Escape from the Universe: Michio Kaku

[Ivan Seeking]

The universe is out of control, in a runaway acceleration. Eventually all intelligent life will face the final doom—the big freeze. An advanced civilisation must embark on the ultimate journey: fleeing to a parallel universe. [continued]

http://prospectmagazine.co.uk/article_details.php.6701.html

 

[Moonbear]

Although seemingly fantastic, this scenario is consistent with the known laws of physics and biology,

What laws of biology? The only mention of biology other than in the intro and concluding paragraphs is the rather vague, science fiction statement in the next to last paragraph that says:

Next, these robot probes would create huge biotechnology laboratories. The DNA sequences of the probes' creators would have been carefully recorded, and the robots would have been designed to inject this information into incubators, which would then clone the entire species. An advanced civilisation may also code the personalities and memories of its inhabitants and inject this into the clones, enabling the entire race to be reincarnated.

As we're now clearly demonstrating from research on cloning, DNA isn't all there is to biology. Just stick DNA in an incubator, huh? I had never heard of Kaku before coming to these forums, and had assumed from the aura of respect and the hullabaloo made over the chat events with him that he was someone credible in the field of physics. If that's true, he should stick with physics and avoid biology.

 

[Kakarot]

biology is boring, there's no exploding supernovas or universes being destroyed in it :P

 

[Zeteg]

It's interesting, but the last idea proposed isn't exactly a good one... I want to survive

 

[Grogs]

Assuming this is even going to happen (and in my mind the jury is still out) it's billions and billions of years off. I think this will go straight to the top of my 'Things I won't lose sleep over' list.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

What laws of biology? The only mention of biology other than in the intro and concluding paragraphs is the rather vague, science fiction statement in the next to last paragraph that says:


As we're now clearly demonstrating from research on cloning, DNA isn't all there is to biology. Just stick DNA in an incubator, huh? I had never heard of Kaku before coming to these forums, and had assumed from the aura of respect and the hullabaloo made over the chat events with him that he was someone credible in the field of physics. If that's true, he should stick with physics and avoid biology.

You may be taking things too literally. He often speaks in conceptual terms.

Kaku co-authored an early paper on String Field Theory. For years he was known as Dr. Coocoo. Now, string theory is, as you know, quite the rage. I understand that one of his books is required reading for many String Theorists. He is a highly credible scientist who also speaks to and writes for popular audiences. Many consider him to be a modern Carl Sagan in that he is very popular as a public figure. I recommend reading his book Hyperspace - classic Kaku.

He inspires...

 

[Evo]

You may be taking things too literally. He often speaks in conceptual terms.

Kaku co-authored an early paper on String Field Theory. For years he was known as Dr. Coocoo. Now, string theory is, as you know, quite the rage. I understand that one of his books is required reading for many String Theorists. He is a highly credible scientist who speaks to and writes for popular audiences. Many consider him to be a modern Carl Sagan.

Moonbear has a good point. He's reaching into a field that he isn't expert in and not quite realistic. People should realize when they are stepping outside their specialty. You may be the best in the world in a certain field, that does not automatically give you crediibility in other fields.

 

[polyb]

You may be taking things too literally. He often speaks in conceptual terms.

Kaku co-authored an early paper on String Field Theory. For years he was known as Dr. Coocoo. Now, string theory is, as you know, quite the rage. I understand that one of his books is required reading for many String Theorists. He is a highly credible scientist who speaks to and writes for popular audiences. Many consider him to be a modern Carl Sagan.

I like the Carl Sagan comparison, he really does speak to a wide audience. So the concepts he speaks about may be better suited for sci-fi at the moment. While I was reading the article I was thinking that this stuff would be great in a sci-fi novel.

Moonbear, Kaku is no biologist and you're correct in stating you discontent with is off hand insinuation that 're-creating' our biology would be easy. Hey, protien synthesis is not even understood yet, so how could you completely make another you in another universe/environment? Hypothetically speaking, I think it was assumed that the type 3 civilization knew enough to do that. But to me, in biology we are talking chaotic, non-extensive systems that are presently only beginning to be mapped/understood and I don't think it can be assumed that such bio-recreation is possible. I think that biology presents a tremendous challenge to physics and those hard problems are often avoided because they are that difficult to solve. Dont worry though, the tools are beginning to emerge that enable biophysics to be understood. The real draw back to the biology crowd is that they are going to have to learn more physics!

 

[Ivan Seeking]

I edited late on my last post.

and another late edit:

Moonbear has a good point. He's reaching into a field that he isn't expert in and not quite realistic. People should realize when they are stepping outside their specialty. You may be the best in the world in a certain field, that does not automatically give you crediibility in other fields

and then PolyB snuck one in ahead of me.

True, he may have been speaking too loosely or incorrectly. It's just that physicists are so seldom wrong that I never expect that to be the proper explanation.

 

[Kakarot]

Dr. Kaku is the best! last summer i was at my computer playing a video game and someone called my house and my mom got the phone. She said it was for me and to my amazement it was Dr. Kaku! my friend gave him my # online and he called me so I could ask him a question for his radio show. I've read hyperspace and its a really good book and pretty inspiring too :D

 

[Ivan Seeking]

I like the Carl Sagan comparison, he really does speak to a wide audience. So the concepts he speaks about may be better suited for sci-fi at the moment. While I was reading the article I was thinking that this stuff would be great in a sci-fi novel.

He is talking about Science Fiction, really. As selfAdjoint recently pointed out, there is Science Fiction, and then there is Science Fiction. Kaku extrapolates into the very distant future the most extreme concepts of modern physics, and science in general, to paint a picture of potential futures for humanity. When he talks about type 0 - 4 beings, for example and as an aside, he takes his lead from some of our greatest recent minds who conceived this concept back in the late 60's. There was an elite panel discussion of all of this in the beginning of the original cut of Kubrick's 2001. In effect, this discussion explained the entire movie and its basis in science. At the last moment, Kubrick cut the discussion which created the mystical quality of the movie and the controversy over the proper interpretation of the plot. Anyway, the point is that much of this is fiction but based on extrapolations, and not just fanciful notions; maybe.

 

[polyb]

and then PolyB snuck one in ahead of me.

True, he may have been speaking too loosely or incorrectly. It's just that physicists are so seldom wrong that I never expect that to be the proper explanation.

Evo snuck a comment ahead of me while I was typing that out!

I found it to be speculative but inspiring. If you ever get a chance look into Frank Tipler's 'Physics of Immortality', you can find some parallels to what Kaku was talking about and it is just about as speculative except he has an appendix with a lot a math and theory. There has been a long tradition of this kind of speculation and I think Kaku represents the latest incarnation of that. It seems to serve the function of inspiring and relaying information the next wave future scientists. Either way it is pretty harmless.

BTW, physicists get it wrong all the time, there only human. Besides, how would we learn if we didnt make mistakes? I'm sure you can look back in history and find plenty of things that were wrong from our current vantage point. Perhaps it's just the proven and applicable theories that survive the test of time. The rest is only mentioned in passing, if at all.

_________

I hear you Ivan, Perhaps I should have typed Science fiction to make that clearer. I really like his work and think he does a good service for physics.

Darn silly limited human language, it's so easy to get mixed up!