast if you
enjoy it
subscribe on YouTube give it five stars
on iTunes supported on patreon or simply
connect with me on Twitter Alex Friedman
spelled Fri D M am and now here's my
conversation with Michio Kaku you've
mentioned that we just might make
contact with aliens or at least hear
from them within this century can you
elaborate on your intuition behind that
optimism well this is a pure speculation
of course of course but given the fact
that we've already identified 4,000
exoplanets orbiting other stars and we
have a census of the Milky Way galaxy
for the first time we know that on
average every single star on average has
a planet going around it and about 1/5
or so of them have earth sized planets
going around them so just do the math
we're talking about out of a hundred
billion stars in the Milky Way galaxy
we're talking about billions of
potential Earth size planets and to
believe that we're the only one is I
think rather ridiculous given the odds
and how many galaxies are there within
sight of the Hubble Space Telescope
there are about a hundred billion
galaxies so do the math how many stars
are there in the visible universe a
hundred billion galaxies times a hundred
billion stars per galaxy we're talking
about a number beyond human imagination
and to believe that we're the only ones
I think is is rather ridiculous so
you've talked about different types of
types zero one two three four and five
even of the car - of scale of the
different kind of civilizations do what
do you think it takes if it is indeed a
ridiculous notion that we're alone in
the universe what do you think it takes
to reach out first to reach out through
communication and connect well first of
all we have to understand the level of
sophistication of an alien life-form if
we make contact with them I think in
this century we'll probably pick up
signals signals from an extraterrestrial
civilization we'll pick up there I Love
Lucy and their Leave It to Beaver just
ordinary day-to-day transmissions that
they emit and the first thing we want to
do is to a decipher their language of
course but be figure out at what level
they are advanced on the Kardashev scale
I'm a physicist we rank things by two
parameters energy and information that's
how we rank black holes that's how you
rank stars that's how you rank
civilizations in outer space so a type
one civilization is capable of
harnessing planetary power they control
the weather for example earthquakes
volcanoes they can modify the course of
geologic events sort of like Flash
Gordon or Buck Rogers type 2 would be
stellar they play with stars entire
stars they use the entire energy output
of a star sort of like Star Trek the
Federation of Planets have colonized the
nearby stars so a type 2 would be
somewhat similar to
Star Trek type 3 would be galactic they
roam the Galactic space lanes and type 3
would be like Star Wars a galactic
civilization then one day I was giving
this talk in London at the planetarium
there and the little boy comes up to me
and he says professor you're wrong
you're wrong this type 4 and I told them
look kid there are planets stars and
galaxies that's it folks
and he kept persisting and saying no
there's time for the power of the
continuum and I thought about it for a
moment and I said to myself is there an
extra galactic source of energy the
continuum of Star Trek and the answer is
yes there could be a type 4 and that's
dark energy we now know that 73% of the
energy of the universe is dark energy
dark matter represents maybe 23 percent
or so and we only represent 4% we're the
oddballs
and so you begin to realize that yeah
they could be type 4 maybe even type 5
so type 4 you're saying being able to
harness sort of like dark energy
something that permeates the entire
universe so be able to plug into the
entire entire universe is a source of
energy that's right and dark energy is
the energy of the Big Bang it's why the
galaxies are being pushed apart it's the
energy of nothing the more nothing you
have the more dark energy that's
repulsive and so the acceleration of the
universe is accelerating because the
more you have the more you can have and
that of course is by definition and
exponential curve it's called a
discerner expansion and that's the
current state of the universe and then
type 5 would that be would that be able
to seek energy sources somehow outside
of our universe however that idea yeah
what time five will be the multiverse
multiverse I'm a quantum physicist and
we quantum physicists don't believe that
the Big Bang happen
once that would violate the Heisenberg
uncertainty principle and that means
that there could be multiple bangs
happening all the time even as we speak
today universes are being created and
that fits the data the inflationary
universe is a quantum theory so there's
a certain finite probability that
universes are being created all the time
and for me this is actually rather
aesthetically pleasing because you know
I was raised as a presbyterian but my
parents were Buddhists and there's two
diametrically opposed ideas about the
universe in Buddhism there's only
nirvana
there's no beginning there's no end
there's only timelessness
but in Christianity there is the instant
when God said let there be light in
other words an instant of creation so
I've had these two mutually exclusive
ideas in my head and I now realize that
it's possible to Mel them into a single
theory either the universe had a
beginning or it didn't right wrong you
see our universe had a beginning our
universe had an instant where somebody
might have said let there be light but
there other bubble universes out there
in a bubble bath of universes and that
means that these universes are expanding
into a dimension beyond our
three-dimensional comprehension in other
words is hyperspace in other words 11
dimensional hyperspace
so Nirvana would be this timeless 11
dimensional hyperspace where big bangs
are happening all the time so we can now
combine two mutually exclusive theories
of creation and Stephen Hawking for
example even in his last book even said
that this is an argument against the
existence of God he said there is no God
because there was not enough time for
God to create the universe because the
Big Bang happened in an instant of time
therefore there was no time available
for him to create the universe but he
see the multiverse idea
means that there was a time before time
and there multiple times each bubble has
its own time and so it means that there
could actually be a universe before the
beginning of our universe so if you
think of a bubble bath when two bubbles
collide well when two bubbles fission to
create a baby bubble that's called the
Big Bang so the Big Bang is nothing but
the collision of universes or the
budding of universes this is a beautiful
picture of our incredibly mysterious
existence so is that humbling to you
exciting the idea of multiverses I don't
even know how to even begin
well you wrap my mind around citing for
me because what I do for a living is
string theory that's my day job I get
paid by the city of New York to work on
string theory yes and you see string
theory is a multiverse theory so people
say first of all what is string theory
string theory simply says that all the
particles we see in nature the electron
the proton the quarks what have you or
nothing with vibrations on a musical
string on a tiny tiny little string you
know D Robert Oppenheimer the creator of
the atomic bomb was so frustrated in the
1950s with all these subatomic particles
being created in our atom smashers that
he announced he announced one day that
the Nobel Prize in Physics should go to
the physicist who does not discover a
new particle that year well today we
think they're nothing but musical notes
on these tiny little vibrating strings
so what is physics physics is the
harmonies you can write on vibrating
strings
what is chemistry chemistry is the
melodies you can play on these strings
what is the universe
the universe is a symphony of strings
and then what is the mind of God that
Albert Einstein's so eloquently wrote
about for the last thirty years of his
life the mind of God would be cosmic
music resonating through eleven
dimensional hyperspace so beautifully
put what do you think is the mind of
Einstein's God do you think there's a
way that we could untangle from this
from this universe of strings why are we
here what is the meaning of it all well
Steven Weinberg winner of the Nobel
Prize once said that the more we learned
about the universe the more we learned
that is pointless well I don't know I
don't profess to understand the great
secrets of the universe however let me
say two things about what the Giants of
physics have said about this question
Einstein believed in two types of God
one was the God of the Bible the
personal God the God that answers
prayers walks on water as performs
miracles smites the Philistines that's
the personal God that he didn't believe
in he believed in the God of Spinoza the
God of order simplicity harmony Beauty
the universe could have been ugly the
universe could have been messy random
but it's gorgeous
you realize that on a single sheet of
paper we can write down all the known
laws of the universe it's amazing on one
sheet of paper
Einstein's equation is one-inch long
string theory is a lot longer and so
it's a standard model but you could put
all these equations on one sheet of
paper it didn't have to be that way it
could have been messy and so Einstein
thought of himself as a young boy
entering this huge library for the first
time being overwhelmed by the simplicity
elegance and beauty of this library but
all he could do was read the first page
of the first volume well that library is
the universe with
all sorts of mysterious magical things
that we have yet to find and then
Galileo was asked about this Galileo
said that the purpose of science the
purpose of science is to determine how
the heavens ago the purpose of religion
is to determine how to go to heaven so
in other words science is about natural
law and religion is about ethics how to
be a good person how to go to heaven as
long as we keep these two things apart
we're in great shape the problem occurs
when people from the Natural Sciences
begin to pontificate about ethics and
people from religion begin to
pontificate about natural law that's
where we get into big trouble you think
they're fundamentally distinct morality
and ethics and our our idea of what is
right and what is wrong
that's something that's outside the
reach of string theory in physics that's
right if you talk to a squirrel about
what is right and what is wrong yes
there there's no reference frame for a
squirrel and realize that aliens from
out of space if they ever come visit us
they'll try to talk to us like we talked
to squirrels in the forest but
eventually we get bored talking to the
squirrels because they don't talk back
to us
same thing with aliens from out of space
and they come down to earth
they'll be curious about us to a degree
but after a while they just get bored
because we have nothing to offer them so
our sense of right and wrong what does
that mean compared to a squirrels sense
of right and wrong now we of course do
have an ethics that keeps civilizations
in line enriches our life and makes
civilization possible and I think that's
a good thing but it's not mandated by a
law of physics
so if aliens do alien species were to
make contact forgive me for staying on
aliens for a bit longer do you think
they're more likely to
be friendly to befriend us or to destroy
us well I think for the most part our
they'll pretty much ignore us if you
were deer in the forest who do you fear
the most
do fear the hunter with his gigantic 16
gauge shotgun or do you fear the guy
with a briefcase and glasses well the
guy with a briefcase could be a
developer about to basically flatten the
entire forest destroying your livelihood
so instinctively you may be afraid of
the hunter but actually the problem with
deers in the forest is that they should
fear developers in developing because
developers look at deer as simply
getting in the way I mean in war the
world's by hto wells the aliens did not
hate us if you read the book the aliens
did not have evil intentions toward him
Homo sapiens no we were in the way so I
think we have to realize that alien
civilizations made viewers quite
differently than in science fiction
novels however I personally believe and
I cannot prove any of this
I personally believe that they're
probably going to be peaceful because
there's nothing that they want from our
world I mean what are they gonna kick us
what are they gonna take us for gold no
gold is a useless metal for the most
part it's silver I mean is gold golden
color but that only affects Homo sapiens
squirrels don't care about gold and so
gold is a rather useless element rare
earths may be platinum-based elements
rare earths for their electronics yeah
maybe but other than that we have
nothing to offer them I mean think about
it for a moment
people love Shakespeare and they love
the arts and poetry but outside of the
earth they mean nothing absolutely
nothing I mean when I write down an
equation in string theory I would hope
that on the other side of the galaxy
there's an alien writing down that very
same equation in different notation but
that alien on the other side of the
galaxy
Shakespeare poetry Hemingway it would be
nothing to him or her or it when you
think about entities that's out there
extraterrestrial do you think they would
naturally look something that even is
recognizable to us as his life or can it
would they be radically different well
how did we become intelligent basically
three things made us intelligent one is
our eyesight stereo eyesight we have the
eyes of a hunter stereo emissions will
be lock-in on targets and and who is
smarter predator or prey predators are
smarter than prey they have their eyes
at the front of their face like lions
tigers wild rabbits have eyes to the
side of their face why is that hunters
have to zero in on the target they have
to know how to ambush they have to know
how to hide camouflage sneak up stealth
deceit that takes a lot of intelligence
rabbits all they have to do is run so
that's the first criterion stereo
eyesight of some sort second is the
thumb the opposable thumb of some sort
could be a claw or tentacle so a
hand-eye coordination and eye
coordination is the way we manipulate
the environment and then three language
because you know mama bear never tells
baby bear to avoid the human hunter
bears just learned by themselves they
never hand on information from one
generation to the next so these are the
three basic ingredients of intelligence
eyesight of some sort an opposable thumb
or tentacle or claw of some sort and
language now ask yourself a simple
question how many animals have all three
just us it's just us I mean the primates
they have a language yeah they may get
up to maybe 20 words but a baby learns a
word-a-day several words a day a baby
learns and a typical adult knows about
almost 5,000 words
while the maximum number words that you
can teach a gorilla in any language
including their own language is about 20
or so and so we see the difference in
intelligence so when we meet aliens from
outer space chances are they will have
been descended from predators of some
sort they'll have some way to manipulate
the environment and communicate their
knowledge to the next generation that's
it folks so functionally that would that
would be similar they would we would be
able to recognize them well not
necessarily because I think even with
Homo sapiens we are eventually going to
perhaps become part cybernetic and
genetically enhanced
already robots are getting smarter and
smarter
right now robots have the intelligence
of a cockroach but in the coming years
our robots will be as smart as a mouse
then maybe as smart as a rabbit if we're
lucky maybe as smart as a cat or a dog
and by the end of the century who knows
for sure our robots will be probably as
smart as a monkey now at that point of
course they could be dangerous
you see monkeys are self-aware they know
they are monkeys they may have a
different agenda than us while dogs dogs
are confused you see dogs think that we
are a dog that we're the top dog they're
the underdog that's why they whimper and
follow us and lick us all the time for
the top dog monkeys have no illusion at
all they know who we are not monkeys and
so I think that in the future we'll have
to put a chip in their brain to shut
them off once our robots have murderous
thoughts but that's in a hundred years
in 200 years the robots will be smart
enough to remove that failsafe chip in
their brain and then watch out at that
point I think rather than compete with
our robots we should merge with them we
should become part cybernetic so I think
we'll be beat alien life from outer
space they may be genetically and and
cybernetically enhanced genetically and
cybernetically enhanced Wow so let's
talk about that full range in the near
term and 200 years from now how
promising in the near term in your view
is brain machine interfaces those
starting to allow computers to talk
directly to the brains Elon Musk is
working on that with neural link and
there's other companies working on this
idea do you see promise there do you see
hope for near-term impact well every
technology has pluses and minuses
already we can be core memories I have a
book the future of the mine
or I detail some of these breakthroughs
we can now record simple memories of
mice and send these memories on the
Internet eventually we're going to do
this with primates at Wake Forest
University and also in Los Angeles and
then after that we'll have a memory chip
for Alzheimer's patients well test it
out in alzheimerís patients because of
course when Alzheimer is patients lose
their memory they wander they create all
sorts of havoc wandering around
oblivious to their surroundings and
they'll have a chip they'll push the
button and memories memories will come
flooding into their hippocampus and the
chip telling them where they live and
who they are and so a memory chip is
definitely in the cards and I think this
will eventually affect human
civilization what is the future of the
Internet the future of the Internet is
brain net brain net is when we send
emotions feelings sensations on the
internet and we will telepathically
communicate with other humans this way
this is gonna affect everything look at
entertainment remember the silent movies
a Charlie Chaplin was very famous during
the era of silent movies but when the
talkies came in nobody wanted to see
Charlie Chaplin anymore because he never
talked in the movies and so a whole
generation of actors lost their job and
a new series of actors came in next
we're gonna have the movies replaced by
rain net because in the future people
will say who wants to see a screen with
images that's it sound an image that's
called the movies yeah our entertainment
industry this multi-billion dollar
industry is based on screens with moving
images and sound but what happens when
emotions feelings sensations memories
can be conveyed on the Internet it's
going to change everything human
relations will change because you'll be
able to empathize and feel the suffering
of other people will be able to
communicate telepathically and this is
this is coming you describe brain that
in feature of the mind this is an
interesting concept do you think
so you mentioned entertainment but what
kind of effect would it have on our
personal relationships hopefully it will
deepen it you realize that for most of
human history for over 90% of human
history we only knew maybe 20 a hundred
people yeah that's it folks
that was your tribe that was everybody
you knew in the universe was only maybe
50 or a hundred with the coming of towns
of course it expanded to a few thousand
with the coming of the telephone all of
a sudden you could reach thousands of
people with a telephone and now with the
internet you can reach the entire
population of the planet Earth and so I
think this is a normal progression and
you you think that kind of sort of
connection to the rest of the world and
then adding sensations like being able
to share telepathically emotions and so
on that would just further deepen our
connection to our fellow humans yes
right in fact I disagree with many
scientists on this question most
scientists would say that technology is
neutral a double-edged sword one sword
one side of the sword can cut against
people the other side of the sword can
cut against ignorance and disease I
disagree I think technology does have a
moral direction look at the Internet the
internet spreads knowledge awareness and
that creates empowerment people act on
knowledge when they begin to realize
that they don't have to live that way
they don't have to suffer under a
dictatorship that there are other ways
of living under freedom then they begin
to take things take power and that
spreads democracy and democracies do not
war with other democracies I'm a
scientist
I believe in data so let's take a sheet
of paper and write down every single war
you had to learn since you were an
elementary school every single war
hundreds of
kings queens emperors dictators all
these wars were between kings queens
emperors and dictators never between two
major democracies and so I think with
the spread of this technology and which
would accelerate with the coming of
brain net it means that well we will
still have wars wars of course as
politics by other means but there'll be
less intense and less frequent do you
have worries of longer-term existential
risk from technology from AI so I think
that's a wonderful vision of a future
where war is a distant memory but now
there's another agent there's there's
there's somebody else that's able to
create conflict that's able to create
harm AI systems so do you have worry
about such AI systems well yes that is
an existential risk but again I think an
existential risk not for this century I
think our grandkids are gonna have to
confront this question as robots
gradually approach the intelligence of a
dog a cat and finally that of a monkey
however I think we will digitize
ourselves as well not only are we gonna
merge with our technology it will also
digitize our personality our memories
our feelings you realize who did during
the Middle Ages there was something
called dualism dualism meant that the
soul was separate from the body when the
body died the soul went to heaven
that's dualism then in the 20th century
neuroscience came in and said bah humbug
every time we look at the brain
it's just neurons that's it folks period
end of story
bunch of neurons firing now we're going
back to dualism now we realize that we
can digitize human memories feelings
sensations and create a digital copy of
ourselves and that's called the
connectome project billions of dollars
are now being spent to do not just the
genome project of sequencing the genes
of our body but the connectome project
which is to map the entire connections
of the human brain and even before then
already in Silicon Valley today at this
very moment you can contact Silicon
Valley companies that are willing to
digitize your relatives because some
people want to talk to their parents
there are unresolved issues with their
parents and one day yes firms will
digitize people and you'll be able to
talk to them a reasonable facsimile we
Lea we leave a digital trail our
ancestors did not our ancestors were
lucky if they had one line just one line
in a church book saying the day they
were baptized and the day they died
that's it that was their entire digital
memory I mean their entire digital
existence summarized in just a few
letters of the alphabet a whole life
now we digitized everything every time
you sneeze you digitized it you put it
on the Internet and so I think that we
are going to digitize ourselves and give
us digital immortality will not only
have biologic genetic immortality of
some sort but also digital immortality
and what are we going to do with it I
think we should send it into outer space
if you digitize the human brain and put
it on a laser beam and shoot it to the
moon you're on the moon in one second
shoot it to Mars you're on Mars in 20
minutes
shoot it to Pluto you're on Pluto in
eight hours think about it for a moment
you can have breakfast in New York and
for a morning snack vacation on the moon
then zap your way to Mars by noontime
journey through the asteroid belt of the
afternoon and they come back for dinner
in New York at night all in a day's work
it's at the speed of light now this
means that you don't need booster
rockets
you don't need weightlessness problems
you don't need to worry about meteorites
and what's on the moon on the moon there
is a mainframe that downloads your laser
beams information and where does it
download the information into an avatar
now what does it ever try look like
anything you want yeah think about it
for a moment you could be Superman
superwoman on the moon on Mars traveling
throughout the universe at the speed of
light downloading your personality into
any vehicle you want now let me stick my
neck out so for everything I've been
saying is well within the laws of
physics well within the laws of physics
now let me go outside the laws of
physics here we go
I think this already exists I think
outside the earth there could be a
superhighway a laser highway of laser
pointing with billions of souls of
aliens zapping their way across the
galaxy now let me ask you a question are
we smart enough to determine whether
such a thing exists or not no this could
exist right outside the orbit of the
planet Earth and we're too stupid in our
technology to even prove it or disprove
it we would need the aliens on this
laser superhighway to help us out just
to send us a human interpretable signal
I mean it ultimately boils down to the
language of communication but that's an
exciting possibility that actually the
sky is filled with aliens should already
be here and we're just so oblivious that
we're too stupid to know it see they
don't have to be an alien form with with
little green men they could be in any
form they want in an avatar of their
creation or in fact they could very well
be they look like us exactly he'd never
know one of us could be an alien you
know in a zoo did you know that we
sometimes have zookeepers that imitate
animals we create a fake animal and we
put it in so that the animal is not
afraid of this fake animal and of course
these animals brains their brain is
about as big as a walnut they accept
these dummies as if they were real so an
alien civilization in outer space would
say oh yeah human brains are so tiny we
could put a dummy on their world and
avatar and they never know it that would
be an entertaining thing to watch from
the alien perspective so you kind of
implied that with it was a digital form
of our being but also biologically do
you think one day technology will allow
individual human beings to become
immortal besides just through the
ability to digitize our essence yeah I
think that artificial intelligence will
give us the key to to genetic
immortality you see in the coming
decades everyone's going to have their
gene sequence will have billions of
genomes of old people
billions of genomes of young people and
what are we going to do with it we're
gonna run into an AI machine which has a
pattern recognition to look for the Aged
genes in other words the Fountain of
Youth that Emperor's kings and queens
lusted a ver over the Fountain of Youth
will be found by artificial intelligence
artificial intelligence will identify
where these aged genes are located first
of all what is aging we now know what
aging is aging is the build-up of errors
that's all aging is the buildup of
genetic errors this means that cells
eventually become slower sluggish if
they go into senescence and they die in
fact that's why we die we die because of
the build up of mistakes in our genome
in our cellular activity but you've seen
the future we'll be able to fix those
genes with CRISPR type technologies and
perhaps even live forever so let me ask
you a question
we're just aging take place in a car
given a car where does aging take place
well it's obvious the engine right a
that's where you have a lot of moving
parts B that's where you have combustion
well where in the cell
do we have combustion the mitochondria
we know know where ageing takes place
and if we cure many of the mistakes that
build up in the mitochondria of the cell
we could become immortal let me ask you
if you
self could become immortal would you
damn straight
now I think about it for a while because
of course if the term it depends on how
you become immortal you know there's a
famous myth of Tiffany's it turns out
that years ago the in the Greek
mythology there was the saga of
Tiffany's and Aurora Aurora was the
goddess of the dawn and she fell in love
with a mortal a human called Athena's
and so Aurora begged big Zeus to grant
her the the gift of immortality to give
to her lover so Zeus took pity on Aurora
and made Tiffany's immortal
but you see Aurora made a mistake a huge
mistake
she asked for immortality but she forgot
to ask for eternal youth so port
Athena's got older and older and older
every year decrepit a bag of bones but
he could never die never done quality of
life is important so I think immortality
is a great idea as long as you also have
immortal youth as well now I personally
believe and I cannot prove this but I
personally believe that our grandkids
may have the option of reaching the age
of 30 and then stopping they may like
being age 30 is you have wisdom you have
all the benefits of age and maturity and
you still live forever with a healthy
body our descendants may like being 30
for several centuries is there an aspect
of human existence that is meaningful
only because we're mortal well every
waking moment we don't think about it
this way but every waking moment
actually we are aware of our death and
our mortality think about it for a
moment when you go to college you
realize that you're in a period of time
where soon you will reach middle age and
have a career and after that you'll
retire and then you'll die and so even
as a youth
even as a child without even thinking
about it you are aware of your own death
because it sets limits to your lifespan
I got a graduate from high school I got
a graduate from college why because
you're gonna die because unless you
graduate from high school unless you
graduate from college
you're not gonna enter old age with
enough money to retire and then die and
so yeah people think about it
unconsciously because it affects every
aspect of your being the fact that you
go to high school college get married
have kids miss a clock a clock ticking
even without your permission it gives a
sense of urgency do you do you yourself
I mean there's so much excitement and
passion in the way you talk about
physics and we talk about technology in
the future do you yourself meditate on
your own mortality do you think about
this clock that's ticking well I try not
to because it begins to affect your
behavior you begin to alter your
behavior to to match your expectation of
when you're gonna die so let's talk
about youth and then let's talk about
death okay when I interview scientists
on radio I often ask them what made the
difference how old were you what changed
your life and they always say more or
less the same thing no these are Nobel
Prize winners directors of major
laboratories very distinguished
scientists they always say when I was 10
when I was 10 something happened it was
a visit to the planetarium it was the
telescope for Steven Weinberg winner of
the Nobel Prize it was the chemistry kid
for Heinz piggles it was a visitor to
the planetarium for Isidor Rabi it was a
book what the planets for Albert
Einstein it was a compass something
happened which gives them this
existential shock because you see before
the age of 10 everything is mommy and
daddy mommy and dad that's your universe
maja me and daddy around the age of 10
you begin to wonder what's beyond
me and daddy and that's when you have
this epiphany when you realize oh my god
there's a universe out there a universe
of discovery that sensation stays with
you for the rest of your life you still
remember that shock that you felt gazing
at the universe and then you hit the
greatest destroyer of scientists known
to science the greatest destroyer of
scientists known to science is junior
high school we knew hit junior high
school folks it's all over yeah it's all
over because in junior high school
people say hey stupid I mean you like
that nerdy stuff and your friends shun
you all of a sudden you people think
you're a weirdo and scientists made
boring you know Richard Feynman the
Nobel Prize winner when he was a child
his father would take him into the
forest and the father would teach him
everything about birds
why do you shape the way they are their
wings the coloration the shape of their
beak everything about birds so one day a
bully comes up to the future Nobel Prize
winner and says hey dick what's the name
of that bird over there well he didn't
know he knew everything about that bird
except his name so he said I don't know
and then the bully said what's the
matter dick you stupid or something and
then in that instant he got it he got it
he realized that for most people science
is giving names to birds that's what
science is you know lots of names of
obscure things Hey people say you're
smart you're smart you know all the
names of the dinosaurs you know all the
names of the plants no that's not
science at all science is about
principles concepts physical pictures
that's what science is all about my
favorite quote from Einstein is that
unless you can explain a theory to a
child the theory is probably worthless
meaning that all great theories are not
big words all great theories are simple
concepts principles basic physical
pictures our relativity is all about
clocks meter sticks rocket ships and
locomotives Newton's laws of gravity are
all about balls and spinning wheels and
things like that
that's what physics and science is all
about not memorizing things and that
stays with you for the rest of your life
so even in old age I've noticed that
these scientists when they sit back they
still remember they still remember that
flush that flush of excitement they felt
with that first telescope that first
moment when they encountered the
universe that keeps them going that
keeps them going
by the way I should point out that when
I was 8 something happened to me as well
when I was 8 years old it was in all the
papers that a great scientist had just
died and they put a picture of his desk
on the front page that's it just a
simple picture of the front page of the
newspapers of his desk that desk had a
book on it which was opened and the
caption said more or less this is the
unfinished manuscript from the greatest
scientists of our time so I said to
myself well why couldn't you finish it
what's so hard that you can't finish it
if you're a great scientist it's a
homework problem right
you go home you solve it or you ask your
mom why couldn't he solve it so to me
this was a murder mystery this was
greater than any adventure story I had
to know why the greatest scientists of
our time couldn't finish something and
then over the years I found out the guy
had a name Albert Einstein and that book
was the theory of everything it was
unfinished well today I can read that
book I can see all the dead ends and
false starts that he made and I began to
realize that he lost his way because he
didn't have a physical picture to guide
him on the 3rd try on the first try he
talked about clocks and lightning bolts
and meter sticks and they gave us
special relativity which gave us the
atomic bomb the second great picture was
gravity with balls rolling on curved
surfaces and they gave us the big bang
creation of the universe
black holes on the third try he missed
it he had no picture at all to guide him
in fact there's a quote I have where he
said I'm still looking I'm still looking
for that picture he never found it well
today we think that picture is string
theory the string theory can unify
gravity and this mysterious thing that
ice tide didn't like which is
mechanics Oh couldn't couldn't quite pin
down and make sense of that's right
mother nature has two hands the left
hand and a right hand the left hand is a
theory of the small the right hand is a
theory of the big the theory the small
is the quantum theory the theory of
atoms and quarks the theory of the big
is relativity the theory of black holes
big bangs
the problem is the left hand does not
talk to the right hand they hate each
other the left hand is based on discrete
particles the right hand is based on
flute smooth surfaces how do you put
these two things together into a single
theory they hate each other the greatest
minds of our time the greatest minds of
our time worked on this problem and
failed today the only one the only
theory that has survived every challenge
so far is string theory that doesn't
mean string theory is correct it could
very well be wrong but right now is the
only game in town
some people come up to me and say
professor I don't believe in the string
theory give me an alternative and I tell
them there is none get used to it it's
the best theory we got it's the only
theory we have it's the only theory we
have do you see you know the strings
kind of inspire a view as did atoms and
particles and quarks but especially
strings inspire view of a universe as a
kind of information processing system as
a as a computer of sorts do you see the
universe in this way no some people
think in fact the whole universe is a
computer of some sort yes and they
believe that perhaps everything
therefore is a simulation yes I don't
think so I don't think that there is a
super video game where we are nothing
but puppets dancing on the screen and
somebody hit the play button and here we
are talking about simulations no even
Newtonian mechanics says that the
weather the simple weather is so
complicated with trillions upon
trillions of atoms that it cannot be
simulated in a
find out an amount of time in other
words the smallest object which can
describe the weather and simulate the
weather is the weather itself the
smallest object that can simulate a
human is the human itself and if you had
quantum mechanics it becomes almost
impossible to simulate it with a
conventional computer is quantum
mechanics deals with all possible
universes parallel universes a
multiverse of universes and so the
calculation just spirals out of control
now they're at so far there's only one
way where you might be able to argue
that the universe is a simulation and
this is still being debated by quantum
physicists it turns out that if you
throw the Encyclopedia into a black hole
the information is not lost
eventually it winds up on the surface of
the black hole now the surface of the
what I call is finite in fact you can
calculate the maximum amount of
information you can store in a black
hole it's a finite number
it's a calculable number believe it or
not now if the universe were made out of
black holes which is the maximum
universe you can conceive of each
universe each black hole has a finite
amount of information
therefore our go that uh our go the
total amount of information in a
universe is finite this is mind-boggling
this I consider mind-boggling that all
possible universes are countable and all
possible universes can be summarized in
a number a number you can write on a
sheet of paper all possible universes
and it's a finite number now is huge
it's a number beyond human imagination
it's a number based on what is called
the Planck length but it's a number and
so if a computer could ever simulate
that number then it would the universe
would be a simulation so theoretically
because it's because the amount of
information is finite there well there
necessarily must be able to exist a
computer it's just from an engineering
perspective maybe impossible to be
yes so no computer can build a universe
capable of simulating the entire
universe except the universe itself
so that's your intuition that our
universe is very efficient and so
there's no shortcuts right - two reasons
why I believe the universe is not a
simulation
first the calculational numbers are just
incredible no finite the Turing machine
can simulate the universe and second why
would any super intelligent being
simulate humans if you think about it
most humans are kind of stupid I mean we
do all sorts of crazy stupid things
right and we call it art we call it
humor
we call it human civilization so why
should an advanced civilization go
through all that effort just to simulate
Saturday Night Live well that's a funny
idea it's also do you think it's
possible that the act of creation cannot
anticipate humans you simply set the
initial conditions and set a bunch of
physical laws and just for the fun of it
see what happens
you'll launch the thing so you're not
necessarily simulating everything you're
not simulating every little bit in in
the same in the sense that you could
predict what's going to happen but you
set the initial conditions set the laws
and see what kind of fun stuff happens
well some in some sense that's how life
got started in the 1950s Stanley did
what is called the Miller experiment he
put a bunch of hydrogen gas methane
toxic gases with liquid and a spark in a
small glass beaker and then he just
walked away for a few weeks came back a
few weeks later and bingo out of nothing
in chaos came amino acids if he had left
it there for a few years he might have
gotten protein protein molecules for
free that's probably how life got
started as a accident and if he had left
it there for perhaps a few million years
DNA might have formed in that beaker and
so we think that yeah DNA life all that
could have been an
accident if you wait long enough and
remember our universe is roughly 13.8
billion years old that's plenty of time
for lots of random things to happen
including life itself
yeah we could be just a beautiful little
random moment
and there could be a nearly infinite
number of those in throughout the
history of the universe many many
creatures like us we perhaps are not the
epitome of what the universe is created
for her thank God
let's hope not just look around
yeah you're right what do you think the
first human will step foot on Mars I
think it's a good chance in 2030s that
we will be on Mars in fact there's no
physics reason why we can't do it it's
an engineering problem it's a very
difficult and dangerous engineering
problem but it is an engineering problem
and in my book future of humanity I even
speculate beyond that that by the end of
the century we'll probably have the
first starships the first starships will
not look like the enterprise at all
they'll probably be small computer chips
that are fired by laser beams with
parachutes and like what Stephen Hawking
advocated the breakthrough starshot
program could send ships ship to the
nearby stars traveling at 20% of speed
of light reaching Alpha Centauri in
about 20 years time beyond that we
should have fusion power using power is
in some sense one of the ultimate
sources of energy but it's unstable and
we don't have fusion power today now why
is that
first of all stars for mammals for free
you get a bunch of gas large enough it
becomes a star I mean you didn't have to
do anything to it and it becomes a star
why is fusion so difficult to put on the
earth because you're not a space stars
our mana poles they are pole single
poles that sphere are there a
spherically symmetric and it's very easy
to get spherical symmetric
configurations of gas
to compress into a star he just happens
naturally all by itself
the problem is magnetism is bipolar you
have a North Pole and a South Pole and
it's like trying to squeeze a long
balloon take a long balloon and trying
to squeeze it you squeeze one side it
bulges out the other side well that's
the problem with fusion machines we use
magnetism with the North Pole in the
South Pole to squeeze gas and all sorts
of anomalies and horrible configurations
can take place because we're not
squeezing something uniformly like in a
star stars in some sense or for free
fusion on the earth is very difficult
but I think it's inevitable and it'll
eventually gave us unlimited power from
seawater so seawater will be the
ultimate source of energy for the planet
Earth
why what's the intuition there because
we'll extract hydrogen from seawater
burn hydrogen in the fusion reactor to
get give us unlimited energy without the
meltdown without the nuclear waste why
do we have meltdowns
we have meltdowns because in the fission
reactors every time you split the
uranium atom you get nuclear waste tons
of it 30 tons of nuclear waste per
reactor per year and it's hot it's hot
for thousands millions of years that's
why we have meltdowns but you see the
waste product of a fusion reactor is
helium gas helium gas is actually
commercially valuable you can make money
selling helium gas and so the waste
product of a fusion reactor is helium
not nuclear waste that we find in a
commercial fission plant
in that controlling mastering
controlling fusion allows us to converse
us into a type 1 I guess civilization
right yeah probably the backbone of a
type one civilization will be fusion
power we by the way are type zero we
don't even rate on this scale we get our
energy from dead plants for God's sake
oil and coal but we are about a hundred
years from being type one you know get a
calculator in fact Carl Sagan calculated
that we are about 0.7
fairly close to a 1.0 for example what
is the internet the Internet is the
beginning of the first type one
technology to enter into our century the
first planetary technology is the
Internet what is the language of type 1
on the internet already English and
Mandarin Chinese are the most dominant
languages on the Internet and what about
the culture we're seeing a type 1 Sports
soccer the Olympics a type 1 music a
youth culture rock and roll rap music
type 1 fashion Gucci Chanel a type 1
economy the European Union NAFTA what
have you so we're beginning to see the
the beginnings of a type 1 culture in a
type one civilization and inevitably it
will spread beyond this planet so you
talked about sending at 20% the speed of
light on a chip into Alpha Centauri but
in a slightly nearer term what do you
think about the idea when we still have
to send biological our biological bodies
the colonization of planets colonization
of Mars DC is becoming a two-planet
species ever or any time soon well just
remember the dinosaurs did not have a
space program now and that's why they're
not here today how come there are no
dinosaurs in this room today because
they didn't have a space program we do
have a space program which means that we
have an insurance policy now I don't
think we should bankrupt the earth or
deplete the earth to go to Mars that's
too expensive and not practical but we
need a settlement a settlement on Mars
in case something bad happens to the
planet Earth and that means we have to
terraform Mars now to terraform Mars if
we get raised a temperature of Mars by 6
degrees 6 degrees then the polar icecaps
begin to melt releasing water vapor
water vapor is the greenhouse gas it
causes even more melting of the ice caps
so it becomes a self-fulfilling
see it feeds on itself it becomes
autocatalytic and so once you hit six
degrees were rising of the temperature
on Mars by six degrees it takes off and
we melt the polar ice caps and liquid
water once again flows in the rivers the
canals are the channels and the oceans
of Mars Mars once had an ocean we think
about the size of the United States and
so that is a possibility now how do we
get there how do we raise the
temperature of Mars by six degrees Elon
Musk would like it didn't a hydrogen
warheads on the polar icecaps yes well
I'm not sure about that because we don't
know that much about the effects of
detonating hydrogen warheads to melt the
polar ice caps and who wants to glow in
the dark at night reading the newspaper
so I think there are other ways to do it
with solar satellites you can have
satellites orbiting Mars that beam
sunlight onto the polar ice caps melting
the polar ice caps Mars has plenty of
water it's just frozen I think you paint
and inspiring in a wonderful picture of
the future it's I think you've inspired
and educated thousands if not millions
Michio it's been an honor thank you so
much for talking today my pleasure
you