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July 15, 1999 - Art Bell
01:49:55
Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell - Michio Kaku - Theoretical Physics
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art bell
26:59
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michio kaku
01:03:26
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Speaker Time Text
art bell
Physicist is going to be my guest.
We've got lots to talk about.
You know, FIDE field theory.
He is co-founder of the string field theory.
Did you hear that?
Co-founder of the string field theory?
A branch of 10-dimensional string theory.
The leading candidate for a theory of everything.
I'm going to ask about that.
His latest books include Hyperspace and Visions.
I've got Visions sitting right over here.
It's a good book.
Very good book.
How Science Will Revolutionize the 21st Century.
Both international bestsellers, incidentally.
Dr. Kaku is a professor of theoretical physics at City University of New York.
Graduated at Suma Kamlau from Harvard in 1968.
Number one in his physics class.
Received his Ph.D. in theoretical physics from the University of California at Berkeley in 72, taught at CUNY for the past 25 years.
He has published 80 scientific papers, therefore has not perished.
His PhD-level textbooks are required reading in leading physics labs around the world.
He's been a visiting lecturer at Caltech, Princeton.
The Institute for Advanced Studies at Princeton has lectured in Moscow, Paris, Berlin, London, Rome, and other physics centers.
Wonder if he's lectured in Beijing.
He's appeared on the Larry King Show.
Oh, no kidding.
So did I. That was fun.
Numerous NOVA specials for BBS, the Stephen Hawking Universe series.
Bet you saw that.
BBC TV's future fantastic series, Good Morning America, 60 Minutes, Night Line.
You name it.
Here is Professor Michio Haku.
Welcome.
michio kaku
Glad to be on, Art.
art bell
Good to hear your voice again.
unidentified
Mm-hmm.
art bell
Good to be on.
Can I start out with a real simple question?
Sure.
What is it going to mean to us, Doctor, if we unearth the theory of everything?
michio kaku
Well, I get asked that question a lot.
People say, will I get better color television?
Am I going to get better toasted bread?
Exactly.
What's it going to do for me if we get the unified field theory, the theory of everything, right?
art bell
Right.
michio kaku
Well, in our lifetime, it will probably give us nothing because we're talking about fantastic energies at which the unified field theory reigns supreme.
Because this is really a theory of creation.
It's a theory of the origin of the universe.
It's a theory of the Big Bang.
It's a theory of black holes.
art bell
So we would then understand creation, but if we understood creation, wouldn't it follow that we might be able to then create?
michio kaku
That's right.
We are talking about at some point in the future, once we begin to master energies beyond what is available on the puny planet Earth, we may be able to answer questions such as, is time travel possible?
What happens if you journey through a black hole?
Is it possible to create a universe in a laboratory?
And these are the questions that are answerable once we have a theory of everything.
Now just remember that when Newton worked out the theory of gravity 300 years ago, that gave us mechanics, which gave us the steam engine, and with the steam engine it revolutionized the world and toppled the feudal kings and queens of Europe.
When Faraday, 150 years ago, worked out the mechanics of light and electricity and magnetism, that electrified the world.
That's why we have lasers and television sets and the internet and computers.
So now, and then Einstein, in the last 50 years, gave us E equals MT squared, which unlocked the nuclear force.
And now we're going to see that each time a force has been understood by scientists, it changed civilization, turned civilization upside down.
So Newton eventually worked out the dynamics of things like steam engines, and Michael Faraday worked out the dynamics of electricity and magnetism.
Einstein gave us the nuclear force.
And now we're unifying all fundamental forces now into an equation perhaps one inch long that will eventually allow us to become masters of the universe.
art bell
One inch long.
michio kaku
That's right.
We're going to summarize all these equations into an equation one inch long, which will allow us to, quote, read the mind of God.
These are Stephen Hawking's terms.
So Stephen Hawking, in his book, Brief History of Time, says that this is the greatest, the greatest scientific chase, the greatest scientific endeavor of the past 2,000 years, the reaching for an equation one inch long, which is defined in hyperspace in order to summarize all physical knowledge.
That's why it is only an inch long, because it's defined in 10-dimensional hyperspace, and it's the fact that we are in hyperspace that does all the work.
art bell
So its universality, the fact that it is so universal, it would follow that it would be really simple.
Actually simple in a way.
michio kaku
That's right.
Unlike chemistry or biology, the deeper you go into physics, the simpler it gets.
Okay?
For example, the mechanics of light.
We think that light is so complicated.
However, it's given to us by Maxwell's equation, which is an equation just half an inch long, which states that the four-dimensional divergence of an anti-symmetric second-rank tensor equals zero, and that's what light is all about.
And in Berkeley, you can buy a t-shirt before I got my PhD.
You can buy a T-shirt that says, in the beginning, God said the four-dimensional divergence of an anti-symmetric second-rank tensor equals zero, and there was light.
It was good.
art bell
And it was good.
There have been these stories recently.
I've had about a million of them sent to me saying that scientists have managed to Slow the speed of light to about the speed of somebody riding a bicycle or slower.
Have you seen any of that?
michio kaku
That's right.
In fact, I have the paper on my desk.
art bell
What are they talking about?
michio kaku
Well, they didn't actually slow the speed of light itself.
art bell
I didn't see it.
michio kaku
They slowed the speed of light in a medium.
For example, when light hits water or light is in glass, light slows down by the index of refraction.
But the velocity of light in a vacuum is the same.
Einstein showed that.
The velocity of light in a vacuum is the same no matter what.
But what happens is when light hits a material, when it goes between the atoms of the material, it goes to the speed of light.
But when it hits the material, it's absorbed.
And the absorption process takes time, you see?
It takes time.
So there's a time delay.
art bell
Really?
michio kaku
So think of the Pony Express.
The horse in the Pony Express would go the same velocity between post offices.
But when the horse hit the post office, it would rest.
So the average velocity of the horse on the Pony Express was slow, even though between post offices, the horse went very fast.
That's how they were able to slow down the speed of light to, I think it was something like 20 miles per hour.
art bell
So they really did do that?
michio kaku
They did it, but the speed of light in the vacuum is still the same.
So Einstein was right, but light slows down when it hits a material.
art bell
So they sent, what, a very bright laser or something or another through tremendous amounts of glass or other semiconductor?
michio kaku
They say, cool the material down, and they got what is called a Bose condensation.
And then they shot the light beam at this very cold collection of molecules.
And then, of course, these molecules acted like molasses.
And so when the light hits this molasses-like object, it slowed down because it was absorbed.
art bell
All right.
What is the value of our knowledge gleaned from having done that?
michio kaku
Well, Bose condensation is something that was predicted by Einstein, but he never lived to see it because it would be very difficult to create.
You're talking about cooling something almost down to absolute zero, okay?
And that's important because one of these days the universe is going to cool down to near absolute zero.
It's going to be very cold in the future.
art bell
Absolute zero.
michio kaku
This is, of course, trillions of years from now.
But the universe is expanding, and in fact, the universe is accelerating right now.
art bell
Yeah, actually, there is another thing I heard, that eventually, in other words, everything is moving away from everything else.
The spaces are getting greater between systems, and eventually we'll be sort of like out there all by ourselves.
Is that the theory?
michio kaku
Yeah, in fact, we're going to be sort of like intergalactic homeless people huddled next to campfires.
You know how homeless people light fires at night to keep warm?
art bell
Yes.
michio kaku
That's going to be civilizations in the future.
Stars will eventually blink out.
This means the galaxies will eventually become dark.
The night sky will become dark.
art bell
Starless.
michio kaku
And we'll be a collection of black holes and neutron stars.
And it's going to be very awful in the future.
We'll be huddled next to the dying embers of black holes trillions of years from now.
But my attitude, by the way, and this is where the theory of everything comes in, my attitude is that when the universe dies, we will leave the universe.
art bell
There was on CNN and other networks a physicist on, I bet you saw it the other day, who was comparing the universe to the foam on the head of a beer.
unidentified
That's right.
art bell
You saw that?
michio kaku
I didn't, but I know what the analogy is.
This is called quantum foam.
art bell
Quantum foam.
michio kaku
That's right.
art bell
Well, I don't know what that means.
michio kaku
Well, very simply, it means that a vacuum is not really a vacuum at all.
Even nothing consists of tiny bubbles that form.
Each bubble is a potential universe.
And our universe is quite special.
Our bubble expanded to, you know, for the last 15 billion years.
But in the vacuum, there are bubbles forming all the time.
unidentified
These are little baby universes.
art bell
If you watch the head of a beer, there are also bubbles, if you leave your beer sitting on the table, disappearing at the top all the time.
michio kaku
That's right.
art bell
Well, if we're nothing but a bubble, and I don't know where we are in this theoretical head of beer, eventually we'll.
Right?
michio kaku
Well, these bubbles expand, and our bubble has been expanding for 15 or so billion years.
These other bubbles bang and collapse, which means that big bangs are probably happening all the time.
That means that there is something called a multiverse, that we exist in a multiverse of beer foam, and that our universe is perhaps just one bubble among an infinite foam of beer suds.
art bell
[background noise]
michio kaku
And the question is, is it possible to slide between these multiverses?
art bell
One to the other.
michio kaku
Now, there is a Fox television program called Sliders, where in the very first episode, a young boy falls asleep and slides between universes.
But he reads a book to get the inspiration for sliding.
And if you watch episode number one, you'll see that it's actually my book that he's reading, including hyperspace.
And that gives him the inspiration to slide through hyperspace to these other bubbles out there, these other universes.
art bell
Let me tell you a little story, just for fun.
I have a friend who is a multi-gazillionaire.
His name is Bob Bigelow.
He's going to come on the radio and do an interview for the first time ever, I believe, on radio, on the 27th of this month with a big, big announcement.
But he's got A ranch in an unnamed location where they've been doing research for a long time now, and it's very high-tech.
They have cameras and video recorders and giant poles mounted, and there have been unusual things that have been going on.
That's why they acquired this ranch, and so they've been doing real scientific testing.
And one of the cameras, according to Dr. Colin Kelleher, who I had on, caught what appeared to be an image of a kind of a swirling hole that manifested itself, and they could actually see what appeared to be something, a creature, a being, something, pop through this, and then the hole closed, sort of faded to black.
And they actually caught this on videotape.
Now, it suggests certainly the possibility that, well, something like you're always talking about was manifested now.
If this is eventually to be, Doctor, if eventually we will master these kinds of technologies, is it not possible that we could be visited by somebody from the distant future for whatever reason, and that something like that really could have happened?
michio kaku
Well, we can't discount it.
The energy necessary to leave this bubble of ours would be tremendous.
It's 10 to the 19 billion electron volts.
It is called the Planck energy.
It's the most fantastic energy that we physicists have ever studied.
And space is not stable at 10 to the 19 billion electron volts.
This is where these bubbles begin to form.
And so if I had a machine, for example, that could create 10 to the 19 billion electron volts, bubbles would begin to form, and holes could conceivably begin to open up.
In fact, Stephen Hawking, a colleague of mine, wrote a book, his latest book is called Baby Universes and Black Holes, where he talks about these baby universes, that is, these little holes that open up, that would be like, that would have tubes, tubes connecting these holes.
And these tubes would be called wormholes.
They're very small, of course, too small for us to go through.
But you can calculate the energy necessary to open up a big one.
And unfortunately, the energy is far beyond anything that we can harness on the planet Earth.
art bell
Today.
michio kaku
Today.
We are what is called a type 0 civilization.
You would have to be about type 2, type 2 or type 3, before you can harness and play with these things like we play with soap bubbles.
art bell
But still, if it is to be possible one day in our distant future, if we make it to type 1 or type 2, whatever, then it's plausible to project the possibility that somebody has come back or something has come back to visit us in that manner.
Isn't it?
michio kaku
That's right.
You know, when I was in London last, two years ago, giving a talk there, and at the London Museum, they have a wax figure of Stephen Hawking who says that time travel is not possible because where are the tourists from the future?
I don't see them.
We should be crawling with tourists from the future, he says.
Well, two years ago, he changed his mind.
He made the front page of the Sunday London Times.
And that was quoted in that article, too.
art bell
What did he say?
michio kaku
He says that time travel, he's changed his mind on.
Time travel is probably possible, but not practical.
Not practical for us.
art bell
Not practical.
Yep, for us.
Hold on, Doctor.
Dr. Michio Kaku is my guest.
michio kaku
This is Coast to Coast A.M. We are pushing the boundaries of Einstein's general relativity theory, which breaks down.
The theory is actually useless at the instant of the Big Bang and the center of a black hole.
And that's precisely where the most interesting things take place.
And you have to use another theory called a quantum theory that replaces Einstein's theory at that brief instant where the universe was created or the center of a black hole.
And at the present time, the only way to understand this phenomenon is to use hyperspace, that is, use a 10-dimensional string theory.
It is the only theory so far discovered which allows you to go before the Big Bang and allows you to go through the wormhole, that is, through the center of a black hole.
art bell
All right.
Then let us assume that it eventually becomes possible, but very rare, either because it is very expensive, very consumptive of power, or wasteful of power, or could there be problems with time travel?
I mean, serious problems.
In other words, even if it becomes possible, the old kill your father thing and the changing of history and the changing of timelines and the possibility of erasure of what we presently have or what the future is or, you know, all of those things, could there be associated problems that prevent this plethora of time travel visitors that we should be expecting or having?
michio kaku
Well, there have been a number of proposals written up in Physical Review Magazine, which is a magazine that we physicists publish in.
In fact, you can go to any modern library and take out Physical Review D, and you can see designs and speculations about these problems, the problem of killing your parents before you're born.
art bell
Sure.
michio kaku
How can you be born if you just killed your parents before you're born?
art bell
It's a serious problem.
It's a very serious problem.
unidentified
Okay.
michio kaku
Now, you see, Newton gave us the idea that time was like an arrow.
You fire the arrow, and it never deviated.
So one second on the Earth is one second on Mars is one second on Jupiter.
Here comes Einstein, who says, not so fast.
Time is not like an arrow.
Time is like a river, which meanders and speeds up and slows down, so that one second on The Earth is not one second on the Moon, is not one second on Jupiter.
And we measured this.
We know that time beats at different rates throughout the universe.
You do this by satellites and by rockets.
Now, if Einstein thought that time was like a river, he did not realize that you could have whirlpools, whirlpools, in the river of time, and perhaps the river of time can fork, fork into two rivers.
Now, the river of time cannot be damned.
It doesn't simply stop.
Your timeline doesn't end.
If you saw the movie Back to the Future, it talked about Michael J. Fox's timeline ending because he just met his mother before he's born and his mother falls in love with him.
So how can he be born?
art bell
Precisely.
michio kaku
The answer is you can't.
Therefore, his timeline would disappear.
Well, that's not possible because the timeline is like a river.
And you cannot dam the river of time.
However, the river of time can fork, can split into two rivers, or perhaps form whirlpools where time goes backwards on itself.
These are solutions of Einstein's equations, you see?
Now, if that's possible and you change the path, that is, you meet Abraham Lincoln as he was about to be assassinated by John Wilts Booth.
art bell
You say to him, look, you don't want to see this thing.
The reviews have been terrible.
Stay away.
michio kaku
That's right.
Then what happens is the universe will split into two universes and our one bubble becomes two bubbles.
And so one bubble, which had its timeline, splits into two bubbles, and we now have two bubbles going through two different timelines.
art bell
All right, that would be an extremely serious consequence of time travel.
michio kaku
That's right.
Very serious.
Okay.
Now, you may say to yourself, well, it takes a lot of energy to create this other bubble.
And that's right, it does take a lot of energy.
But you see, the total energy of our universe is probably zero.
The matter in our energy, the matter of our universe is, of course, very positive and very large.
There are a lot of stars in our universe.
But gravitational energy is negative.
And if you add the two together, you get zero.
So this is why, in this beer foam that you mentioned, that bubbles form all the time.
Because it takes no energy to create a universe.
You see?
art bell
Yes.
michio kaku
And this is why at MIT, for example, my friend Alan Goose has even proposed baking or creating a universe in an oven.
Now, this, of course, is not practical.
Don't try it in your oven at home.
art bell
Now, exactly, what do you mean by that?
michio kaku
If you could heat an oven to about 100 trillion trillion degrees, which is, of course, near the temperature of the Big Bang, then inside your oven, bubbles would form, holes in space would begin to form, and out would come out an umbilical cord with a baby universe.
art bell
Wow.
michio kaku
Okay?
So, of course, Professor Guth says that this is not practical.
In fact, I once asked him what would happen if he did that.
And he said the energy release would probably be that of a hydrogen bomb.
You'd probably blow yourself up in the process.
But out of the chaos of this hydrogen bomb would come a baby universe, another baby bubble.
Now, he did this exercise to show that universes can be created all the time.
It doesn't take that much energy to create a universe.
You have to, of course, kick it, which of course requires 100 trillion trillion degrees temperature, which is comparable to the temperature of the Big Bang itself.
Now, we don't think that anyone's going to be able to do this anytime soon.
You'd have to be at least type 3, a galactic civilization like what you see in Star Wars, in the movie Star Wars.
That's type 3.
They would have the ability to create these so-called baby universes and to create a lifeline, basically, an umbilical cord.
art bell
But again, I'm visualizing the creation that you're planning in my mind.
I can see how the creation occurs, but I can also see the top of the foam where the bubbles burst, virtually burst.
So does that part of the analogy hang together?
michio kaku
No.
These bubbles cannot burst because just like timelines cannot be damned, these bubbles cannot burst because the skin of the bubble is what is called an instantly differentiable Riemann manifold.
art bell
Well, see, if the foam of the beer never went away, they'd really have something.
michio kaku
That's right.
But bubbles can collapse.
That's what happens to these bubbles.
They pop out of existence, and most of them, the vast majority of them, pop right back into nothingness.
So these bubbles pop in and out of nothingness all the time.
And our universe is quite special.
It popped and kept on expanding for 15 billion years.
art bell
All right, again, with the beer analogy, the head of the beer, even bubbles that are in the center of the head of the beer sometimes are disappearing while others take their place, yes?
michio kaku
In beer, right?
art bell
But not in physics.
michio kaku
In physics, we would have these bubbles collapse.
They would have a big crunch.
They would have a big bang, stop, and then have a big crunch, and then new big bangs would then take place.
unidentified
Okay?
michio kaku
So the big crunch would then dissolve these bubbles and create new bubbles elsewhere.
art bell
Okay?
michio kaku
And we think there could be threads, you know, wormholes, little tiny threads that connect these bubbles together.
And sometimes these bubbles split in half.
That's when you have a time machine, let's say, hypothetically, and go backwards in time, and then the bubble would then split into two bubbles.
art bell
All right, well, staying with the bubble theory for a second, there's one other thing that occurs with bubbles.
When you blow them as a child, you may recall sometimes you get two bubbles that are connected.
michio kaku
That's right.
art bell
Does that mean that there could be connected universes?
michio kaku
That's right.
That was the subject of Stephen Hawking's last book, universes and black holes.
Really?
This is a multiverse theory.
And in fact, in my book, Hyperspace, I have a whole chapter on the multiverse theory, which is the dominant theory in cosmology now.
The last four major books in cosmology say that this is probably it.
This is the leading theory as to what happened before the Big Bang, which is very embarrassing whenever you ask a scientist what happened before the Big Bang.
art bell
I know, they always get stopped.
michio kaku
They always get stopped.
However, now we believe that there are big bangs happening all the time.
That even as we speak, universes are being created.
art bell
Yes, but didn't there have to be, let's see if we can stop you.
Didn't there have to be a first big bang, a time when there was nothing?
Or are you now telling us there was never a time when there was nothing?
michio kaku
That's right.
There was always nothingness.
unidentified
Okay?
michio kaku
You see, on each bubble there's a clock.
And therefore, if you are outside looking at these bubbles, each one with a clock on it, you are outside of time.
You are outside of time.
art bell
Right.
michio kaku
Now, St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Augustine worried about this.
If God, for example, is omnipotent, then he should not be bound by time.
He should not have to say, oh, it's 4 o'clock, I have to run, right?
art bell
That's right.
michio kaku
If you're omnipotent and omniscient, then you should not be bounded by the watch, right?
art bell
One would imagine not, yes.
michio kaku
That's right.
But how can you be beyond time?
But you see, if each bubble has its own clock on it, and you are looking at these bubbles, then the question is, where are you sitting?
Where is your vantage point looking at these bubbles, each one with a time on it?
And the answer is you're looking from hyperspace, looking down on each bubble, so you are outside of time.
art bell
Outside of time.
michio kaku
So our universe had a beginning.
Our universe has a clock on it.
Clock's been ticking for 15 billion years.
But what happened before the clock was set to zero?
And the answer is there's always been this multiverse, and this multiverse exists beyond time.
art bell
Well, we imagine that we will simply go on and on and on and on forever, that expansion will continue or whatever theory finally sets up.
Yeah, the big freeze, whatever.
But that's so far in the future people don't really think a lot about it yet.
michio kaku
That's right.
art bell
Yet, you're saying it's possible that before our time, our bubble could burst.
michio kaku
Well, not burst, but it could re-collapse.
However, the latest data shows that it's not re-collapsing.
It's accelerating.
It's going even faster toward near absolute zero.
art bell
Is that good or bad?
michio kaku
That's bad, because it means that it's going to be very cold in the future.
But like I say, if there are these threads, wormholes, tubes, like a subway system, that allows you to connect between these different holes, then ultimately the unified field theory will be our lifeboat.
It'll be our lifeboat by which we will simply leave our physical universe to another one, which is warmer.
Now, of course, this is all in theory, but the theory does allow for the possibility that intelligent life does not have to die when the universe dies.
art bell
So then to get warmer, we would have to travel back toward the origination point, toward the beginning of the bubble we're in.
michio kaku
Either that or to another bubble.
That's right.
In other words, we could be having this very same conversation in a bubble universe very, very far away, except there's one quantum difference that separates our two universes.
art bell
And that is?
michio kaku
You see?
art bell
And one can only imagine what the river would have been like if World War II had not taken place.
michio kaku
That's right.
Just one quantum event, just one cosmic ray going through the womb of a woman, would mean that Alexander the Great or Julius Caesar was never born.
art bell
Or it might mean, for example, that instead of dropping the bombs on Nagasaki and Hiroshima and then not using them again, at least to date, although that's a little wobbly right now, we might have stumbled into nuclear technology, developed it to a serious degree on both sides, and then used it and blown ourselves to smithereens.
michio kaku
That's right.
It's conceivable that there could be another bubble out there which is very close to ours, in which a few quantum events separate us, in which case, perhaps there was a nuclear war in that bubble, and perhaps there's no human life left there anymore.
art bell
All right.
There's something else that has been in the news which really, really was interesting.
Maybe you can explain how this could be.
unidentified
But there wasn't an L. They can have water.
art bell
They can have life.
I mean, that's Sitchin's stuff.
And could that...
michio kaku
Yes, these runaway planets are probably quite common.
And we used to think that there's no life on them because they're going to be very cold.
art bell
Or very hot, kind of like a comet passing near this and far from that.
michio kaku
Right.
However, we forgot about volcanic activity.
That's the new twist on all of this.
Europa, for example, which is a moon of Jupiter, we now believe has an ocean.
And at Jupiter's distance, these moons should be frozen solid.
But we see icebergs floating, icebergs floating on the surface of Europa, meaning that there's probably an ocean underneath the ice cover, which means that volcanic activity and tidal forces from Jupiter created enough heat at the center of the moon to liquefy the ice and to create liquid water.
And liquid water, in turn, is the universal solvent.
It dissolves most chemicals, except, of course, oils.
But because it dissolves most materials, you can get chemical reactions that would form things like DNA.
So that's why you have to have liquid water, the most precious substance in the universe.
And these one away planets were probably runaway because Jupiter Has a huge gravity that flung them into outer space.
Anything that gets too close to Jupiter is going to be flung into outer space.
And we think that Jupiter may have flung several Earth-sized planets into space, which are drifting now with volcanic activity perhaps at the center, which allows for liquid water and oceans.
However, these beings, perhaps, on these runaway planets are not going to have eyes.
They'll have no use for eyes because they'll be in deep space and they're not going to basically, it's going to be too dark to have any eyes of any use on these planets.
art bell
But occasionally they would pass near some sun, would they not?
michio kaku
That's right.
They're runaway.
So they would have very eccentric orbits.
But we have to be very careful in the future.
art bell
I wonder what life on a planet like that would be.
Aside from total darkness, there would be heat, there would be water, there could be life.
michio kaku
There could be continents, volcanic activity.
Parts of it would be frozen.
Parts of it would be liquid water form.
art bell
The sky would be changing radically all the time.
michio kaku
Yeah, its orbit would be quite erratic.
So it would pass close to the sun.
It would be quite elliptical.
For example, Pluto.
We think that Pluto's orbit is also quite eccentric because it got too close to Jupiter at one point.
art bell
Yeah, I heard they're trying to take Pluto's planetary status away by the way.
michio kaku
Yeah, right.
Well, there's something called the Kuiper Belt of comets that exists outside the orbit of Pluto.
And beyond that, the Oort cloud of comets.
And we think that Pluto is actually more like a comet than it is a planet.
It seems to be out of water and solid ice, in fact.
And that's what comets are made out of.
Comets are dirty snowballs, icebergs from out of space.
And by the way, we're going to slam into a comet in the next few years.
art bell
I know.
Oh, yes, yes.
They're calling it, they're swearing on a Bible, or no, probably not a Bible.
They're swearing on some whatever field manual they hold sacred that they did not cook up the name Deep Impact, which is the project name from the movie.
Do you believe them?
No.
No, I don't believe them either.
michio kaku
Right.
But it's going to be launched on January 2004, and it's scheduled to intercept the Tempel 1 comet.
Guess this?
On July 4th.
It's actually July 4th.
unidentified
I know.
michio kaku
2005, one year later.
art bell
Is that such a bright idea?
michio kaku
Well, I think it's a certain amount of propaganda from NASA, and they're going to shoot a half-ton object.
art bell
NASA, NASA, and NASA, you mean they have propaganda?
michio kaku
That's right, surprise.
Surprise, surprise.
But the impact will be visible from the planet Earth.
So Earth-based astronomers are being told to get your telescopes out and watch this spectacular as we slam this object.
It was 500 kilograms.
I have this data in front of me.
art bell
a 500 kilogram copper impactor onto this comet which was not scheduled to impact with earth but i mean once we blow it into But what if the thing breaks apart?
You can almost do the visual in a movie on that.
Doctor, hold on.
We'll pick up on that when we get back.
We are going to do that.
They are calling it deep impact.
And I'm telling you, this is the stuff of which movies are made.
It'll cost millions of taxpayer dollars.
And you can see this face going white, this scientific face going white as he calculates the new chunk orbit.
Faster than the speeding bullets.
unidentified
Considerably faster, actually.
Smashing into this comet.
art bell
Big enough that I've heard of it before, and they're going to do this on July 4th, 2000 and something or another.
And I just wonder about the advocacy of such a project.
It's actually going to take several million taxpayer dollars to accomplish this July 4th celebration.
We'll ask how advisable Dr. Kaku thinks it is in a moment.
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michio kaku
Create a crater, according to NASA, about the size of a football field.
A 60-foot deep hole, the size of a football field, created by this impact on July 4th, the year 2005.
Now, the Europeans, on the other hand, are doing their parallel launch in a much more sophisticated way.
They're launching the Rosetta space probe on 2003, and it's going to intercept the Wertan comet in the year 2011.
And they're going to basically send out a lifeline and harpoon it.
That is, put a small little harpoon in this gigantic comet and then land on it.
Rather than trying to smash into it, they're going to try to land on a comet in the year 2011.
art bell
Well, in the movies that I've seen, you remember when they were trying to get on the comet and there was all this debris?
unidentified
That's right.
art bell
So, can you harpoon the comet?
You'd have come up from behind it, right?
michio kaku
Yeah, it's going to be difficult.
It's going to be the first time that scientists have ever tried to actually land on a comet by harpooning it.
And the gravity of the comet is very low, so you can't land on it in a conventional sense.
You would have to grab hold of it somehow.
art bell
Unless it was the size of Texas.
michio kaku
Yeah, right.
These comets, by the way, are going to be about roughly 20 miles across, about the size of Manhattan.
Halley's Comet, we photographed that, the Giotto spacecraft photographed Halley's Comet.
It looks like a peanut, two lobes fused together.
So eventually Halley's Comet, the most famous comet, right, will break into two comets.
And it will have two Halley's comets twirling around the solar system.
art bell
But Doctor, here's something that I'm not quite clear on.
If we're not absolutely certain of the makeup of comets, and we must not be, because we're sending up spacecraft to try and capture debris To discern what the makeup of these comets is, if we're not really certain what the makeup is, and we pile drive this thing on July 4th,
2004, into a comet, isn't it possible that if we miscalculate its composition, then we have miscalculated the size of the dent or the effect of the impact?
michio kaku
It's conceivable.
These comets are not round.
They do tumble as they go in their orbit.
And the fact that they break apart into smaller comets means that they are peanut-shaped.
They're globs that are glued together by ice.
And if we hit it the wrong way, it's like hitting a diamond.
You can crack it if you hit a nodal point.
However, you know, these comets are big.
You know, we're talking about something roughly 15, 20 miles across.
And this object is only half a ton.
art bell
Yes, but is it really a good idea to do this?
michio kaku
Well, I think the Europeans are doing it correctly.
That is, they're simply going to elastho it.
They're going to try to land on the thing rather than just smash it and create a greater size of a football field.
art bell
Assuming that's what it does.
Somehow I envision, as in the movies, you know, all the clapping going on at the consoles and then somebody looking up at a board and noticing one of the big chunks is now on a trajectory, you know, for Manhattan or something.
michio kaku
Yeah, well, that would be bad if it actually knocked out a chunk of the comet, instead of just landing on it like a thud, it actually broke a piece of it off.
That would not be good.
art bell
Not good at all.
michio kaku
And the trajectories will diverge with time.
art bell
Yes.
michio kaku
And there's lots of debris that gets in the way of the orbit of the Earth, as we now know.
These are called near-Earth objects, N-E-Os, and they're quite dangerous if you come close to the Earth.
unidentified
Yes.
art bell
And so, you know, just somehow or another, I just, I don't know.
I read about what you're talking about, and I thought at the time this has a movie written all over it.
michio kaku
Yeah, now, one thing that I do disagree with NASA is the Cassini mission.
art bell
That's one thing where Cassini has plutonium on board, right?
michio kaku
That's right.
art bell
How much plutonium?
michio kaku
72 pounds of plutonium.
It's the mother of all radioactive space shots.
And it's coming back on August 17th.
art bell
August 17th.
michio kaku
It's going to whip around the planet Earth at around 700 miles distant from the Earth.
And everyone's going to be holding their fingers crossed because even though we expect it to be flawless, if it does hit a piece of space debris, if it hits a micrometeorite, if it hits a solar flare, and next year, of course, the solar cycle space starts off.
art bell
Lots and lots of solar flares.
michio kaku
Then we're in deep voodoo because if, in the small chance that it does, in fact, hit the Earth, we have a classified memo now from the government which says that tens of thousands could eventually die if that thing hits the earth.
And these are government figures now estimating that tens of thousands could die if the Cassini mission were in fact to hit the Earth.
art bell
How important is Cassini is coming to whiplash around Earth and gain speed so it can go out and do what?
michio kaku
So it can go out and visit Saturn and drop a probe onto Titan, which is a moon of Saturn.
Now remember that we've been there.
We've done that.
We've gone through the rings of Saturn, the Voyager spacecraft.
He was beautiful photographs of Saturn.
We've been to Saturn already.
The new thing is that they're going to be dropping this probe onto Titan, a moon of Saturn.
And, you know, I too would like to see what the surface of Titan looks like.
But, you know, it's Russian roulette.
It could kill the space program one of these days if one of these radioactive probes blows up or lands on the Earth.
You know, the Titan IV missile that launched the Cassini, the next two Titan IV launches blew up.
So if the Cassini mission were on any of the last two Titan IV missions, we would have had a catastrophe in Florida.
Fortunately, it was flawless, the mission.
And it just goes to show you how vulnerable our space program is to the unforeseen.
art bell
Well, in the larger scheme of things, how close, you said 400 miles, didn't you?
michio kaku
About 700 miles.
art bell
700 miles.
michio kaku
Just skimming the surface of the atmosphere.
art bell
Kind of like skimming a rock in a pond.
michio kaku
That's right.
It's just going to go right around the atmosphere and whip all the way to Jupiter and then to Saturn.
Now, my personal point of view is that it's Russian roulette.
Sooner or later, something's going to happen.
But recently, by the way, in France, there's a huge panic in Paris.
The New York Times had a big feature article on this a few days ago.
A lot of Parisians are going to be leaving Paris come August, next month, because of a quatrain of Nostradamus.
art bell
Oh, yes.
michio kaku
Now, I'm not superstitious or anything, but I almost fell off my chair.
art bell
No, it's the easiest.
michio kaku
When I read the quatrain of Nostradamus, which says in 1999, fire from the sky in the eighth month.
art bell
The king of terror, I believe.
michio kaku
Yeah, it depends on your translation.
And the people of Paris assume that it's the Mir space station that's going to fall down on Paris, of all places.
The Mir is going to be abandoned next month.
That's almost certain now.
art bell
They're not getting the money they need, and it's leaking air, and it's just a mess.
michio kaku
It's a bucket of bulbs.
And it's going to plunge into the Earth sometime early next year.
But the orbit will probably be unstable.
They're unable to send any kind of refueling operation because a missile blew up last month in Kazakhstan.
And the Kazakhstan government got very antsy about that and banned all missions from the Kazakhstan launch pad.
And it means that the Russians are not going to be able to send a repair mission to the Mir.
art bell
So what about the cosmonauts now?
michio kaku
There's three cosmonauts up there right now, and they're going to have to come down.
They're going to, again, abandon the space station next month.
And sometime early next year, it'll come flaming down.
Now, the...
Yeah, there is an option of an escape capsule, to my understanding.
But they were supposed to have this mission sent up in August to relieve the people up there.
But it doesn't look as if that mission is going to go because the government of Kazakhstan has temporarily banned all missions.
But the point I'm raising is that in the month of August, next month, we're going to have two things in the sky.
We're going to have to abandon the Mir space station.
The orbit could be quite unstable as a consequence of this lack of repairs.
And Cassini is going to be whipping by the Earth on August 17th.
art bell
Wonderful.
I also understand that on August 11th, there will be, across a good part of the world, a complete blockage of the sun.
michio kaku
That's right.
I was in England last month.
I was on a speaking tour of England for my book, Visions.
And it's in all the papers, you know, how to look at the eclipse and the best vantage points and what they should expect to see.
It's going to be the last astronomical spectacular in Europe for this millennium.
art bell
Well, there are, diving back to Nostradamus for a moment, a lot of people who feel that when this eclipse of the sun occurs, we will see something coming toward us or an object that should not be there and would not normally be seen except for the fact that the sun is blocked.
That's something to think about.
michio kaku
Something to think about, right.
And just six days later, Cassini is going to come, and then sometime during that month, they're going to abandon the Mir space station.
So there's going to be a lot of activity in out of space.
And that's why some people are emailing President Clinton, asking Clinton to change the orbit, the trajectory of Cassini, and send it into the sun rather than having it whip around the Earth like that.
art bell
Are you a supporter of that?
michio kaku
Yes, because we've gotten a lot of information from Cassini already.
It's been orbiting Venus in the last several months.
unidentified
Yes.
michio kaku
And it is a $3.5 billion project, but it's also a dinosaur.
It's the last of the great Plutonian missions.
They have smaller missions in the future plan.
Eight more Plutonian missions have been planned, which I don't think is a good idea either.
But this is the mother of all Plutonian missions.
It's a huge, gigantic dinosaur.
It weighs about 13 tons.
And they should have split it apart into smaller missions.
Then they can use solar power.
They can use the energy of the sun by having small missions to Saturn.
art bell
Now, what's the worst case?
Let's say something does happen.
I mean, 700 miles, that's nothing.
michio kaku
That's nothing.
art bell
Nothing.
And so let's say worst case occurs and she re-enters.
michio kaku
Well, it's going to come in at 42,000 miles per hour, which is much, many times faster than a speeding bullet.
It has no heat shield.
It'll hit the Earth's atmosphere and tumble, and it will disintegrate and break up.
And NASA's own study shows that 30% of it will disintegrate as it impacts on the atmosphere, releasing plutonium.
70% will land on the Earth.
That 70% of 72 pounds will come plunging like a flaming meteor from outer space.
And if it lands on dirt, it will then pulverize.
And 60% of it will then become aerosol-sized particles, about five microns across, which are inhalable.
And in the best case scenario, there's no wind, so that the plutonium will stay within a mile of impact site.
But usually the winds blow.
When the winds blow, you're talking about sending plutonium perhaps 100 miles, 200 miles downwind.
And this has actually happened before.
The Cosmos 954 satellite of 1978 actually did plunge into the Earth with 100 pounds of enriched uranium, and it hit the Northwest Territories of Canada.
art bell
I recall.
michio kaku
Yeah, the CIA sent a whole dog team there to reclaim a Soviet reactor that fell from out of space.
It contaminated 300 miles of Canadian territory, Canadian soil, in the Northwest territories.
Fortunately, that's all tundra.
But we're going to have to keep our fingers crossed if Cassini hits a piece of space debris or we lose radio contact with it or the rockets don't fire on time.
And if it hits the Earth and the winds blow, we're talking about releasing radioactive materials hundreds of miles downwind.
In which case, the government itself admits that tens of thousands could die.
I've done my own calculation.
unidentified
I put it more like 200,000.
michio kaku
And Professor John Goffman, who helped to isolate plutonium many years ago, he estimated that up to a million in a worst-case scenario with lots of wind blowing and lots of plutonium getting into people's backyards, a million people could be killed in case of an accident.
art bell
How's it going with respect to the idea of getting the president to order this thing sent to the sun rather than around the earth?
In other words, what are they doing?
michio kaku
Well, right now, NASA's doing nothing except monitoring it.
The space probe is on a perfect trajectory, so chances are next month we'll all congratulate ourselves and say that, well, see, we made it this time.
However, you know, there is a chance that, like Russian roulette, your number could come up.
It's all a question of luck.
And that's why people are urging President Clinton to rethink this.
Even before the October launch, I think the largest number of telegrams and emails recorded in recent memory occurred just before the Cassini launch.
And I'm told that you were partly responsible for that.
I'm told that you had a program on the Cassini mission before the launch.
art bell
I certainly did.
michio kaku
And as a consequence, one of the largest numbers of telegrams and emails in White House memory were launched with the President of the United States.
art bell
For all the good it did.
They went ahead anyway.
michio kaku
Well, you know, Clinton actually thought twice about it, you know.
He actually asked his science advisor, what is this ruckus all about?
And that's when his science advisor gave him this secret memo, which we now have a copy of, which says, Mr. President, you know, tens of Thousands could be killed, but we don't expect it to happen, so we recommend that you launch the mission.
art bell
You have this memo.
michio kaku
We have the memo, yeah.
Dr. Earl Buden of Los Angeles was the one who got this memo, and it's been circulated now on the internet.
And you can actually read it.
art bell
Where can we get this?
I would like to get it up.
unidentified
Yeah, the I'll get the web page for you.
michio kaku
I don't have it right in front of me.
art bell
All right.
michio kaku
But there is a web page address of a group in Florida, the Florida Coalition for Peace and Justice.
And they have a web page.
In fact, yahoo.com would locate that web page for you.
unidentified
Florida Coalition for Peace Justice for Peace and Justice in Gainesville, Florida.
michio kaku
They have a web page.
In fact, you can even dial Cassini in yahoo.com and get their webpage.
And they have the memo reprinted showing that even as NASA denies that anyone would be killed by this mission, they were telling the President of the United States that they admit that tens of thousands could, in fact, be killed by cancer.
You know, it takes tens of, you know, 20, 30, 40 years to get cancer from this mission.
But if it were to re-enter, the postponing would be sufficient to cause considerable damage to the Earth.
art bell
Is there enough of a risk of that, Doctor, in your opinion, that we should have a drive to begin conversing again with the White House?
michio kaku
I think so, because even though we're very close now to the flyby, we could still change the orbit by firing the retro rocket.
It doesn't come so close to the Earth.
It would just simply miss that Earth, but it would go around the Sun and eventually go into the Sun.
So, and the radioactive materials do not have a very long half-life.
In a few centuries, it would be not that harmful.
But at the present time, it's quite dangerous.
And that's why, even within NASA, there have been quite a few defections within NASA, NASA workers who say, you know, I disagree with my employer.
The guy who helped to arrange evacuation plans for Florida, I met with him once, and he told me that he had evacuation plans drawn up in case there was an explosion, and they, you know, would track the cloud of plutonium.
And in some scenarios, they had the plutonium going into Disney World.
unidentified
Disney World.
michio kaku
Now, if you can imagine the chaos in the economy, it would be a national crisis if the mission blew up on the launch pad, the winds changed direction, and plutonium sailed in Disney World.
art bell
I think I've got the picture.
Hold on, Doctor.
All right, Dr. Michio Kaku is my guest.
We're going to see if we can get a link to that memo.
I'm going to talk to Keith right now.
The secret NASA memo.
Would you like to read it?
We'll see what we can do.
Stay right there.
unidentified
You can dance.
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PWHN, 1320.
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Splints on her bag and delivers the mail.
Mr. Jones tears open his envelope, finds his federal government payment, and he's off.
art bell
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unidentified
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unidentified
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art bell
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art bell
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unidentified
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I need a clock that has more time.
art bell
More time?
unidentified
My dad says he wishes he had more time with me.
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art bell
Now, it'd be no trouble at all to back up some minutes.
Family.
unidentified
Well, didn't you ever hear your dad say, just as soon as I have a minute?
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art bell
Isn't it about time?
unidentified
Now you can get him one.
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art bell
So, you know, it really boils down to this.
You've got to ask yourself, do I feel lucky this August?
unidentified
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This is Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell.
art bell
She'll be coming around the mountain when she comes with 72 pounds of plutonium.
Do you feel lucky?
My guest is one of our nation's greatest theoretical physicists.
That's a hard word to say.
Dr. Michio Kaku, and he'll be back in a moment.
The AMT Model 2 Night Vision Spotting Scope is a remarkable device.
It enables you to see in the dark, and I mean dead dark, no light at all.
Normally, this light amplification...
michio kaku
...are restricting the use of sonograms and ultrasounds.
Because peasants will do everything.
the monkey with their teams, if they can get a hand on the technology.
art bell
Doctor, is it possible that somebody with the genetic misfortune of Dr. Hawking also had the genetic fortune that produced the mind?
And you might answer that question with yourself in mind as well.
michio kaku
Well, I've often thought about that question because, you know, Stephen is so different from the rest of us.
I mean, how many of us could be trapped in a body that doesn't respond to the brain and yet come out with fantastic equations?
art bell
Precisely, yes.
michio kaku
But Einstein's brain, as you know, Einstein's brain is still kicking around.
And just a few weeks ago, it was announced that Einstein's brain is different.
art bell
Bigger, actually.
michio kaku
A certain area of the brain that deals with, you know, abstract concepts was, in fact, different from the rest of us.
And I tend to think that you can, by exercising yourself, by exercising your brain, train yourself to manipulate equations.
Personally, I think that musicians probably have something very similar because they have to read script.
Musical script?
art bell
Correct.
michio kaku
And if you were to read musical script, it looks like chicken scratches.
But to a musician, it resonates as music.
And the same thing with equations.
If I show you my equations, it'll be like chicken scratches.
But to me, it resonates as the laws of science, the laws of nature.
art bell
So your brain is operating in a very different way.
michio kaku
In a very different way.
And perhaps simply by exercising your brain, the neurons reconnect themselves so that they have the capability of manipulating equations just like you manipulate musical scores.
art bell
Yes, but you're suggesting it's mostly environmental when perhaps it is not.
michio kaku
Well, perhaps Einstein had the luck of the draw and was endowed with a brain that had this capability that now shows up on the autopsy slices.
His brain has been sliced up.
And by Analyzing these slides, you can see that his brain was, in fact, different from our brain.
Okay?
But that doesn't mean that your listening audience should just give up hope and say that they'll never become smart like Einstein.
I personally think that if you have the right mentor, if you have the right education system, the right encouragement, then you too could master many of these equations.
art bell
Well, you embrace the concept that we have evolved.
Do you not?
unidentified
Yes.
michio kaku
Evolution, I think we see it everywhere.
art bell
Could there be an occasional hiccup in evolution?
Could Einstein have been a hiccup genetically in evolution?
michio kaku
It's possible.
You know, the greatest mathematical genius of this century was Ramanujan, who was an obscure Indian mathematician who stunned the world of European mathematics around 1910 or so when he came out with equations that were literally decades, centuries ahead of his time.
And many people have speculated that this supernova called Ramanujan, who died when he was about 30 years old, could have been a genetic hiccup.
And by the way, if you read his work, his work is defined in 24 dimensions, which relates to string theory, because we string theorists use the Hardy-Ramanajan function in eight dimensions to give us the 10-dimensional hyperspatial string theory.
So we actually use the work of Ramanujan done, you know, 70, 80 years ago, as the fundamental equations which fix the dimension of space-time to be 10.
And it is because of his work, people ask why 10, right?
It's because of his work on the elliptic modular function that fixes the dimension of space-time to be 10.
art bell
So then, if we could genetically manipulate human beings into Einstein and beyond, you would be for or against that?
michio kaku
Well, gee, that's a tough one, right?
I would be against genetically modifying people just to make them prettier, because that's what parents would like to do.
You know, why do children buy pimple cream?
Why do they put on makeup?
Why do they try to build up their muscles, right?
art bell
Right.
michio kaku
So if we have the genetic capability of looking like Marilyn Monroe or Arnold Schwarzenegger, right?
art bell
Right.
michio kaku
I think a lot of people will reach for that.
And I think that's where laws have to be passed, or else we'll all look like Marilyn Monroe.
And that's probably going to be the end of the human race.
So I think that we should pass laws on that.
However, as far as genius is concerned, it may take many decades before we can isolate genes for that.
By 2003, in fact, we already expect the Human Genome Project to list all the genes of a human being.
And by 2020, each of us may have a credit card with our genes on it.
Personal gene sequencing may be possible between 2020 and 2030 at the rate at which we are going, doubling the number of genes every two years that we can sequence.
At that doubling rate of two years, we should have personalized DNA sequencing on our credit cards after 2020.
And that's when we might be able to monkey with some of our genes.
And I would hope that when we have the power of a God, that we have the wisdom of Solomon to go with it.
And I think wisdom in this case is going to have to come from democratic discussion, vigorous democratic debate about how far we want to go in terms of redesigning ourselves.
art bell
Well, one way to look ahead would be to say, look at our technological development today.
Do we have the wisdom that matches our capability today?
michio kaku
Right.
And you should look at nuclear weapons.
Are you nations that have them?
art bell
I am.
And so the answer to that is a probable no.
michio kaku
Right, and this technology is more powerful than the atomic bomb, you realize.
art bell
Indeed.
michio kaku
We're talking about the power of a god, the power to rearrange life in our image.
And again, we can't do this now.
We can barely manipulate single genes now.
But by 2020, we should be able to manipulate collections of genes and understand what they do in the human body.
And after 2020, we may have this ability.
art bell
So you really have to ask yourself, would you see a President Clinton or a Boris Yeltsin invested with such power right now?
michio kaku
Right now?
No, I think Clinton and Yeltsin are perhaps not the best representatives of the human species.
art bell
All right, very quickly, I just heard that element 114 has been created, and it lasted about 30 seconds, which is quite a long time.
And they're looking ahead now to element 115, and they're thinking that element 115, when they create it, might actually be stable.
michio kaku
Could that be?
Yeah, first of all, these elements usually last just for, you know, billionths of a second.
However, when I was at Berkeley getting my PhD there in the early 1970s, there was a theory kicking around, which has since blossomed into a much larger theory, that says that when you slam heavy ions together and you start to build elements that are huge,
way beyond uranium, then there could be what is called an island of stability, where there's a small pocket of elements with very large masses, which are in fact stable, or at least stable compared to these billionths of a second lifespan.
art bell
And there's some speculation that they're approaching that with 115.
michio kaku
Yeah, I haven't kept up with that, so I'm not sure exactly what the numbers are, but it was announced a few months ago that we've created these super heavy elements that are way beyond nobelium.
And there's then the speculation that we could create these super elements that are what are called metastable.
They would be stable for long periods of time compared to ordinary elements, and they would represent a new state of matter.
art bell
On behalf of everybody out there who doesn't know the answer to this question, what good would that do us?
michio kaku
Well, in the short term, probably nothing.
In the long term, we are talking about new states of matter.
And previous states of matter that we've analyzed have opened up the industrial age, opened up the age of electricity, opened up the age of nuclear weapons and nuclear energy.
And we're talking about new forms of matter that may have bizarre chemical properties.
And we are now at the level where we can manipulate individual atoms with what is called nanotechnology.
And we're even discovering that simple elements like carbon can create carbon nanotubes, carbon webs, carbon buckyballs, which conduct electricity and are tougher than steel.
So in the future, we may use these elements to create what is called a hyper-car, a car made out of carbon that is tougher than steel, but is made out of carbon resin and these carbon nanotubes.
So every time we discover a new element, we look at its chemical properties, and we're dazzled by the chemical properties of even simple things like carbon.
art bell
All right, I really have got to get to the phones.
I've delayed too long.
They really want to talk to you.
First time caller line, you're on the air with Dr. Michio Kaku.
Hi.
unidentified
Yes.
Hi, Art Bill.
Terrific show as usual.
art bell
Thank you.
You're going to have to yell at us here.
unidentified
Okay, good.
I'd be happy to.
Dr. Kaku, I've read your book, Hyperspace.
I find it fascinating.
I'm looking forward to visions.
I have a question note.
Does M theory, actually two questions related, does M theory shed any light on the so-called boundary problem of the standard model where some of the large things found like the great attractor actually cannot have been created within the time usually given for the life of the universe?
And is that something that M-theory sheds any light on?
michio kaku
Okay, you asked two questions.
First of all, about M-theory.
We now believe that there could be an 11th dimension.
Okay, this comes out of Princeton.
And there's a guy named Ed Witten, who Scientific American once called the smartest man on earth.
And I tend to agree with that assessment.
He's the leader of the pack.
And he came out with this idea that in the 11th dimension, we have membranes.
That's what M stands for, okay, or the mother of all strings.
In 10 dimensions, we have five string theories, five of them.
And Einstein once thought that the universe should be unique.
There shouldn't be five universes.
There should only be one universe.
God should not have had a choice in making the universe.
That was Einstein's famous comment.
Did God have a choice in making the universe?
So we have five string theories in 10 dimensions, but in 11 dimensions, they're all unified as one.
So we think there is a master theory, the mother of strings, which we call M-theory, which is still not fleshed out yet.
No one actually knows what M-theory is.
In fact, that's what I'm working on right now, is trying to find out the properties of M-theory in 11 dimensions.
And in 12 dimensions, by the way, the people at Harvard have speculated that there could be even a 12-dimensional theory lurking out there with two times.
Not one time, but two times.
So it would take two clocks to specify an event.
Now, you ask a question about the great attractor.
It turns out that in our universe, our universe is quite lumpy.
If you take a look at the galaxies around us, they're quite lumpy.
And we have globs of them called great attractors and other kinds of formulations, blobs of galaxies, and also holes where there are no galaxies at all.
And the question is, did the universe have enough time to create these fluctuations?
art bell
Doctor, hold it right there.
And caller, hold it right there.
We have to do it.
The clock says we have to do it.
So we'll pause here and be right back.
unidentified
When I was young, it seemed that life was so wonderful.
A miracle.
Oh, it was beautiful, magical.
And all the birds in the trees made me singing so happily.
Oh, joyfully.
Oh, they joyfully.
Western Arkansas and eastern Oklahoma is the most beautiful place where people take pride in their wands and gardens.
But if you're having little success producing the ideal tomato or a patch of Bermuda grass, then maybe I can help.
Hi, I'm Jerry Baker, your host for On the Garden Line, herd right here on KWHN.
Each Saturday morning from 7 to 9, I'll take your live questions on everything from aphids to zoisia.
And all you have to do is call On the Garden Line Saturday morning on News Talk 1320 KWHN.
This is KWHN, Oklahoma weather.
This is your official KWHN forecast from the Dumpling 5 Storm Center.
Today's going to be partly cloudy, slight chance of showers and thunderstorms, behind the lower 90s.
Tonight, mostly clear, blowing near 70s.
Tomorrow's going to be partly cloudy, slight chance of showers and thunderstorms any afternoon, behind the lower 90s.
And tomorrow night's going to be mostly clear, blowing the lower 70s.
It is 77 degrees.
That's the one you depend on.
michio kaku
KWHN, 1320.
unidentified
News Taunt 1320, KWHN, Fortsman.
Carrasco, 17, from El Paso, Texas, killed by a drunk driver.
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All killed by drunk drivers.
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Melanie Taylor, Brian Elliott, Michael Reed Jr.
You can do something about it.
You can help prevent tragedies like these.
If someone you know has had too much to drink to safely drive, get the keys.
Now a moment of silence for all those who've died and for the estimated 16,000 who are going to die this year.
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When I think back on it, that was one of the scariest days of my life.
I was young, overseas, and all of a sudden I'm in the middle of a battle.
But the day I went to the doctor and discovered I was going blind was even scarier.
For some time, I'd noticed blurring of my central vision and difficulty seeing at night.
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Unfortunately, many Americans don't recognize the signs of retinal degenerative disease.
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Diseases such as retinitis pigmentosa and macular degeneration.
That's why the Foundation Fighting Blindness is working to end vision loss through research.
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Today, if one of my friends tells me they have trouble seeing, I tell them to go to the doctor right away.
If you or a loved one are affected by a retinal degenerative disease, contact the Foundation Fighting Blindness at 1-800-394-8280.
It takes vision to find a cure.
When I opened the door, my sister gasped.
Susan, she said, you look like you haven't slept in years.
She didn't know how right she was.
It was my husband, Jack.
He snored like a freight train all night long.
But it wasn't the noise that kept me up.
It was the long silences in between when Jack would stop breathing.
I'd lie awake worrying.
Then finally he'd gasp for air and start snoring again.
This went on all night long.
In the morning, we both felt like we hadn't slept at all.
I fell asleep at work once.
Jack behind the wheel.
This had to stop.
So with my sister's encouragement, I got Jack to a doctor.
Turns out, Jack has sleep apnea, which can be life-threatening.
But with treatment, we've got it under control.
Better still, we've got our lives back.
Sleep apnea.
It's no way to sleep.
It's no way to live.
A public service message from the National Center on Sleep Disorders Research of the National Institutes of Health.
The National Institutes of Health.
The National Institutes of Health.
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This is Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell on the Premier Radio Networks.
art bell
We're actually getting quite a bit closer to this memo.
We don't have it yet.
This is a memo that went from the President's Science Advisor to the President just prior to the launch of Cassini.
And I have an article entitled The Cassini Gamble, in part signed by Dr. Earl Button, B-U-D-I-N.
And he had something to do with releasing the memo, I believe.
So we're still looking for that memo, and we're going to get it one way or the other.
If you're onto it, if you have found this memo that probably was not supposed to be released, but it's up there on the net somewhere, simply send some email, please, as soon as possible to my webmaster.
It would be webmaster at artbell.com.
That's webmaster at artbell.com if you locate that memo, and then we'll get it up for everybody to see.
In a moment, Dr. Kaku will be right back, and I think we were talking about blobs of something with a caller who's still on the line, so stay right where you are.
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On July 28, 1865, just three months after the assassination of President Lincoln, the steamship S.S. Brother Jonathan left the port of San Francisco.
Who could possibly have known that in just two days' time after encountering a vicious storm, she'd be at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean along with her cargo and 90% of her passengers and crew?
It was known that a part of that cargo was an Army payroll of $200,000 plus in gold coins.
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Once again, Dr. Minchiu Kaku and our caller.
Caller, you're back on.
unidentified
Yes, thank you.
art bell
Go ahead, Doctor.
michio kaku
Yes, so the question was, if we have a theory of everything, the latest version of string theory is now called M-theory, would it explain the fact that galaxies in the heavens clump the way they do?
Now let's get back to that bubble analogy of beer that we talked about at the beginning.
That soap bubble or the bubble of beer that expanded was actually a little bit irregular.
And it was irregular because of the quantum theory, because of uncertainty.
If it was perfectly smooth, that would violate the uncertainty principle.
So there were fluctuations.
It was kind of like a bumpy bubble, like a golf ball.
As it expanded, these little wrinkles in this bubble created the galaxies and the great attractor and all the clumpiness that we see around us.
So in principle, yes, if we have a theory of everything, we would also have the ability to calculate why the universe is so irregular as it is today.
We would be able to calculate the distribution of dark matter as well as ordinary matter and predict from first principles why the universe has clumpiness.
unidentified
But does it also address that horizon issue whether or not there was time for something that was 60 billion light years across to get out there within, say, the $10 to $15 billion estimated life of the universe?
michio kaku
Yeah, you're talking about the fact that the clumpiness started pretty early.
Right.
The Colby satellite that was sent into orbit a few years ago to calculate the cosmic background took a picture of the echo of the Big Bang.
The media called it the face of God.
Remember that picture that came out the face of God?
art bell
I sure do.
michio kaku
That was actually not the face of God at all.
The media went crazy over that picture.
But it did show the clumpiness.
It did show the irregularity in the echo of the Big Bang.
And these irregularity, of course, was expanded as the bubble expanded.
And the expansion of the bubble created an expansion of these wrinkles, like in a golf ball, to create the clumpiness that we see around us.
Now, the color says that was there enough time to do it so quickly?
You know that galaxies started about a billion years after the Big Bang.
And that depends on how much dark matter there was in the universe.
And we're still calculating how much dark matter there is.
Dark matter, by the way, makes up perhaps 90% of the universe.
It is dark.
It is invisible.
If I had a piece of it in my hand and dropped it on your foot, you'd feel it.
But it's invisible.
Some of it is made out of neutrinos, but the other part of dark matter is yet unknown.
art bell
You would feel something invisible?
michio kaku
Yeah, it has no electromagnetic properties, but it has gravitational properties.
So if I had a piece of it, like a rock of it, it'd be invisible.
But if I dropped it on your foot, because of gravity, you'd feel it.
Now, the leading candidate for dark matter is the Fotino, which is the higher vibration of the string.
So string theory says that matter consists of vibrating strings.
In other words, we all consist of music, music of these, a symphony, in fact, of these vibrating strings.
The leading theory of dark matter is the Fotino, the super photon, the super partner of light.
And depending upon how much dark matter there is, you can get the clumpiness that the caller talked about, the great attractor and the different kinds of clumpiness that we see in the universe.
art bell
All right.
I've got two other quick questions I want to hit you with.
The world was just shocked yesterday when China announced that it has a neutron bomb.
michio kaku
That's right.
art bell
And it occurred to me to ask you, what the hell is a neutron bomb?
And the only thing I know is that it seems it's advertised to kill people without blowing things up.
michio kaku
Right.
It's called the landlord's bomb because it's a very clever way to evict the tenants while keeping the rental property intact.
A neutron bomb is a stripped-down hydrogen bomb.
art bell
Stripped down.
michio kaku
A hydrogen bomb has three layers to it.
Okay, I know this because many of my friends design hydrogen warheads.
And many years ago, I was offered a job, in fact, to design warheads.
I turned it down.
The first layer is a fission bomb, an atomic bomb that goes off.
That ignites a casing of lithium deuteride.
Lithium deuteride has hydrogen in it, and that creates a hydrogen bomb.
And then there's a blanket of uranium surrounding that, which is energized by the hydrogen bomb, and that gives you a kick, a 50% greater Kick in the intensity of the bomb.
A neutron bomb has the third layer missing.
It's a stripped-down hydrogen bomb.
Therefore, most of its radiation is not in the form of heat or blast.
Most of the energy is in the form of neutrons, which can go right through you.
And a neutron bomb, therefore, blankets an area with neutrons which kill organic material.
It goes through your DNA, disrupts the chromosome, creates free radicals, creates all sorts of cellular mischief, and kills you.
But property stays intact.
art bell
Does it kill you quickly?
michio kaku
No.
You may not know this, but there have been several Americans that have been literally blown apart in nuclear accidents at Los Alamos.
art bell
No, I didn't know that.
michio kaku
Where they had the force of an atomic bomb go off in their chest.
These people were playing with plutonium hemispheres at Los Alamos, and that's how we know so much about this.
Harry Daglian, one month after the Nagasaki bomb, was playing with a small hemispheres of plutonium, and he tripped.
He tripped, and he hit the tungsten carbide in a small reactor that he was building.
The tungsten carbide reflected the neutrons, and there was a small nuclear detonation that took place in his face.
This was kept secret for many decades.
There's even a Hollywood movie called Little Boy and Fat Man with Paul Newman.
art bell
I've seen it.
michio kaku
Where they actually had a scene, where they actually had this scene reproduced in the film, where he was hit with something like 5,000 rads of neutrons that's 10 times more than what will kill you.
He had 10 times that.
And a few months later, Louis Schlutton, a Canadian physicist of Russian parentage, he actually had two hemispheres of plutonium on a tabletop.
Get this, on a tabletop, with a screwdriver.
art bell
Yes.
michio kaku
As he turned the screwdriver, these plutonium hemispheres got closer and closer together.
And then there was a Geiger counter, which showed that it was going off scale.
And then, of course, he would unscrew these two plutonium hemispheres.
Well, in 1946, in fact, I have the autopsy report, so I know all the details of this.
In 1946, he turned the hemispheres one screw turned too many.
There was a beryllium cuff that also reflected neutrons.
He saw the Geiger-Connor needle go off scale, and he suddenly realized that there would be a nuclear detonation in his laboratory.
So he lunged forward, grabbed these two hemispheres with his bare hands, and ripped these two hemispheres from detonating.
He took the entire explosion in his stomach, and he didn't feel a thing because those neutrons go right through you, right?
art bell
Yes.
michio kaku
He was hit with, again, about 5,000 rads of radiation, about 10 times what will kill you.
And these two individuals died a slow death.
They died.
There were calculations estimating the damage to Jupiter, and it was minimal.
art bell
Doctor, hold on.
Here we are once again at the bottom of the hour from the high desert.
I'm Art Bell.
This is Coast to Coast AL.
michio kaku
With a watch, we'll be able to access the internet in 2020.
art bell
But it is, though, moving towards centralization.
I mean, we went from villages to trading between villages and then cities and then states and then, or counties and states and then nations, and now we're forming blocks of nations.
And the natural progression would seem to be toward an eventual single entity of some sort.
michio kaku
Well, that's why I talk about a planetary civilization rather than specifically saying what type of government that civilization will attain.
The fact that the Earth is finite and the fact that computer power doubles every 18 months, that's Moore's law, means that it's inevitable.
We have no choice, that we will become a planetary civilization.
And you see it every time you read the newspaper, every time you read about cyberspace, the internet, telecommunications, you see the beginning of a Type 1 civilization.
The system of government that people choose, I would hope, is going to be done democratically.
And people will basically vote as to what type of government they want.
But I think the fact that we are becoming planetary is, in fact, almost mandated by the laws of physics.
We are finite on a finite Earth, but telecommunications are bringing the distance between any two humans to zero.
So when people wake up in the morning, they dial onto the internet and they talk to people halfway around the world.
art bell
You're absolutely correct.
It's very addictive.
First time caller line, you're on the air with Dr. Michio Kaku.
michio kaku
Hi.
I have a question.
unidentified
All right, do you feel about chaos theory?
michio kaku
Okay, chaos theory, I think, was overhyped five to seven years ago when it first came out.
Chaos theory is nothing but Newton's laws of motion, not even Einstein's, for large systems like the weather.
And we once hoped that we could perhaps predict the stock market, become rich, predict the weather, help farmers with chaos theory.
But chaos theory was a disappointment because it's very general.
You really can't say much about predicting the weather other than that it's unpredictable.
So, you know, we sort of knew that ahead of time.
So chaos theory, I think, is probably correct, but it doesn't give us anything useful that we can use in our daily life other than these beautiful curves and charts and very mystical type statements like chaos theory and complexity, what have you.
So I think it's sort of like catastrophe theory 20 years ago.
20 years ago, mathematicians thought that catastrophe theory would allow us to model the stock market and earthquakes and all sorts of catastrophic events.
But catastrophe Theory came out to be so general that we couldn't do anything on the stock market with it.
And the same thing with chaos theory.
I don't think you can predict a stock market with chaos theory or the weather other than to say very qualitative things like storms will form and you will have clouds.
But day-to-day prediction is simply not possible.
art bell
Well, what does seem to be occurring, though, is a short cyclical change or a profound long-term change.
We would have no way of knowing, but the weather seems to be genuinely changing right now, becoming more violent, as though there is more heat on the planet, heat equaling energy, equaling very violent storms, hurricanes, tornadoes, whatever.
We're getting a lot more of it, and they're now talking about meteorologists are talking about actual change, couching their language very carefully.
Disaster agencies are talking about super disasters.
So, you know, there's something in the air.
It's changing.
michio kaku
Definitely.
The South Pole is slowly beginning to break apart.
The Lawrence and Ice Shelf is unstable.
Parts of Alaska are beginning to thaw out now.
And sea levels, we think, are going to begin to rise in the 21st century, which means that many parts of the United States could be underwater in the 21st century.
So we are talking about, yes, pollution creating a global warming.
The first effects will be felt with superhurricanes, breaking up of the ice cap very slowly, melting of the tundra of Alaska, and this is all happening now.
art bell
Do you think there will be a critical mass point where there is a collective realization that this change is underway and accelerating?
We may not be quite there, but you can sort of feel the first vibrations of people realizing that, oh, we're in deep doo-doo, right?
That's right.
michio kaku
Yeah, you can see that all arrows indicate global warming.
There's not a single arrow in the other direction.
If there was a mix of arrows, some pointing to a higher temperature, some pointing to a lower temperature, then you could say that the theory is still half-baked.
But every indicator shows that the Earth is heating up.
In fact, it's the hottest it's been in a thousand years.
By looking at tree rings and looking at ice cores from Greenland, by drilling into the ice, you can calculate temperatures actually going back 200,000 years.
And you realize that the temperature of the Earth today is the hottest it's been in a thousand years.
art bell
So we could be moving from half-baked to fully baked.
michio kaku
That's right.
unidentified
Okay.
art bell
Wild Carteline, you're on the air with Dr. Mitrio Kaku.
unidentified
Hi.
Hi, Art.
Hi, Dr. Kaku.
Yes.
Your voice sounds a lot higher over the phone, too.
Do you have a filter that you use when you're on the air?
art bell
Well, there's a lot of broadcast.
unidentified
Yeah, because the bandwidth seems...
art bell
Look, yes, of course it's wider.
A telephone cuts off at about 3,000 or so.
And the human voice, the human ear rather, can actually perceive up to, oh, I don't know, 19 or 20 if you're really in good hearing.
So there's a vast difference between what you would hear, say, on a good FM station and what you hear on the phone.
That's it.
unidentified
Okay, so it's the speaker module then?
art bell
Yes.
unidentified
Okay.
My question concerns Dr. Kaku.
I can only imagine you're familiar with Dr. Baum's holographic theory.
michio kaku
I've heard of it.
There's no mathematics behind it, but go on.
unidentified
And then it seems to explain a lot of similar phenomenon that dark matter does as well.
And if there's any crossover there, and if there is, has this technology, I guess since it's not really mathematical, if it's been integrated successfully into any sort of a technological means?
michio kaku
Well, the holographic universe idea you're talking about, I think, right?
Is a theory, but it's not a theory that's reduced to equations.
Equations are the language that we use.
And until it can be placed into equations, we can't test it.
We can't do anything with it.
However, dark matter, on the other hand, is real.
The Hubble Space Telescope has now calculated the deflection of light as it goes through dark matter.
And we now know that there is this invisible substance out there that has gravity, but is invisible.
You can't see it.
Pictures of galaxies show galaxies, but you don't see a halo.
There's no gigantic sphere surrounding a galaxy, which contains 90% of the mass of the galaxy.
So 90% of the universe is missing.
So this has been verified by the Hubble Space Telescope and indirectly by many other experiments that have been done.
In fact, in your room, there's probably dark matter flowing around, except our instruments are too insensitive to pick up the dark matter in your room.
But we do think that 90% of the universe is, in fact, dark.
unidentified
And is there a way to tap into this field and use it in any means?
How far are we beyond acknowledging that it exists?
michio kaku
Well, some of the models show that a lot of this dark matter is intergalactic and surrounds the galaxies.
So even though some of it would be in your room right in front of you, it'd be pretty much invisible and not usable.
You couldn't be able to generate a machine or energy out of this.
art bell
However, when you're talking about deep space drives, if it's matter, if it's dark matter and you're going very fast, you would presumably be passing by a great deal of it.
Could it be used?
Is that one potential?
michio kaku
Well, one potential I mentioned is the ramjet fusion engine, which scoops hydrogen gas And fuses it.
And once we figure out what dark matter is, a stable, invisible solid matter that has gravity, then perhaps we can use that as energy supply.
It's conceivable in the same way that a ramjet fusion engine uses interstellar hydrogen gas as its fuel supply.
So it'll run forever.
You never have to recharge it.
art bell
And really, the faster you go, the more you get.
michio kaku
That's right.
art bell
The faster you go.
michio kaku
That's right.
art bell
East of the Rockies, you're on the air with Dr. Michio Kaku.
unidentified
Hi.
Good morning.
art bell
Good morning.
unidentified
Yes, it's Isaac in New York.
I've been looking at a lot of data recently regarding this Cassini mission, and I've been hearing Dr. Kaku's comments on it.
And I'm really thrown for a loop as to many incidents that have been suggested when this could go wrong.
The spacecraft has already survived solar flares.
I mean, we've heard these reported recently, even on this show.
art bell
But, sir, are you aware that solar flares or ejecta, should that occur, actually depress our atmosphere when they strike Earth?
Oh, certainly.
This spacecraft is coming within 700 miles of Earth.
unidentified
I understand that, Bunch.
The biggest problem that's been suggested from solar flares is that the electronics fizzle out and all of a sudden the craft loses communications, which really wouldn't have any effect anyway, since it's already on its trajectory and will simply dumbly swing by the Earth.
But assuming that it gets that far, the other suggestion has been a micrometeorite impact where possibly one of a million trajectories would even bring it into the Earth.
art bell
Or collision with so much junk.
I mean, when you're in 700 miles, you're in the junk area.
unidentified
True.
But I've got to say that.
michio kaku
Some of your comments are correct.
Let me try to adjust your comments.
The closer Cassini comes to the planet Earth, the more likely that it will swing around the Earth, assuming it doesn't hit the debris that surrounds the planet Earth.
So it's a question of time.
You cannot make an absolute statement.
When it was orbiting Venus, for example, very small corrections in its trajectory would have created tremendous deviations further down the line.
Now we're getting closer and closer.
It's only a month away now.
So there's a lot of truth to what you say.
It's on a trajectory.
It's a lot of energy as a consequence.
It would take a certain amount of energy to knock it off course.
What I'm saying is, however, that in the past, we've had rockets fire incorrectly.
We had a Mars observer explode, in fact, on its orbit around Mars, for God's sake.
Who would have thought that the tanks were overpressurized and we had an exploding spacecraft over Mars?
And, you know, these collisions are coming at 18,000 miles per hour.
The Cassini spacecraft itself is coming at 42,000 miles per hour, but space debris orbits at 18,000 miles per hour.
A collision there could make it tumble and come apart, in which case parts of it could then hit the Earth.
I think we're being too cocky when we simply say that, well, Newton's laws of motion carry it on a trajectory toward the Earth.
Yeah, the same thing about the Mars Observer.
We had a lot of glitches.
We've had a lot of problems with the space probes.
About 10% of our space probes malfunction when they are actually in outer space because we lose radio contact, the rockets don't fire on time, communication software signals are given incorrectly by human error.
unidentified
So never underestimate the unexpected.
Understood.
Well, all right, assuming that the craft does impact something within the 700-mile region there and chooses, or parts of it choose their trajectory, which would actually not have it skip off the atmosphere and instead head right in for re-entry.
I'm reading the NASA environmental impact statement, and basically over the next 50 years, 99% of the population would be getting one milliRam of exposure, whereas they have for comparison, a round-trip flight between New York and L.A. is five milligrams, a dental x-ray is 40 milliamps.
michio kaku
You're reading the wrong part of the environmental impact statement.
Go to the environmental impact statement where they talk about evacuating huge areas of swampland.
Go to the area where they talk about decontaminating people's homes.
Go to the area where they estimate that 1,000 people could be killed if this thing plunges into the atmosphere.
Go to the part where it talks about the impact, that you can have 60% aerosolization of the material, which would be inhalable in five micron-sized particles, which would be death to anyone who happens to inhale this.
You're reading the wrong section of the environmental impact statement.
The environmental impact statement, by law, had to go into the worst-case scenario.
The worst case scenario is not the milligram doses you're talking about worldwide.
The worst case scenario is that it hits the earth.
70% will hit the earth.
60% of that will aerosolize and get into people's lungs.
And if the wind blows it into a populated area, you're talking about casualties that could range in the thousands, tens of thousands, according to NASA, hundreds of thousands, according to my computer calculations.
art bell
Doctor, on that million.
On that cheery note, that's it.
We're out of time.
Show's over.
We've done it.
You've done it again.
Another wonderful show.
Doctor, thank you.
michio kaku
Okay, my pleasure.
art bell
Good night.
unidentified
Good night.
art bell
That's it, folks.
See you Tuesday night.
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