Seeing Michio Kaku today. Any questions you'd like me to ask?

[Misericorde]

You must have missed the part where I said I "have no comment on the guy".

I don't know who he is, don't care, just pointing out a few things I've noted in a general sense.

I've not commented on any distinction between crackpot/mainstream/'popsci' etc, only on what is a common trait.

Again, misreading/misinterpreting/misrepresentation of what I actually have said.

If you really want to get into it, I've had a look at some of his stuff and it seems he pushes certain areas as though they are certainly possible or incredibly likely when in reality there is nothing to support it at all.

Yeah, you definitely need a vacation.

 

[OmCheeto]

Has anyone here mentioned Kaku's scholarly book (700+ pages) on quantum field theory? It's mostly beyond me.

I used to hang out at Kaku's forum. It was a crazy fun kind of place. All areas were GD. I think one person was banned in the 3 years I was there. It did attract some smart people, who of course I could not understand. There was one very smart mathematician that tried to explain string theory to us laymen, but of course we did not understand. One day I told him that I'd like to understand string theory, and he told me that I should start by getting John M. Lee's book "Introduction to Smooth Manifolds". So I did. Unfortunately, it had been 30 years since I'd taken a calculus class, and the first 3 pages were all Greek, so I put it on the bookshelf with all my other "Gads I want to understand this stuff" books.

I think the forum was most fun in that it introduced me lots of scientists. I actually sent and received a response from Max Tegmark. That was pretty cool. Not since Tim Berners-Lee refused my box of chocolates, was I so delighted.

hmm...

I should go home.

btw, does anyone know who Sunfist was?

 

[flyingpig]

This is not "today" anymore...

 

[lisab]

This is not "today" anymore...

No, it's still today. It's not yesterday anymore, though.

 

[Frankly]

Ask him if he smokes a lot of pot, or if it just seems that way.

 

[Darken-Sol]

and is he claiming these things exist or may exist in the future? i got the impression he is doing science fiction from the earlier posts. i still haven't had a chance to check out this kaku fellow. at what point does he degenerate to this heretic everyone paints him as?

bump

 

[OmCheeto]

No, it's still today. It's not yesterday anymore, though.

Looks like proof of time travel to me. Thanks!

 

[Andre]

Looks like proof of time travel to me. Thanks!

I guess not, as it will never be tomorrow. So if you are never there, how can you get back?

 

[Misericorde]

I guess not, as it will never be tomorrow. So if you are never there, how can you get back?

If you don't choose yourself as a preferred reference frame...

 

[JaredJames]

If you don't choose yourself as a preferred reference frame...

Is there any reference frame that would permit that?

 

[Misericorde]

Is there any reference frame that would permit that?

You could just define any arbitrary set of coordinates; that's why you have past and future light cones around such chosen points. It's purely on paper of course, this isn't something that changes life as we know it, just the process of specifying 4 numbers to designate "you are here" and then everything before and after it.

If you mean a reference frame that would permit travel into the past, I believe that involves a universe unlike the one we live in. You can certainly construct one on paper however, in which events repeat a given number of times in CTCs.

 

[Loren Booda]

Is there any reference frame that would permit that?

Take into account quantum effects?

 

[Misericorde]

Take into account quantum effects?

Nothing that fancy, I was just being boring with whatever *space you cared to use in defining coordinates in time. Going back to the light cones and world lines as it were, not a physically realizable bit of excitement.

 

[OmCheeto]

I guess not, as it will never be tomorrow. So if you are never there, how can you get back?

So I can start drinking and spending money like there's no tomorrow, because there isn't one?

Yippie!

 

[Misericorde]

So I can start drinking and spending money like there's no tomorrow, because there isn't one?

Yippie!

I believe a group of apocalyptic nuts are literally doing that today... probably without the drinking.

Always a bit odd when the world of jokes and fun crosses over with the world of crazy sublimated suicidal urges of a religious mass.