Art Bell

All Episodes

Previous Next

Jan. 22, 2006 - Art Bell

02:30:47

Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell - Michio Kaku - Civilization Space & String Theory

Participants

Main voices

01:13:19

michio kaku

01:12:43

Large

Audio Only |

Scroll

Show episode speakers

Speaker	Time	Text
art bell ▲ ● ▼		It is really going to be a rough first hour.
		I'm going to talk about my wife Ramona.
		I'm going to tell you everything that happened.
		And so it's going to be rough.
		And that's the only way I know to do this is to come on and talk to you as I always have absolutely honestly.
		That's what you're going to get.
		And because of that, I would like to say, please, if you have children in the room or children are listening, I think it might be inappropriate.
		So please take the opportunity with the break coming up to get them out of the room.
		And it may be inappropriate for some of you, too.
		I don't know.
		In the second hour, of course, we're going to interview Dr. Michio Kaku.
		I'm very much looking forward to that.
		But in the meantime, during the break, if you feel my discussing my wife's death is inappropriate for the children or yourself, please take this opportunity to tune out and just come on back in the second hour.
		For those of you willing to listen, stay right there.
		Okay, here we go.
		My wife, Ramona, my wife of 15 years of, you know, you hear people use the phrase soulmate.
		You hear people bandy the phrase soulmate around.
		Well, let me tell you, we were the real McCoy.
		We really were.
		Ramona and myself, from the moment we met at KDWN Radio in Las Vegas, we never spent a day, we never spent a night apart, not one ever.
		We really were the real thing.
		God, we were in love.
		We were so in love.
		And I never thought that would happen to me.
		But it did.
		And I swept her off her feet, and she got swept off her feet.
		And from that second, when I said, you're going to be my wife, until January 5th, and it still goes on, of course.
		It will never change.
		This love will last forever.
		Whoever might chance cross my life in some way, no matter what happened, might happen to me in the future, Ramona will always be with me and will always be my love.
		Anyway, I'm going to tell you the story now of what happened.
		Although, just one more, I guess, note before I begin.
		Ramona had very, very serious asthma.
		I'm sure that many of you who have listened through the years know that I've been off the air at times taking care of asthma, my wife's asthma attack, which would be horrible.
		Some very serious, some not.
		And I've seen her turn blue.
		You know, actually, her skin actually turned blue.
		And so as a result of that, we have everything here.
		We have what's called a nebulizer, which is a machine and augments the inhaler that she used too damn much.
		We have oxygen.
		We have everything short of what a hospital can do.
		I remember one time going to the hospital with Ramona during an attack, scared the hell out of me because the doctor said, look, I'm going to have to give her a shot, and it's a very dangerous shot, and I'm going to listen to her heart while I give this shot.
		And what they had to do was cause her heart to race and get more oxygen into her system.
		But it was such a serious drug that he was administering that he said he'd have to listen as he actually gave the shot.
		And that's the kind of thing we've been through.
		And I've learned many things, some of them just as recently as tonight.
		This is something that my wife's mom wrote.
		They were estranged for a number of years.
		And during that time, Julie, bless you, Julie, wrote to Ramona.
		And I'm just going to read about a sentence of this because it's really all that's relevant.
		It says, where is my little girl?
		You know, it was an attempt to sort of patch things up.
		Where is the little girl that I nursed through all those asthma attacks, whom I rushed to the hospital almost every night when the weather was damp and foggy?
		That was Ramona as a baby, and as an adult, she's always had very, very serious asthma.
		Tonight I spoke to Julie, her mom, and I was shocked to find out that Ramona's brother, one of her brothers, died at the age of 31.
		And I had, of course, known that.
		I knew that she had a younger brother who had died at 31 and that there had been some difficulty with him.
		He had had a temperature when he was young.
		And at any rate, at 31 years of age, it turns out he died of asthma.
		I had no idea her brother also died of asthma and at such a young age, 31.
		I found that out tonight.
		Anyway, here's what happened, folks.
		It was Tuesday, and we decided we were going to take a trip.
		And one of the reasons I retired, you know, was so that we could spend more time together and we could do all kinds of things.
	We loved Paris.
	We loved traveling.
	We loved the RV, you know.
	So we packed up.
	Somebody had suggested to us that we might go to Quartzite down in Arizona and said it was interesting.
	Well, it turned out not to be all that interesting to us.
	At any rate, we packed up the RV as we loved to do.
	And we took our two little kitties, you know, our two smallest kitties who were wonderful travelers in the RV.
	And we took off, you know, just to have fun.
	And instead of taking Route 95 from here, because we were in the RV, 95 is a rock and roll kind of road, up, down, round, all of that kind of thing, we went, we drive all night.
	You know, I'm an all-night person.
	So we went down Interstate 15 to San Bernardino, caught the 10, and went back to Arizona and Quartzite.
	We drove all night long.
	You know, we're night owls.
	I'll be a night owl all my life, I suppose.
	We arrived in Quartzite well after the sun had come up, and boy, were we tired.
	I mean, it was like all night driving.
	We were dead tired.
	And so we started calling RV parks while sitting sort of in a truck stop there in Quartzite.
	And we found one, and we drove in, first one, and we went up to registration.
	They were about to send us on, and one of our, actually both of our little kitties, poked their little heads up above the dashboard.
	And the guy who was about to admit us to the park said, sorry, no pets.
	Go next door.
	So we went next door to this other RV park that allegedly allowed pets.
	And we couldn't fit into the spot they had at that time of the morning.
	So off we went to, by now we're really dead, you know, tired.
	We went to the third RV park, which turned out to be nothing more than sort of a dirt lot with power poles in it.
	But, you know, by then we were both so doggone tired, must have been 10.30 in the morning, that we just said, the hell with it.
	Let's plug in, get some sleep, and move on.
	Now, by this point, Ramona's beginning to have asthma.
	Kind of light at this point, but she was beginning to have it in the morning in Quartzite.
	Nevertheless, we parked, we went to sleep, and woke up after dark.
	Now, Quartzite was just not everything we wanted.
	It was, I don't know, a kind of a, it's very interesting, I'm sure, for some people, but for us, it wasn't our cup of tea.
	It was a giant swap meet with RV places all over.
	And we just, you know, there wasn't a restaurant close to where we happened to be.
	And that evening, Ramona's asthma had worsened a little bit.
	So I said, okay, hun, let's go to Laughlin.
	Now, we know Laughlin and went to the Riverside.
	As a matter of fact, a beautiful place.
	They've got a very nice RV park there and, you know, a restaurant.
	And with the asthma, she wouldn't have to cook and all the rest of that.
	We proceeded then after, it was after dark when we left Quartzite for Laughlin.
	And it took, I don't know, another five or six hours to get there.
	And when we got there, it was midnight.
	And by now, Ramona's asthma is really kicking.
	And so I just sat with her.
	From midnight until 5.30 in the morning, I just sat with her.
	And I don't know, some of you will understand what I'm about to say.
	Asthmatics, when they're having an asthma attack, they have to sit up at the very least.
	Either sit up or stand up and then brace your hands on a chair or a table or something like that to try and breathe.
	So by 5.30 in the morning, now we're up to 15 or 20 hours of driving.
	We're really dead.
	And by 5.30 in the morning, Mona said, look, we're really dead tired.
	We've got to get some sleep.
	And I said, well, Hannah, are you sure?
	She said, yeah, I think it's a little better, and I can lie down.
	So to me, you see, a sign that she was willing to lie down meant, hallelujah, the asthma's letting up a little bit.
	She had taken a pregnisone.
	That's an anabolic steroid that she would take kind of in declining doses, but right away when she began to have serious asthma, so she had already taken that.
	And I said, hallelujah, it's a little bit better.
	And she said, yeah, I think it is.
	And so we both climbed into bed.
	And I put my arms around her.
	And thank God, I said, as I always do every day, I love you.
	And she said, I love you so much.
	And we held on to each other.
	And I fell asleep promptly.
	I mean, just bo-woom, fell asleep.
	And then I woke up at 1.30 in the afternoon.
	And I said, hey, Han, you know, because Ramona would always get up before me.
	It didn't matter whether we were home or away.
	She always was up before me.
	And I just said, hey, Han.
	I'm still saying that, by the way.
	At any rate, I received no answer.
	And I got up and I went into the living room portion of the RV.
	And there she was in the middle of the couch, obviously dead.
	She was white.
	She was sitting with her head back on the couch, as though she was asleep, by the way.
	Not a tortured look on her face.
	I want you to know that because it's important to me.
	It didn't look like she was gasping for her last breath.
	She looked at peace.
	I touched her and she was cold.
	And I went, oh my God, and Ran over and got dressed and ran down to the little office they have there at the RV Park and said, My God, please call the police, the coroner, everybody, my wife has passed away.
	And from that moment, from that moment on, I went directly into shock.
	And I mean I went into really serious shock.
	That's the only state I can describe.
	I didn't cry.
	I cried very briefly when I called Ramona's mom and talked to her.
	And then I didn't cry again for 36 hours.
	In fact, I didn't sleep for 36 hours.
	I just...
	I was with a man named Father Joe, who gave her her last rite.
	She was Catholic, you know, what the priest at her funeral called a relaxed Catholic, but nevertheless a Catholic.
	And Ramona had been dead for quite some time, some hours.
	And here's what seems to have happened.
	When I went to sleep, she got back up again pretty quickly, I think.
	And she went into the living room and got out her nebulizer.
	We carry a nebulizer.
	It's a machine for asthmatics and an alternative to these damn inhalers.
	Anyway, she had the nebulizer out and she had used two or three ampules of whatever it is you put in those things.
	I can't, I think, oh, albuterol or something like that.
	She had used two or three of these vials.
	I didn't get that good a look.
	And it appears as though she may have, according to the coroner, in fact, they had to bring the coroner from Las Vegas.
	They don't have one in Laughlin.
	I didn't know that.
	So it took some time.
	I was in this hotel in a room they had provided for me, and I was just, I was, I'm telling you, I was in such shock.
	And I think the reason that I, you know, I'm a very emotional person.
	However, well, let me give you an example.
	When Abby had his stroke and he brought himself from one side of the house to the other, you know, clawing with his front claws, front paws.
	He didn't really have claws.
	He had paws.
	And he had made it all the way across the house and cried by my bed until I woke up.
	And then, of course, I carried him to the vet and Ramona drove and I just bawled like a baby all the way there.
	And then when he passed the next day, I bawled like a baby again.
	But in the case of Ramona, it was so over.
	It was so final.
	There was nothing that I could do.
	There was no last-minute rush to the hospital.
	There was nothing.
	And there was nothing to do.
	It was just she was gone.
	And I went into this deep, horrible shock.
	For 36 hours, I didn't sleep.
	After I slept, I went to the funeral home.
	You know, the days get foggy after that.
	I went to the funeral home, and there I really lost it and have many times since.
	But, in fact, during the first week of Ramona being gone, I lost eight pounds.
	Eight pounds.
	I didn't eat.
	What I ate was one hamburger and one bowl of cereal in a week.
	And so there you are.
	Anyway, this is going to come in pieces.
	I'm going to give you information in pieces.
	The coroner, and there was an autopsy, said the only remarkable thing in the autopsy that he had seen was hyper-inflated lungs, hyper-inflated lungs, typical in asthmatics.
	Now, I'm not an expert, but apparently when the lungs get that large due to the medicine, you know, the inhalers or just the asthmatic attack itself, I don't know that much about it, but at that point, you cannot exchange air, you know, air in, other stuff out.
	It's the way it's supposed to be, and that just doesn't occur.
	Now, the coroner said, and I find some comfort in this, he said first the same thing, that she had a relaxed look on her face, and it was his opinion that she either fell asleep and then passed away, or passed out and passed away.
	And of course, one of my immediate questions was, why in God's name didn't she wake me up?
	And he said, well, she probably couldn't.
	My answer to that is, and why didn't she wake me up when she realized she had to get up and go get the nebulizer?
	But, you know, you can look back on this and you analyze the hell out of it and nothing changes.
	And apparently, that did happen.
	She either went to sleep and passed away or passed out and passed away.
	The first talk screen is in, and there was nothing worth comment in the first talk screen.
	There's going to be more.
	They've got tissue samples now that they're studying, and I hope that they'll give us some kind of an answer.
	You know, that we can, they said anything could have happened.
	It could have been her heart.
	It could have been a lot of things, and I really hope that I get some...
	I'm sure you understand.
	I want answers.
	And maybe those tissue samples or analysis will give us some kind of answer.
unidentified		But she's gone.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		She's gone.
		She was buried, by the way, on the Wednesday following her death.
		Now, she had told me once, folks, that if she ever died before me, something I used, I laughed off.
		I'm 60 years old.
		She was 47.
		I should have died and left her a rich widow.
		But we had discussed death.
		You know, maybe doing a program like this causes a couple to every now and then discuss it.
		Well, asthma doesn't kill people.
		Oh, yes, it does.
		And if you want to give in her name to anything, make it the asthma foundation.
		God, they need to learn more about this damn disease.
		They really need to learn more about it.
		In fact, the coroner said something very interesting.
		He said that he was, and you never know how much they're saying to comfort you and how much is real, but I think this was real.
		He said he was surprised she lasted this long.
		Asthma kills people.
		It absolutely kills people.
		And so again, if you're going to give to any organization in her name, make it absolutely the asthma foundation.
		It certainly is a very little understood disease because a lot of people think, well, people don't die of asthma.
		yes they do.
unidentified		Mario
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I think I'm going to talk to you a little bit about grieving now, and I'm going to be awfully honest with you.
		I'm lost without Ramona.
		I'm really lost without Ramona.
		In fact, I wasn't really sure that I had a reason to live.
		When she passed away, I went through, well, I've been through now many, many of these cycles.
		I guess it's a normal way for people to grieve, but the first giant black cloud that descends on you after you've lost, God, how could she be gone?
		After you've lost somebody so close to you, you go into this series of these very black places.
		I mean, these very dark places.
		God, I cannot tell you how dark.
		Dark enough that I took out a big bottle of Vallium and I sat down with it and I thought real hard.
		Yeah, it was real close.
		I thought real hard about joining my wife because I'm still struggling.
		I'm being very honest with you here.
		I'm struggling to have a reason to live.
		And I'll tell you why I'm still here right now.
		I have five kitty cats, five.
		We had them, and Ramona loved them, and I love them.
		And they're one of the main reasons I'm here.
		You know that, and Mona always told me, and I, you know, she was a strong woman, very strong woman, as you know.
		God, she was a great woman, just an incredible woman.
		And she always told me that you are supposed to play out the hand you're dealt.
		I mean, we talked about this kind of thing.
		And she told me in no uncertain terms that do you talk to your wife about this kind of thing or your husband?
		If not, you should.
		Anyway, it was her feeling that suicide was wrong and that you're supposed to play out the cards you're dealt.
		So my kitty cats and those words stopped me.
		Otherwise, nothing would have.
		And it was that close.
		And when you go into this first black hole, there's one for you, Michio, a black hole.
		When you go into this black hole, the first one is the most dangerous because you don't know that it's ever going to change.
		You don't know you're ever going to come out of it.
		And you think this is the way it's always going to be.
		And believe me, that'll get you to reach for, you know, the Vallium or whatever.
		And then, you know, I thought a lot about religion, and most religions prohibit it one way or the other.
		You know, a sin to take your own life.
		But, God, we had a dream marriage.
		We had a marriage.
		We had the best marriage in the world.
		My God, I miss my wife.
		I really, really miss her.
		I, you know, I smoke.
		I'm a smoker, and by the way, so was Ramona.
		I really ragged on her about that.
		Her asthma, however, wasn't really affected, although it obviously cannot have been good for her, but it wasn't really affected by smoke, cigarette smoke.
		Her triggers were dust, temperature changes, perfume, humidity, and then sometimes nothing at all.
		She just got an attack, you know.
		Certainly when she had a cold or flu, we were always so careful to keep people with colds and flu away.
		I had to ask everybody before they came to visit, do you feel okay?
		Do you have a cold?
		Have you had the flu?
		You know, because it was very dangerous for her.
		And now, again, I'm going to be as honest as I can.
		I am so lonely.
		I am so lonely.
		My God, I went from a woman and she did everything for me, by the way.
		I also have a sense that she might have known that her health was worsening and not have said anything to me.
		I mean, an asthmatic always, you know, they, well, they hack stuff up, you know, and she had been doing a lot of that kind of coughing.
		And, you know, after she passed, one of the things I had to do was go over our financial situation.
		Hell, I didn't even have PIN numbers for my credit cards.
		I didn't.
		You're talking to somebody who depended totally on his wife.
		She did all the shopping.
		She paid all the bills.
		She ran half the radio station that we both loved.
	She so loved KNYE.
	I'm going to try and keep it on the air.
	I thought hard about that one, too.
	But, you know, she really loved that radio station.
	I mean, she was so proud of it.
	And so I'm going to try and keep it on the air.
	She really did love it.
	So all her favorite music on there.
	She just loved it.
	But, God, folks, I'm so lonely.
	I'm so no good alone.
	So, you know, I went out and I checked the status of my bills and had to cancel her credit cards and go through all this kind of stuff.
	And I found out she had paid December 23rd, she had paid like $2,000 ahead on my, you know, satellite TV bills.
	She had paid $2,000 ahead on my credit cards.
	Hell, we've got a cell phone that's, you know, $20-something bucks a month.
	She had $1,000 credit.
	All my bills were paid way ahead.
	So I'm wavering between wondering if she had a sense something was coming or whether she did that all the time.
	And that tells you how little attention I have paid.
	I have since, by the way, decided that maybe she did it all the time because it's a pain in the butt to sit down and hell I hadn't written a check in 15 years.
	So it's a pain in the butt to sit down and make out all those bills, you know, and if you pay them ahead like that, then you just get a little statement that says, well, you don't owe us anything, and you've still got X number of dollars credit.
	But still, I think I had a sense, that she may have had a sense that things were worsening.
	She had made some comments to her brother at Thanksgiving that, you know, if I'm not around, I want you to keep art as part of the family.
	She may have had a sense.
	My wife was very, very intuitive, you know, and she would not have told me.
	She wouldn't have told me.
	Anyway, look.
	I, uh, I'm going to try and deal with my life.
	All the things that...
	All the things that meant something.
	I mean, when Ramona and I met, we had nothing.
	Each had a few boxes full of things and a lot of debt, and we fell in love, boom, like that.
	And it never changed.
	And it's so damn unfair because, you know, she was 47 years old.
	She had supported me through going, you know, from nothing to a radio career that brought virtually everything.
	And every step of the way, she was with me, at my side.
	I think those of you who are longtime listeners know that.
	She was there for me every second.
	And I and now all of the, it's so damn unfair.
	We have all of these things.
	We, I guess I'll be that way forever now.
	We had all of these wonderful things that money and success could buy.
	And now I find that I'm not enjoying them at all.
	In other words, you sit down and you watch a high-definition TV and you watch a TV show and God, we used to have a blast saying, isn't that cool?
	Look at that picture, you know, and commenting on the program and so forth.
	But all of a sudden, when you don't have that person to share these things with, they don't mean a damn thing.
	They're just things.
	That's all.
	Just things.
unidentified		So.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		God, I am going to miss her.
		I want to thank all of you, and I'm never going to be able to thank all of you who sent cards.
		6,000 emails of condolence.
		People who sent cards, and those are going to be sent from California.
		They went to California.
		How can I ever thank all of you?
		I'd like to thank the La Cuesta family.
		That's Mona's mom, and she's got a couple of brothers and a sister.
		And, of course, I mentioned the brother who died also at 31.
		I now find out of asthma.
		I'd like to thank Craig Kitchen, the president of Premier, who was at the funeral.
		Thank you, Craig, for coming.
		And so many others who were at the funeral.
		It was private, but you know how that goes.
		We had a lot of friends, and they called, and you're not going to turn someone down, so it got bigger than we anticipated.
		Here's something I found that I think will be helpful to some of you who may encounter a loss or have encountered a loss.
		I found out you need to stay busy.
		In fact, there are things in this house now that I have cleaned no less than five times just because I keep walking around kind of in a daze, if you will, and just keep doing the same things, cleaning things, staying on top of the cat box and every little tiny detail in the house, you know, you just make yourself busy so that you don't dwell in those very dark black holes.
		And by the way, having come out of that first black hole with my life, I learned something important.
		That is that you do come out of them.
		That doesn't mean they stop.
		They still come, and they're still coming in waves.
		But now I know there's another side, that it can be, even though it's never good, it can be a little better.
		And so there's a little, it's like there's a little light at the end of the tunnel.
		And so the next one you have, you can kind of say to yourself in the middle of it, I know that maybe I'll come out of it.
		And then the third one and the fourth one, and pretty soon you can be pretty sure you're going to come out on the other side.
		So that's, at least that's the way the grief thing has been working for me.
		It's these succession of black holes.
		So I'm having to deal with life now.
		Hell, I've now washed two loads of laundry, something I haven't done in 15 years.
		Didn't even know how to use a machine.
		I don't know how to use a dishwasher.
		I'm a social cripple.
		That's what I've learned.
		I'm a social cripple.
		In fact, Ramona and myself, because we have a couple of homes here, a house and a guest house and a radio station and all these little outbuildings that we have, we have millions of keys.
		Each of us has a lot of keys and a lot of alarms on the keys, you know, that kind of thing.
		We looked like a couple of janitors walking around most of the time.
		And Ramona would come home with groceries, you know, just lots of groceries in her hand.
		And she would struggle with her keys.
		And I would be on her all the time because she'd drop her keys, you know.
		And these were, you know, you break a remote, you're not going to be able to get into a car or something.
		Anyway, she used to drop her keys, and I'd get all over about it and ask her why she couldn't hold on to her keys.
		Well, the other day I had to shop for the first time, so I came home.
		Here I am, my arms loaded with groceries, struggling with my keys.
		I get up to the door, and what do I do?
		Drop the damn keys.
		And I just stopped, and I looked up in the sky, and I said, yeah, go ahead, laugh.
		You know, have a really good laugh, because I just used to be all over her about that, and here I was doing the same damn thing.
		So I'm slowly learning, slowly, how to care for myself.
		So that was my fault.
		You know, I let that beautiful woman do too damn much for me, and I barely know how to do it for myself.
		But I'm learning.
		I'm gaining on it.
		I've done all kinds of things now that I've never done before.
		Well, never.
		You know, if you don't write a check in 15 years, it's a little alien to you, believe me.
		I didn't, as I mentioned, I didn't know the PIN numbers to my credit cards.
		I didn't know where any important certificates, you know, Ramona had them all placed around the house in special places that she knew about.
		and I had to go searching for an awful lot of things.
		I suspect that she's here now in some form and watching what I'm doing.
		And I hope happy, I hope she's happy that I decided to come back on the air.
		I think she would have wanted that.
		And so here I am.
	And by the way, as I mentioned to you, Craig Kitchen, President of Premier was at the funeral.
	And I said, I had learned, believe me, by then, as I mentioned, she was buried the Wednesday following her death, which was Thursday.
	So by then, you know, quite a few days had passed.
	And I went up to Craig and I said, Craig, keep me busy.
	I think I need to be busy.
	And, of course, doing a four-hour interview on the show is going to force me to think about something else.
	And that's valuable time thinking about something else every now and then, believe me.
	So it has been arranged so that I am going to be on every Saturday and every Sunday from now on.
	Ian Punnett, by the way, not unemployed or re-employed or anything else as a result of this, is going to be doing, this is kind of exciting, I think.
	He'll be doing the prefeeds on at least 250 radio stations every Saturday night live.
	So instead of getting a repeat, you're going to get Ian Punnett live on Saturday nights.
	That'd be from like 9 o'clock at night to 1 o'clock in the morning East Coast time.
	So that's the deal there.
	Thank you, Ian.
	And I'm going to be doing the weekends.
	And I think it's going to be a good thing for me as I try to, I don't know, kind of keep life going.
	Let me read you something that a coroner investigator, Rick Jones, sent me.
	And I think it's appropriate.
	It says, Art, as we discussed, life can be short.
	So I often remind my friends, new and old ones, to do me these favors.
	We never know when things can change suddenly.
	So one, make certain that your circle of loved ones, family and close friends, know that you love them.
	Tell them often.
	Two, make certain that you never leave your circle of loved ones or let them leave on bad terms, harsh words, and so forth.
	I can't tell you the number of times that I have to notify a family that their loved one died, and all the family wanted to do is have one more minute to tell them how much they love them and or tell them they're sorry for what they said or did.
	3.
	wear a seatbelt anytime you're in a vehicle.
	He holds the Henry Summit Professorship in Theoretical Physics at the City College of New York and is graduate and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.
	He has lectured around the world and his PhD-level textbooks are required reading at many of the top physics labs.
	Dr. Kaku graduated from Harvard in 1968, summa cum laude and number one in his, number one in his physics class.
	He received a Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley Radiation Lab in 1972, held a lectureship at Princeton University in 73, joined the faculty at the City University of New York, where he's been a professor of theoretical physics for 25 years.
	His goal is to help complete Einstein's dream of a theory of everything.
	That would be a single equation, perhaps, as he likes to say, no more than an inch long about your thumb, which will unify all the fundamental forces in the universe.
	His book, his current book, new book is Parallel Worlds.
	And, God, it's interesting.
	He starts out, when I was a child, I had a personal conflict over my beliefs.
	My parents were raised in the Buddhist tradition, but I attended Sunday school every week, where I loved hearing the biblical stories about whales, arks, pillars of salt, ribs, and apples.
	I was fascinated by these Old Testament parables, which were my favorite part of Sunday school.
	It seemed to me that the parables about great floods, burning bushes, and parting waters were so much more exciting than Buddhist chanting and meditation.
	In fact, these ancient tales of heroism and tragedy vividly illustrated deep moral and ethical lessons which have stayed with me all my life.
	One day in Sunday school, we studied Genesis to read about God thundering from the heavens.
	Let there be light sounded so much more dramatic than silently meditating about Nirvana.
	Out of naive curiosity, I asked my Sunday school teacher, did God have a mother?
	She usually had a rather snappy answer, as well as a deep moral lesson to offer.
	This time, however, she was taken aback.
	No, she replied hesitantly, God probably did not have a mother, but then where did God come from?
unidentified		I asked.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		She mumbled that she'd well have to consult with the minister about that one.
		I didn't realize that I had accidentally stumbled into one of the great questions of theology.
		I was puzzled because in Buddhism, there is no God at all, but a timeless universe instead with no beginning or end.
		Later, when I began to study the great mythologies of the world, I learned that there were two types of cosmologies in religion, the first based in a single moment when God created the universe, the second based on the idea the universe always was and always will be.
		They couldn't both be right, I thought.
		Later, I began to find that these common themes cut across many other cultures.
		In Chinese mythology, for example, in the beginning there was a cosmic egg, the infant Pongu, resided for almost an eternity in the egg, which floated on a formless sea of chaos.
		When it finally hatched, Pongu grew enormously over 10 feet per day, so the top half of the eggshell became the sky and the bottom the earth.
		After 18,000 years, he died to give birth to our world.
		His blood became the rivers, his eyes the sun, moon, and his voice the thunder.
		Just a little taste.
		And boy, I'll tell you what.
		If you like that, you're going to love this book called Parallel Worlds by Dr. Michiu Kaku, who will be here in a moment.
		Stay right there.
unidentified		Stay right there.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Professor Michio Kaku, welcome back to the program.
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		Glad to be on the show again, Art.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		It's been a while.
		It's been a while and too long, and I'm just very pleased to have you here.
		We have a number of things to talk about, but I want to ask a question.
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		Yes?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		When my wife passed away, there was a Catholic priest there, thank God, who gave her last rites.
		And then I had an opportunity.
		He stayed with me for a number of hours.
		And we talked of many things, of course.
		I was kind of in a fog, a state of shock, but he said something that I responded to.
		He said, I guess it's a standard line.
unidentified		He said, look around you.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Look around you.
		Look at the flowers and the trees and the oceans and the sun and the moon and all those things that have to be here for us.
		It has to be so perfect.
		And any one of these things weren't just so, the human being wouldn't be here.
		So even down from the smallest seed and flower and the smallest speck of anything that we can detect, everything has to be absolutely perfect.
		And so there has to be a God was his intention for everything to be this perfect.
		Well, even in my shocked condition, I came back at him and I said, well, yeah, that's certainly one way to look at it.
		Oh, great.
		I've got an alarm going off and no way to turn it off.
		So I'm going to put this down and go try to turn it off.
		And maybe you can take a moment and try and explain to me, Professor, which it is you believe.
		Whether you think everything was so perfect and put here by God or whether, well, it had to be this way or we wouldn't be here.
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		Well, Art, you ask one of the deep questions Between art and science.
		If you take a look at science, we have two basic paradoxical principles.
		One is called the Copernicus principle.
		The Copernican principle says that humans are not special in any particular way.
		That's the Copernican principle.
		And the more we discover about the universe, it does seem as if humans are not so special.
		However, there is another point of view which has also survived every scientific challenge, and that's the anthropic principle.
		The anthropic principle is very simple, and that is that intelligence and life is so difficult, so difficult to create, that you have to realize that, well, some people would say perhaps there's a creator, or perhaps it was a gigantic cosmic accident.
		Now, if you take a look at the constants of nature, for example, the mass of the proton, the charge of the electron, the lifetime of the sun, the strength of the nuclear force, you realize that they're tuned just right to make life possible.
		If the nuclear force were stronger, the sun would have burnt out billions of years ago, and we wouldn't be here.
		If the nuclear force were weaker, the sun wouldn't have ignited at all, and we still wouldn't be here.
		If gravity were a little bit stronger, we would have had a big crunch, and the universe would have collapsed billions of years ago.
		If gravity were a little bit weaker, then we would have had a big freeze, and we'd all be frozen to death right now.
		So you realize that the laws of nature are tuned, tuned very precisely to make life possible in the universe.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		So you, I'll tell you what, Professor, hold on just a sec.
		I've got to tell my audience, and then we're going to pursue this.
		I've got to tell you guys what happened.
		I guess some gentleman in Oregon took what I had to say in the first hour and called the Sheriff's Department here in Prump and said that I was in a bad way.
		So the reason the alarm went off is because two deputies from the Sheriff's Department came to my door and said, you know, doing a welfare check.
		And they are the ones who set off the alarm.
		So I had to just go to the door and explain to those nice officers that I'm in the middle of doing a radio program, and honestly, I am okay.
		So please don't anybody else do that.
		I'm all right.
		I will survive is the name of the song.
		Anyway, that's what just happened.
		So you heard the alarm go off, and then there was a knock at the door, and I explained to the nice officers that I am just fine.
		Now, Professor Kaku, back to the interview.
		This is live radio, man.
		This stuff happens, I guess.
unidentified		Okay.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Recap for me.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		It would be your position, then, Professor, that everything that we experience in the world, being so perfect, is that way because it has to be that way or we wouldn't be here.
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		Well, that is sort of the essence of the anthropic principle, which is gaining a lot of credibility among string theorists, for example, which simply says that perhaps the universe was tuned, tuned very precisely to make us possible.
		Now, when I was a kid in second grade, my second grade teacher told me that God so loved the earth that he put the earth just right from the sun.
		Not too close, not too far.
		If the earth were too close, the oceans would have boiled.
		If the earth were too far, the oceans would have frozen.
		Well, I was quite shocked being in second grade because that was the first time I'd ever heard of this principle, that life is just right to make us all possible.
		The earth, the formation of the sun, the solar system is tuned just right to make life possible.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		But that sounds as though there was someone doing the tuning.
unidentified		Right.
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		However, now we've discovered 150 extrasolar planets orbiting other star systems where these planets are too close.
		They are too far.
		They are frozen.
		Their waters did evaporate.
		And they're lifeless, as far as we can tell.
		Now, when you talk about the universe, the universe seems to be tuned just right to make life possible.
		The nuclear force, the electromagnetic force, the gravitational force, all of them are just right to make life possible.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Tuned by intelligence, Professor, or tuned by winning the lottery, the cosmic lottery in heavenly.
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		That's the whole ball of wax, isn't it?
		Either there is a God who loved our universe so much that he put our universe just right so that we have mild temperatures and a universe that lives long enough to create DNA and so on and so forth, or there are other universes.
		Or there are dead universes where the sun never ignited, or universes where the stars burn out very rapidly, universes where the universe expands so rapidly that everything gets cold, or universes where the universe collapses to a big crunch, everything dies in fire.
		So in my book, Parallel Worlds, I lay out the fact that in string theory, the theory that I work on, we have a problem that we have many solutions of string theory.
		All of them seem to be self-consistent mathematically.
		And so we have this problem.
		Perhaps the way to choose our universe is that our universe is the only one that allows for life.
		All the other ones are dead universes, universes that consist of lightning bolts, universes that consist of photons, light beams, but no DNA, no living matter.
		So in other words, our universe could be quite special among all possible universes.
		We now believe in something called a multiverse.
		A multiverse is an ocean of parallel universes.
		Think of soap bubbles.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right, but again, Professor, back to the question that you agreed was the whole ball of wax.
		And I guess I just want to know what you believe.
		Is it your belief that everything, in fact, is so perfect because it had to be because we won the cosmic lottery?
		Do you believe that, or do you believe that there is a God's hand in the formation of everything that is admittedly so perfect?
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		Well, right now, I'm an agnostic on that question.
		But I kind of lean toward the idea of a cosmic lottery.
		I had a feeling the universe is tuned very precisely.
		It didn't have to be this way.
		The universe could have been random, chaotic.
		It could have been a mess.
		The universe is tuned very precisely to allow for mild temperatures, DNA, and life to get off the ground.
		That's very difficult.
		You know, I try to create a universe in the morning when I wake up and I try to play with different equations.
		And I realize it's quite difficult to create our universe.
		Our universe is tuned very precisely.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, you keep using that word, and the implication of that word is that there was a hand doing the tuning.
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		Well, it is.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		But that is what you're doing.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You seem to believe the cosmic lottery theory that it just all turned out right, and therefore here we are.
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		That's right, because if it didn't turn out right, we wouldn't be here to talk about it to begin with.
		There may be dead universes, universes consisting of dead matter and no life.
		However, if this theory is correct, it also means that there are other universes that are just like ours, except for one cosmic tiny difference, one cosmic ray that separates us from another universe.
		If a cosmic ray went through Hitler's mother, for example, then Hitler may never have been born.
		The mother may have had a miscarriage.
		It only takes one cosmic ray to create a miscarriage.
		Or what happens if that cosmic ray went through Churchill's mother?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		How convinced are you there are other universes where there are subtle but important differences in the way the world is proceeding?
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		Well, this gets us into what is called many worlds, many worlds theory.
		In quantum theory, which of course is the architecture for all of our existence, all of electronics is made possible by the quantum theory.
		In the quantum theory, we have this bizarre paradox that cats can be dead and alive simultaneously, both dead and alive simultaneously.
		In which case, perhaps in one universe, your wife is still alive.
		And one cosmic ray could separate us from a world where some of our loved ones are still alive.
		And like I said, just one cosmic ray separates us from a world where we're all speaking German.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, not right.
		Well, not too much really separates you from, I don't know, the concept of a creator.
		As I listen to your words, it's sort of there, but when pressed, it's not there.
		I don't know.
		There's two parts to you, aren't there?
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		Well, I'm an agnostic on that question.
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		My attitude is I go where the data and where the equations take me.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That's like the scientific version of no comment.
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		Well, I'm open.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Taking the fifth.
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		You see, some people, there's something called the giggle factor.
		When you ask a scientist about flying saucers, about God, about evil, and stuff like that, their reaction is basically to giggle.
		I don't believe in giggling.
		I believe that we should take some of these questions very seriously.
		And we shouldn't simply snicker, like unfortunately, some of my friends do.
		I think it's very disrespectable and it's very close-minded to simply giggle or snicker.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Because it is possible that there is a Creator.
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		It is possible.
		It is possible that there is life in outer space.
		It is possible that we're not alone.
		And these are real, legitimate scientific questions.
		So unfortunately, I think that a lot of scientists tend to retreat rather than try to engage the public.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, you want to talk about giggle factors.
		Yes, it's possible we're not alone.
		It's even possible, for example, that we're being observed.
		It's even possible that the people who see these craft that are not simply not possible with the technology we know we have are anywhere close, that, I mean, it's conceivable, Professor, that we are being visited.
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		Right.
		And I think a correct scientific attitude is to try to test some of these theories.
		And I should point out that in 2008, in just two years' time, we may be able to settle many of these questions when the Kepler probe goes into outer space.
		It's scheduled for launch in June of 2008.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And its mission?
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		Its mission is to find Earth-like planets, twins of the Earth in outer space.
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		not dead Jupiter sized planets that are too close, that are too far from the Sun, but planets that are just right in the Goldilocks zone, as we say.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		If I've got this right, the Kessler probe, I believe it's called, is only going to go out and try and detect Earth-like planets.
		In other words, not traverse space to them, but only detect them.
		Is that right, Professor?
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		That's right.
		It may take perhaps another century before we get enough technology to send a probe to the nearest stars.
		However, the Kepler probe, in just two years, will scan about 100,000 stars.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		By what means will it scan?
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		It has a telescope by which it looks at dimming of starlight.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		When starlight dims a little...
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		That's called the transit.
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		Not a total eclipse, but a dimming of the light because the planet goes in front of the face of the star.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Got it.
		All right.
		Well, how will this probe be able to detect very much more Than, say, telescopes on Earth, which have, I believe, detected that already.
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		No, these are transits caused by Earth-like planets.
		That's the whole key.
		We've discovered 150 Jupiter-sized planets orbiting other stars.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		No, but what I'm asking is, what additional power does this probe have above and beyond Earth-based planets?
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		Well, it's in outer space where you don't have problems of scattering of light and thermal currents and blurring.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Here, here, but wouldn't you also have that the moment you left the atmosphere?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I mean, in the space station, for example.
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		That's right.
		You could put this satellite pretty much on any platform up there in outer space.
		But the Kepler is one that's specifically designed, specifically designed to scan 100,000 stars.
		And hopefully, it'll get about 600 Earth-like planets identified in outer space.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		God, that would be exciting.
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		And that'll cause an existential shock when people look up at the night sky and feel very romantic and feel very cosmic, realizing that here, here, over there, over here, over here, all of them may have twins, virtual twins of the Earth, perhaps with liquid oceans, because they are in the Goldilocks zone, which is just right to have liquid water.
		Liquid water, in turn, is the universal solvent in which DNA gets off the ground.
		And so we may have an existential shock realizing that there are twins and that when we look in the sky at night, somebody else could be looking back at us.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, I'm not going to be shocked at all.
		But there are a lot of people who think that life is very rare.
		In fact, so rare that, well, frankly, we have not yet connected with anybody at the SETI level.
		We've not received the real signal yet, as far as I know.
		And these people can make a fairly strong case.
		That'll make you wonder, anyway, that there might not be others.
		Life may be so rare that maybe we're it.
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, I don't believe that.
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		If you have a bunch of ants in the country and they're trying to observe workers building a 10-lane superhighway next door, the ants wouldn't have the foggiest clue as to which frequencies, what modes by which to analyze the presence of workers working right next to their anthill.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, SETI says, look, it'll be near hydrogen.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That's a marker.
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, but I think, personally, I think that's the stupidest thing to do.
		It's like the blind man who looks for a key under a lamp because that's the only place he can look.
		I mean, a person who's nearsighted, the only place he can look for a lost key is under a lamp at night because that's the only place that's illuminated.
		The key could have fallen someplace else, but he only looks where things are visible.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, sure, but still, isn't it a logical assumption for them to be making that the signal would be sent near this wonderful hydrogen marker because it's just so outstanding?
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		I think it's logical for a primitive civilization like ours to look that way.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Really?
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		I think it's quite logical, but I think an advanced civilization would just have a big laugh, thinking that, oh my God, they're so primitive, they have to communicate at the hydrogen frequencies.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I doubt Seth Shostak is laughing right now.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		He probably doesn't want to hear this at all.
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, well, I've talked to him, and I mentioned the fact that, you know, real aliens would not broadcast on the hydrogen frequencies.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, you weren't laughing like that when you said it.
unidentified		Were you?
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		In some sense, I was.
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		He laughed back, and he says, but what else can we do?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, isn't that a fair retort?
		What else can he do?
		Well, of course, they're looking now at, I think, light and some other things that they hadn't been previously.
		So they're beginning to do a few other things.
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, if they had a bigger budget, they would start to look at other frequencies.
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		They would start to look for, for example, the presence of laser communications in outer space.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, I think they're underway with that.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I think the beginnings of that are underway, and that SETI is looking at that.
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, but the budget is so tiny.
		I mean, Seth himself admitted that he's limited by the constraints of his minuscule budget.
		And so I'm not surprised at all that they've detected nothing.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, since this is such a big damn question, I mean, it really is a gigantic question.
		If we were to come in contact with others, it would be the story of, you know, since Christ was here, it would be the biggest story, certainly.
		And we're devoting so little money to it.
		Why do you think that is?
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		Oh, well, it's this giggle factor again.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, but I'm not giggling.
		I doubt many are giggling about this.
		It's almost like, well, it's not quite getting the answer about God, but, you know, it's up there.
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		Oh, yeah, definitely.
		It's up there.
		Mark one of the biggest turning points since we left the forest.
		But you talk to a person in Congress, and their eyes are going to glaze over, which is very sad.
		The SETI budget, if anything, they depend on handouts.
		Handouts.
		So of course they haven't found anything yet.
		I mean, their budget is so limited.
		And as I also mentioned, any intelligent species is going to change the frequencies, spread their signal out over many frequencies.
		The universe is quite noisy.
		And they would have spread signal technology, whereby they would spread the signal over many frequencies and then assemble it, reassemble it at the other end.
		And that's what your email does.
		Your email is split into many pieces, and it's reassembled at the other end.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, spread spectrum.
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, and however, you know, they're not capable of analyzing spread spectrum messages.
		They don't know exactly how the messages are cut up and reassembled.
		Is it a Fourier transform or what?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		We could be hearing it actually now, and of course not even know it.
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		We could be listening to all these cosmic conversations that we would be totally clueless.
		It appears to us as gibberish.
		Just like if you intercept email, It appears as gibberish because you're only looking at one piece of an email which is spread out over many cities.
		You'd be listening to nonsense.
		And so, of course, we're just going to be listening to nonsense because we could be listening to the tiniest piece.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		So, is it your view we probably are listening to nonsense, that there's a lot of it out there, and we just are looking in all the wrong places with not enough instruments and money to buy them?
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		That's right.
		Like I said, you know, ants trying to listen in on human conversations wouldn't know the frequencies.
		They're being bombarded by all the vibrations and noise from workers next door, but they're clueless because they're listening to the wrong frequencies.
		They don't know how to process the information.
		And so I think just like ants cannot detect the presence of humans.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay, you've described many times different forms of civilization.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		One, two, three, and then, of course, here we are, haven't made one yet, right?
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		We're type zero.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay, type zero.
		So is it or is it not reasonable?
		I mean, you've already sort of jumped to the proposition that there probably are many instances of life out there.
		Isn't it probable they would, some of them certainly, be ahead of us in a type one or two even?
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		Well, I think the chances are that they're not going to be exactly at our level.
		Like in Star Trek, for example, all civilizations are within about 100 years of each other.
		The probability of that happening is astronomically small.
unidentified		Well, really?
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		Except for Q. They're almost exactly technologically advanced.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, don't forget Q. You can't throw out Q. Yeah, well, Q would be type 4, I think.
		Right.
		He's way out there.
		So they did.
		I mean, not everything was within 100 years of them, but for the most part, you're correct.
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, the only thing separating these species is a cloaking device.
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		Otherwise, they're all identical.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		They all have different nose makeup.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay, so you think there's probably a bunch of them out there.
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		You're separated by millions of years in technology.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Certainly.
		Certainly.
		Millions of years.
		Some of them with quite a bit of technology, probably more than ours.
		As many with less than ours, just as many more than ours.
		And some of them much more than ours.
		And so I guess I'm working up to this kind of question.
		We see so much in our skies.
		Do you give a little bit of credence to the possibility that, well, yes, they're out there.
		And yes, they're monitoring us for some reason.
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		Well, you can't dismiss it.
		I've looked at a lot of UFO stuff.
		People email me stuff.
		Oh, and by the way, I should mention that my website contains my email address.
		It's mkaku.org, mkaku.org.
		And we're also setting up an online journal.
		My webmaster, Corey, is setting up an online journal where people can subscribe and get the very latest information about these kinds of things.
		So anyway, it is certainly possible that an intelligent species could be monitoring us.
		And there's nothing in the laws of physics that says that it's impossible that we're being observed.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right, well then, here's a kind of a casual observation for you.
		Modern ufology really began about when we exploded the atomic bomb.
		Now, that could be, of course, just simple pure coincidence.
		But I don't much believe in coincidences of that magnitude particularly.
		And gee, we exploded an atomic bomb and then we started seeing these things.
unidentified		So sound logical?
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		Oh, well, if you saw the movie 2001, it's based on the premise that a civilization making a transition between type 0 to type 1 becomes interesting and in some sense worthy of contact.
		When in the movie they reached the moon and they made contact with this monolith, that's when the aliens realized that, yes, humans have arrived.
		They're type 1.
		They have an operating moon base.
		We are about 100 years away from that technology.
		Arthur C. Clarke was, I think, off by about 100 years.
		It's not going to be 2001.
		It'll be 2100.
		When we have an operating moon base capable of scanning the entire moon for the presence of a monolith.
		And the whole purpose of that monolith was to make contact with a Type 1 civilization.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That's very depressing that it's going to be that long until we get a base on the moon.
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		It's about 100 years, I think, before we have an operating base capable of detecting anomalies like that on the moon, like in the movie.
		And that means that we are now interesting, worthy of some kind of contact.
		By the way, neurocivilizations are probably dime a dozen and they just destruct.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		By the way, just for fun, how likely is it, how good a scenario is it, that there would be something like that perhaps buried on our moon?
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		Well, I personally think that if there is concrete presence of extraterrestrial visitation, it will probably in the presence, it probably be as an artifact left on the moon.
		If I was a passing type 3 civilization scanning thousands and thousands of planets, I'm not going to send Captain Kirk to visit each one.
		It would take him thousands of years to do that.
		I would send robotic probes, self-replicating von Neumann probes, like a virus.
		A virus lands on a cell and hijacks the cell and makes copies of itself.
		So the probe would land on the moon, build a factory, which would then send thousands of other probes to other moons.
		Moons are stable.
		They don't have erosion or wind or water.
		And so they're quite stable.
		And then these probe would simply sit there, do nothing, and just wait for the presence of a Type Zero civilization to become Type 1.
		Type 0 civilizations are probably dime a dozen, and they self-destruct rather frequently.
		So they're not really worth monitoring that much because they're not permanent.
		By the time you're type 1, you become interesting.
		You're planetary.
		You have planetary music, planetary culture, planetary art, planetary mathematics.
		You become interesting.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		But as things move along in evolution, wouldn't That moment when an atomic bomb detonates be a kind of marker?
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		That's right.
		I think the detonation of an atomic bomb would signal the fact that a civilization is approaching type 1 status.
		And if a probe is sitting there for a million years waiting for an intelligent species to come out of the swamp and gradually rise up this sequence, then the first interesting signal would be a nuclear detonation.
		And every nuclear detonation releases a very characteristic flash called a double flash.
		We have a satellite up in space called the Vila satellite, which is specifically designed to look for these double flashes, which are the fingerprint of a nuclear detonation.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		But we're looking back at Earth, I'm sure, right?
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		We're looking back at Earth.
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		And it's found several nuke flashes in the past.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		The Israelis performed in the future.
		Quick question.
		Wouldn't it be useful to have a satellite out there pointed the other way looking for this double flash?
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		Well, a double flash on a distant star or a distant planet would be too faint to pick up.
		Our satellites, like the Vela, can definitely pick up double flashes on the Earth, and it has picked up signals of an unauthorized detonation of a nuclear device on the Earth.
		But in outer space, they're just too far away.
		We can just barely make out the presence of Jupiter-sized planets in outer space.
		But the point is that as a Type Zero civilization begins to make the transition to Type I, that would be very one noticeable signal that it is nearing Type 1 status.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay, that was my whole point.
		I mean, modern ufology was born just when that happened.
		And you think that's a coincidence?
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		Well, it's hard to say, but all I'm saying is that the probability is that the most likely place to find evidence for visitation is on the moon, because of the fact that they're ideal places to simply observe the rise and fall of Type Zero civilizations.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, here's another one for you.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		If a very advanced alien civilization detected an atomic bomb going off and then hydrogen bombs and they'd begin really looking, and we did plenty of above-ground testing to give them lots of examples, right?
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		Right.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Might they not regard such behavior as not worthy?
		In other words, that maybe they're out there looking just for civilizations that develop in some peaceful way.
		And I mean, gee, our detonating these monsters definitely might have said, you know, sent another message.
		And their reaction to that could be, and why wouldn't it be, these people cannot be let loose.
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		Well, it's conceivable.
		Many science fiction stories are based on that fact.
		The point is that type zero civilizations are probably still quite savage.
		They're just coming out of the swamp.
		They have all the signs of the savagery of the swamp, you know, fundamentalism and sectarianism and racial strife.
		You know, by the time you're type one, you are planetary.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Professor, maybe you can answer where we are.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		If there was a scale of one to ten, ten being when you made type one, where are we on that scale, roughly?
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		Well, Carl Sagan tried to answer that question.
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		He put it at 0.7.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		0.7.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And you?
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		Well, he did his calculation on the basis of energy production.
		A full type 1 civilization can utilize all the light coming from the sun.
		All light coming from the sun.
		And you realize that we only take a tiny fraction of the light coming from the sun and utilize it.
		A type 1 civilization, by definition, utilizes all the light coming from the sun.
		And if you think about it, we're about 100, 200 years away from being able to produce energy on that scale.
		That is, the scale of all the light that hits your planet.
		And so on that scale, Carl Sagan calculated, we're about at 0.7.
unidentified		Thank you.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Acknowledging that English is used by flight controllers, you know, all aircraft are directed in English all around the world.
		That's a given.
		However, Rob in Atlanta, Georgia says, you know, I agree with most of what Dr. Kaku says, except English being the dominant language 100 years hence.
		In fact, all indications point now to some form of Chinese.
		And, you know, that's pretty powerful stuff.
		What do you think, Professor?
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		Well, I think that we are fairly close to becoming a type 1 civilization within about 100 years.
		But already, English is the number one second language on the planet Earth.
		All elites, business elites, entertainment elites, scientific elites around the world speak English.
		And I think the momentum is pretty much unstoppable now.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Even by the Chinese, who are, you've got to admit, they're going to be, they're probably going to pass us sometime, inevitably.
		I was in China, and I was terribly alarmed by what I saw.
		The pace going on over there is frightening, and they're going to be big.
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		Well, I think by mid-century and later, there will probably be two and a half superpowers on the planet Earth.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I think so?
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		The United States, China, and perhaps India.
		But you realize that even though China has access to vast resources and human resources in its people, that it has Problems.
		First of all, innovation.
		Innovation in the West is much more prized.
		Creativity being the maverick is much more prized than in Asian cultures.
		In Asian cultures, they have the expression: the nail that sticks out gets hammered down.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That's absolutely correct.
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		In the West, there's the expression, the squeaky wheel gets the grease.
		So you see, diametrically opposed worldviews.
		And China will also eventually have problems with workers that demand more salaries.
		Salaries are going to have to rise in China, and China will become a little bit less competitive.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		But it's still higher wages.
		It has to be noted, Professor, that Oriental children, Chinese children, because of no doubt family pressure and many other things, perhaps even genetics, that come to this country tend to get straight A's, and they're absolutely brilliant.
		And it's true in their home countries, and it's true here.
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		So I think it's a question of culture more than anything.
		If you're an immigrant coming to the United States, this is your big opportunity.
		Don't blow it.
		Immigrants coming to this country hit the ground running, and they work very, very hard.
		They bleed themselves dry so that their kids can get accepted to Harvard and Yale and places like that.
		So the immigrants sacrifice themselves so that the next generation can get the access to all the goodies that they're going to be able to do.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay, but I'm saying it's not just immigrants, that that kind of ethic reigns at home as well.
		In other words, I'm saying these are very bright people, scientifically bright.
		And, you know, the kind of cultural differences that you're talking about, I'm not sure they'll last.
		Already, Japan is changing radically, and China can't be that far behind.
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		Right, but take a look at Japan.
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		People once thought 15 years ago that Japan was going to take over the world.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, yes.
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		Now we see the fact that its population is aging very rapidly and that young people, a lot of them are punk rockers and a lot of them are just as silly as American youth.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And I think in China it will take another...
		In other words, that change is well underway in Japan.
		And yeah, China's ruled by an iron hand right now, but those changes are inevitable.
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		Well, China's rising rapidly just because it's experiencing a first industrial revolution.
		The West also rose very rapidly on a first industrial revolution, but it tapered off.
		It gradually tapered.
		People became middle class, demanded more consumer goods, and the rate of economic growth began to slow down.
		The same thing will happen in China.
		Its rate of economic growth will also gradually slow down.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		It may.
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		Workers demand a middle-class life.
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		They don't want to work so hard, and their kids are going to become punk rockers.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		But they're so damn big, Professor, that it's going to slow down at a slower rate.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		In other words, it's going to go on and be a big power for a long time.
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, but there are a lot of structural problems.
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		Look at the male-female ratio in the countryside, for example.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, that's true.
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		It's horrible.
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		I mean, in some villages, it's like 75 men to 25 women because of the selective abortion of female children.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, God, you hear terrible stories about little girls being drowned like puppies.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh.
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, and so there are a lot of structural problems.
		So, of course, in the United States, it's always hysteria.
		It always sells newspapers, right?
		So people want to get into this hysterical mode.
		But Japan did not take over the world 15 years ago.
		True.
		And I think that as long as the West maintains its competitive, innovative, creative spirit, that that will be the engine of prosperity.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, you're certainly bullish on America.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I'm glad to hear that.
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
		However, you know, the educational system in this country is one of the worst known to science.
		So then how come the United States doesn't collapse in the technological age?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, how come you're so bullish on America?
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		Well, there are two reasons why the United States does not collapse technologically.
		One is brain drain.
		50% of Silicon Valley is foreign-born.
		If you are a high-tech person overseas, you get the H-1B visa.
		You go right to Silicon Valley.
		The United States is a gigantic vacuum cleaner that's sucking up all the top brains of the world, which is a tremendous secret weapon.
		Most people don't know that we have a secret weapon called the H-1B visa.
		Every once in a while, some stupid politician tries to close that H-1B visa, and then even the Wall Street Journal has to tell people that we have this secret weapon, this genius visa, that allows geniuses to float right to Silicon Island.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Out of curiosity, Professor, who makes those decisions?
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		Well, the United States Immigration Authority has authority over immigration, but thank God.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		But I mean, who sits in a paneled room somewhere saying, all right, here go these visas.
		We found these people.
		I mean, there must be some great decision-making apparatus in place to even do that.
		I don't think so.
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		But after 9-11, MIT, Stanford, they were all howling at the fact that the brightest minds of the world were not coming to America because their visas were not being approved because, you know, the Homeland Security got overcautious and denied permission.
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		At our university, quite a few of our Chinese PhD students could not come to the United States because Homeland Security got too antsy, as if these Chinese young students are going to be future terrorists in America, right?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		But we got smart.
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		Right.
		And the other advantage that our educational system has is that it does allow the so-called genius to thrive.
		See, Bill Gates as a kid probably would not have done very well in China at all.
		While in this country, the Maverick, the Icano class, the Richard Feynman, the Bill Gates, they are allowed to flourish.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		So you assign a really big quotient of importance to our individual entrepreneur life.
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		Well, it is one of our secret weapons.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I guess it is.
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		We attract these people from around the world.
		They are innovative.
		They're not welcome in their home country because they are considered oddballs in their country.
		But in this country, they're called geniuses.
		And so we price them.
		And these people Start entire industries.
		These people don't take away jobs from American citizens.
		They create entire industries.
		They're the engine of high-tech.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		There is a fear, and I do know that a lot of ideas, inventions, and new things come from America, but we have this problem of inventing them here and then not doing the practical application, but letting that part of it get away to Japan or China or wherever, that we don't produce it here and that we're not producers.
		People are concerned about that.
		The factories are not cranking out anymore.
		Yes, we have information technology, but we're not producing anything.
		And there are those who worry about that.
		Do you?
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		Well, producing in the sense of producing like steel.
		We're entering a post-industrial society where value is more and more intellectual capital rather than commodity capital.
		And nations that stick with commodity capital, that produce agricultural products and steel and tin, commodity prices have been dropping for 150 years.
		And that's not where wealth of the future is going to be.
		Those nations that have, quote, lots of factories and produce lots of things, yeah, they'll have an industrial revolution.
		They'll have their first industrial revolution.
		But they're not going to be competitive in the future because it's intellectual capital that's going to be worth a lot.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		So in other words, you're saying we'll win by being smarter.
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		Smarter and more creative.
		You realize that Hollywood is this tremendous intellectual capital engine.
		The Internet, web designers, all that is creative intellectual capital.
		Intellectual capital is not just being a software programmer at some high-tech firm.
		Intellectual capital is creativity, leadership, it's talent, it's stuff that we usually associate with the arts, in fact.
		So I think that we have to realize that commodity capital is not going to be the future, that we don't want to be an industrial society.
		And China is undergoing their first industrial revolution.
		In America, we're entering a post-industrial society where we don't necessarily want to have lots of coal mining jobs and lots of steel-making jobs.
		We want to have people create entertainment, create creative things like websites, become software engineers, create intellectual capital rather than simply commodity capital.
		The world is making a transition.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And you think that there's an economic model that makes all of this work and makes us win?
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		Well, you know, I do a lot of traveling, and when I go to Europe, all the people in Europe are envious, just tremendously envious of the United States, because it is this creative engine.
		Now, in the United States, we like to bellyache.
		Everyone bellyaches in the United States until you go overseas.
		And when you go overseas, you realize that most people think of the United States as this creative juggernaut.
		Well, it's that all the software, all the Hollywood movies, all the songs, everything comes from here.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		In fact, in Japan, for example, all of their advertisements on television and billboards include English words, Professor.
		They are fascinated, absolutely fascinated with America, and it's almost some sort of compulsion.
		It's a high-class thing in Japan to include English words in advertisements.
		I mean, they do look at us that way.
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		That's right.
		And that's another reason for believing that English will be the type one language.
		Because if you're in China, what language do the educated people in China speak?
		English.
		If you're Tibetan, Mongolian, Japanese, Thai, Cambodian, you have a conference in China, what language do they speak?
		English.
		You realize that when I go to Europe and there's French, German, Italians in the audience, what language do we speak to each other with?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		English.
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		English.
		In Asia, if you're Cambodian, Vietnamese, and Thai, and you get together, what language do you speak in?
		English.
		In some sense, it already is the type 1 language.
		And all the elites already speak it.
		And in the future, we'll have even the middle class of these countries speak English.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		Let's switch subjects for a second.
		You believe in string theory.
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		That's right.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Apparently, George had a guest on, Lawrence A. Krauss.
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		Oh, right.
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		Larry's a friend of mine.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Is he?
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, I've had him on my radio show.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Even after some of what he said about string theory.
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		Oh, he said some pretty nasty things about string theory, but he doesn't know what he's talking about.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, he doesn't know what he's talking about.
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		No, he doesn't know what he's talking about.
		I mean, with all due respect, I have great respect for Larry Krauss' astronomy, but he knows nothing about string theory.
		He's illiterate in string theory.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Uh-huh.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, Krauss says that string theory is a monstrous failure.
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, well, that's his opinion.
		You could also say that Newton and Einstein were monstrous failures because it took time for their discoveries to come to fruition.
		You realize that black holes were predicted to exist about 200 years ago.
		It took 200 years to prove that black holes really exist in outer space, since they were first predicted by an English clergyman in the UK.
		And so it takes time for some discoveries to come to fruition.
		So I think that bellyaching is not the way science should be conducted.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Actually, he says one thing that I think he regards as a nice thing at the very end, he says, I want to add some balance.
		It's fascinating to think about, meaning string theory, and maybe one day it will have a success that will actually explain something.
		That's pretty rough.
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		No, I don't think so.
		You see, science is rough and tumble, okay?
		So I don't mind when people who know what they're talking about.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		So do you guys fight a lot?
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		No, not necessarily.
		In the literature, we have fierce debates about equations and things like that.
		But like I said, Larry Cross is not a player.
		He's not a string theorist.
		He's illiterate in string theory.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I see.
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		He's an outsider.
		now, we live in a free country, so outsiders can say anything they want.
		But he's basically an astronomer.
		I have a lot of respect for his astronomical stuff.
		But if you look at his astronomical stuff, a lot of it is not grounded in a fundamental theory because he has no fundamental theory.
		So my attitude is, instead of bellyaching about somebody else's theory, create your own.
		In other words, my attitude is put up or shut up.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Why do you think he has this attitude about string theory?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I mean, it must be based on something.
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		Well, what happens is every 10 years in string theory, there's a revolution.
		As we peel away one more layer to get to the essence of what's happening, string theory is evolving backwards.
		But after about 10 years, you know, the well runs dry before the next big revolution.
		And then you have people, you know, harping that, you know, gee, you know, we don't have any more big revolutions anymore.
		I mean, what have you done for me lately?
		You know, it's human nature.
		It's human nature to say that, well, you had your glory days, but what have you done for me recently?
		And again, every 10 years or so, we've had these monumental sea changes in our understanding of string theory because it's evolving backwards.
		We discovered it by accident in 1968, totally by accident.
		We were not meant to see this theory really for another hundred years.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right, for the audience, the fastest version of what string theory is that you can logically present?
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		Well, simply, it says that point particles, like electrons that we used to think are points, we think are actually vibrating rubber bands.
		If you had a supermicroscope, you would probably see that an electron is not a dot, but it's a vibrating rubber band.
		And so physics is nothing but the laws of harmony of these little vibrating rubber bands or strings.
		Chemistry is nothing but the melodies you can play on these strings.
		The universe is a symphony of these vibrating strings.
		And the mind of God that Einstein eloquently wrote about, the mind of God, we think, is cosmic music resonating through 11-dimensional hyperspace.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Wow.
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		That is string theory.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That is string theory.
unidentified		Right.
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		We're looking at nothing less than the mind of God.
		Now, I'm prepared to wait.
		Some people are impatient and say, I want results now.
		I want to get the data to correspond to where Adam Smash is now.
		Well, I'm a little bit more, I take a bigger view, a bigger view, because that's what we're looking for, reading God's thoughts.
		Now, you realize that next year, the first piece of evidence may come in, may not, the Large Hadron Collider, the biggest atom smasher ever conceived of and built by the human mind, will be turned on next year.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		How much of a chance is there that when it's turned on, it will either confirm or blow away string theory?
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		Well, some of my friends who are very, very optimistic think that the Large Hadron Collider could nail it to the wall.
		I'm a little bit more cautious because I take the long-term view.
		The stakes are so high.
		We are talking about the end of physics.
		The stakes are so high that I'm prepared to wait.
		I don't necessarily need to have a result tomorrow.
		However, there are some friends of mine.
		I was at Aspen last year where we actually talked about this among other fellow string theorists.
		And there are some string theorists who think that the Large Hadron Collider may find spartacles.
		Spartacles are superparticles.
		We think they make up dark matter in the universe.
		And so we may be able to create, in some sense, our own dark matter.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And if we find sparticles, how strongly suggestive of string theory would that be?
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		Well, the only consistent theory of spartacles is string theory.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And I read from his book in the first part of the program, at least the beginning of his guest appearance, and it's fascinating.
		I mean, if you want a good book to read, I'm an avid reader.
		Parallel Worlds, a journey through creation, either dimensions, higher dimensions, rather, and the future of the cosmos is a total must.
		You're absolutely going to love it.
		That's all there is to it.
		Now, if you hear some meows in the background, the two newest members of the Bell household, both of them kittens, don't like having the door closed at all.
		So that will be the sound you hear in the background.
		Hopefully it won't penetrate, but they are out there making their case.
unidentified		Gunshot
art bell ▲ ● ▼		God, you know, I hope string theory is real.
		I really hope you're right, Professor, because string theory allows, in some instances, for time travel.
		And, boy, I'm a big fan of time travel.
		Maybe bigger now than ever.
		Anyway, so I hope you're right.
		I really hope you're right.
		But suppose this collider does its thing and string theory gets blown out of the water.
		I mean, there's some sort of conclusive thing that really does blow it out of the water.
		I mean, you're kind of tied to string theory.
		How would you take it, Professor?
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		Well, first of all, I don't think that's going to happen, but if there is a piece of evidence that is totally inconsistent with string theory, then you have to just pick up the pieces and keep on moving.
		However, the problem that we string theorists have, in other words, if I'm going to be my worst critic, if I'm going to be my own worst critic, the problem with string theory is not that, not that at all.
		The problem with string theory is that there is a multiverse.
		It predicts millions of different kinds of possible universes.
		And if we have a multiverse, we have millions and millions of soap bubbles, each soap bubble being an entire universe.
		Then, how do we figure out which one is our universe?
		If something comes out of the atom smasher in Geneva, Switzerland next year that is inconsistent with one version of string theory, there's another bubble that is consistent with that piece of data.
		And so at that point, it has no predictive power anymore.
		You see, a predictive power means that you can say ahead of time something which will then decide the truth or falsity of some kind of theory, right?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		So are you suggesting there really is no way that it can actually get blown out of the water because there'll be an alternative explanation.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		There's nothing that would really blow it out of the water?
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, now this for me is actually a defect.
		But in some sense, it is not a falsifiable theory in the normal sense of the word.
		Usually science is based on falsifiable propositions, propositions that you can test and once and for all settle the question immediately.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		But string theory predicts a multiverse, millions and millions of parallel worlds.
		That's why that's the title of my book, Parallel Worlds.
		If we have this multiverse of universes, and like I said, if the Large Hadron Collider comes out with data that doesn't fit one bubble, then perhaps, well, we don't live in that bubble.
		We live in this other bubble there.
		And this, of course, drives Larry Krause crazy.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Because you could just say, well, okay, these laws don't apply in this bubble.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		It doesn't mean they don't apply elsewhere.
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		That's right.
		And our universe just happens to be this other bubble.
		Sorry about that.
		Now, this in some sense means that string theory does not have that much predictive power because in some sense it predicts all universes.
		And this, of course, drives Larry Krauss crazy.
		My attitude is different.
		My attitude is that we haven't found the final version of the theory.
		The theory was discovered by accident.
		And when we find the final version of this theory, this one-inch equation that gets you all of string theory, then we'll be able to settle the question once and for all of all these bubbles, which one is our bubble?
		Which one is our home?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I can understand why Mr. Kraus goes nuts on this one, because he can't win.
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		He can't win.
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		And on the other hand, it is a weakness of string theory that it doesn't have the predictive power that we once thought it was.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes, you said it was discovered by accident.
		There must be a story there.
		How was it discovered?
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		Well, back in 1968, there were two young postdocs, Veniziano and Suzuki, who were at CERN, the same institute that we're talking about in Switzerland, coming through a math book, and they found the Euler-beta function which fit the properties of colliding pi mesons.
		Now, science is not supposed to be done this way.
		You know, in elementary school, we learn about the scientific method, do an experiment, make a theory, do another experiment, make another theory, and tried and true method called the scientific method.
		Well, in reality, it's never done that way.
		There's a lot of accidents.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Go back for a moment and explain to me, you just said several things that I don't understand.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		What was discovered, please?
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		A formula, a pure mathematical formula that explained the collision of subatomic particles.
		Now, the collision of subatomic particles is one of the deepest secrets of Mother Nature.
		And yet, thumbing through a math book, for God's sake, we had no right to find an elegant, beautiful formula called the Euler beta function that seemed to fit the properties of the collision of subatomic particles.
		So this sent off a fury of papers, hundreds, thousands of papers were published immediately trying to explain the Veneziano formula.
		And then finally, around 1972, Nambu, Yochiro Nambu at Chicago and others said string, that there is a vibrating string involved, and that's what's causing all the magical properties of the Veneziano formula.
		And so that if I had this supermicroscope, could look at a pi meson, I would see that it's really nothing but one vibration of a rubber band.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		How did the scientists in question decide that this formula represented anything at all?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		How did the light bulb go off?
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		Because before then, people were saying the collision of subatomic particles must obey certain properties, so let's try to guess some of the properties of this formula.
		So the general features of the formula were known.
		People had guessed the general features.
		But no one ever suspected you could write down a formula, a formula that was actually first proposed 150 years ago by Euler, that actually fit all the criteria that you wanted.
		It created quite a sensation in physics.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		My bad.
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		And people at that point had to discover what was making it vibrate and what happens when these strings collide.
		In fact, my Ph.D. thesis was to calculate all the possible interaction of these colliding strings when they collide and form all sorts of different kinds of bizarre diagrams.
		That was my PhD thesis to catalog all these things.
		And then we needed an equation one inch long that summarizes the entire theory.
		And that's string field theory.
		That's what I did.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay, so everything is vibrating.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Everything, the desk, the chair, the floor, the earth, all of this.
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		That's right.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Everything is based.
unidentified		Everything.
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		Everything is based on music.
unidentified		That's correct.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And that music translates directly to mathematics.
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		That's right.
		The mathematics of music, we incorporate wholesale into physics now.
		And, you know, the Pythagoreans 2,000 years ago, the Greeks suspected that music was the language of nature, but that never got anywhere.
		You know, we needed to have discoveries of atoms and nuclei and protons and neutrons.
		But now that we have discovered the protons and neutrons, now we think that they're nothing but musical notes.
		The proton, the neutron, they're just like A, B, F sharp, you know, B flat, different notes on a vibrating string.
		So when I got my PhD, I had to memorize the names of hundreds of subatomic particles.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Remember close encounters of the third kind?
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Do you remember when the giant ship was sitting there and it was playing notes to us?
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		That's right.
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		Universal language.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		So that String theory would be then consistent with that approach to contact?
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		Metaphorically speaking, I would suspect that on the other end of the galaxy, there's probably an alien out there who's also discovering string theory for the first time and writing down the identical harmonies that I'm writing down in this quadrant of the Milky Way galaxy.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		It certainly is elegant, isn't it?
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		Right.
		And the first octave, by the way, the first octave of the string includes all of Einstein's theory.
		The sum totality of Albert Einstein's work is contained in just one note of the first octave of the superstring.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, very elegant.
		I see how it all works out.
		So that would be then you could understand such an approach to contact.
unidentified		Mm-hmm.
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		That's right.
		And so you realize the power of this theory.
		Mathematicians have been totally bowled over.
		New mathematics has come out of this theory, for God's sake.
		Usually it's the other way around.
		Usually we physicists learn mathematics from the mathematicians.
		In mathematics, there's something called the Fields Medal.
		That's their Nobel Prize.
		Three Fields Medalists have gotten their Fields Medal in part from inspiration from physics and string theory.
		So mathematicians are desperately trying to catch up with us, trying to learn about string theory.
		It's taken everybody by surprise.
		Like I said, we were not supposed to see this theory for another 100 years.
		This theory is so bizarre, it's mathematics, so alien, that we were not really supposed to see this theory for another 100 years.
		I like to think of it as like, you know, we're Polynesian islanders and somebody drops a laptop of an airplane.
		The laptop lands and they figure out how to push the buttons and how to use Windows.
		But then they open the back of the laptop.
		And then they realize there's an alien physics, an alien science that makes this laptop work.
		That's string theory.
		We have this laptop.
		We can play with it.
		We can actually do all sorts of crazy things on the screen of this laptop.
		So we think we know it until we open the back.
		And then we realize that there's alien mathematics there.
		That's string theory.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Is there some of string theory that would suggest that perhaps before contact with another dimension or anything else, there will be something in string theory that will allow some crude beginning form of communication?
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		Ah, communication.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes, communication, for example, with another dimension.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Communication using some science within string theory to an Well, the first signal that we may get from another dimension may come from the next generation of microwave satellites.
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		We have a satellite up there called the WMAP, which is revolutionizing all of cosmology.
		It picks up the echo of the Big Bang itself.
		We have essentially baby pictures of the Big Bang.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes, I think the first chapter is something about baby pictures, right?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Baby pictures of the universe.
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		That's right.
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		We have gorgeous photographs of the infant universe.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		How sure are we?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		How sure are we that those are accurate?
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		Well, the radiation that we photograph in the microwave range fits exactly, precisely, the predictions made by George Gama back in 1948 with his students.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		So mathematically certain.
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
		We're talking about not just one or two data points.
		Thousands of data points match perfectly the blackbody radiation predicted back in 1948.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That's very impressive.
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		Very impressive.
		So we have photographed the original explosion itself, 300,000 years after the original explosion.
		And the next generation of these satellites may give us the first inkling to the pre-Big Bang universe.
		This is LISA, LISA, Laser Interferometry Space Antenna.
		LISA is scheduled for launch in about six years' time or so.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, now wait a minute.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I guess I understand how we can sort of look back on the Big Bang itself or the explosion, but I don't see how you're getting where you say you're going right now.
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		Okay, the next generation of the satellites are going to be gravity wave detectors.
		Three satellites will be launched in space making a triangle connected by laser beams.
		Laser beams making an equilateral triangle in outer space.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Right.
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		Any gravity shock wave, not microwave now, but gravity shock wave that is still reverberating around our soap bubble, if it hits this triangle, it'll cause it to jiggle.
		The laser beams will go out of sync and will detect the presence of a shock wave, a gravity shock wave from the instant of creation.
		This will give us a baby picture of the baby as it emerges from the womb.
		Wow.
		The instant where the baby emerges from the womb.
		We hope to pick up the signs of an umbilical cord.
		The umbilical cord, perhaps, that connected our bubble universe to perhaps a parent bubble universe.
		And the radiation should give us the first signal from another dimension that if our universe was created in this fashion, you know, one soap bubble peeling off another soap bubble, the radiation has a certain predicted frequency.
		LISA should be able to get this frequency and check it against the data and rule in or out some theories.
		String theory makes some predictions about what this frequency should look like because the universe came from a parent universe.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Boy, that's really astounding.
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		And this, again, within five, six, seven years, depending upon when they finally get the satellite launched, measurable results that should tell us about the pre-Big Bang universe.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Professor, would there be any paradoxical problems at all in communicating with another universe.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Is there anything within string theory that says, look, there's a paradox here that isn't going to allow it to happen?
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		Well, in the end of my book, Parallel Worlds, I speculate, and I say this as strict speculation now, about what an advanced civilization will do as our universe dies.
		Our universe is dying.
		It's accelerating out of control.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		It's an extremely depressing chapter in your book.
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		But it ends on a very uplifting note.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, that we might escape.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That's kind of a small little bone you're tossing, though, because it's a big problem.
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, but even in the 1800s, Charles Darwin realized the laws of physics seem to indicate that the universe is running down, and he was quite depressed.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay, I guess some of the audience might not know what we're talking about.
		And it's this, folks, that the end will not be necessarily quick unless we bump into a black hole or something.
		Otherwise, the end will be a very lonely, empty sky with everything having separated us from us at such a distance that we are all alone.
		And I suppose the sun finally blinks out, and it's a pretty dismal ending, all things considered, yes?
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		Right.
		See, the philosophers asked the question, are we going to end in fire or ice?
		And we can answer these questions.
		The Earth will end in fire because it will be eaten up by the Sun about five billion years from now.
		The Sun will end in ice.
		It will turn into a small black dwarf star billions of years from now.
		And the universe, we once debated whether it will end in fire, like a big crunch, or ice, like a big freeze.
		And all the data indicates that we're headed for a big freeze much faster than anyone thought.
		The universe is accelerating.
		It's not slowing down at all.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Nothing that should be concerning us, I take it.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Personally, I mean, personally.
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, you don't have to take insurance on this.
		This is going to happen billions to trillions of years from now.
		But there will be a time when the entire night sky is black.
		All the stars will have blinked out.
		The universe will consist of black holes and dead neutron stars.
		And all intelligent life will die because it's too cold to sustain intelligent life.
		And the universe will be near absolute zero in temperature.
		And it seems as if the laws of physics are a death warrant, a death warrant to all intelligent life in the universe.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		It does seem that way.
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		But there's only one escape.
		If the universe is dying, then the only escape is to leave the universe.
		In evolution, if the weather changes, either you adapt, change, or die.
		That's it, folks.
		I mean, there's no other alternative than that, says evolution.
		And our universe is getting awfully cold in the future.
		And at that point, you know, if we're type 4, type 5, we may have to leave our universe because there's no other choice.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I'm curious what leaving our universe would entail.
		Can you even imagine...
		And you're saying it would take a machine.
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		A huge machine, much bigger than the world.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Put it right there.
unidentified		laughs
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Amazing interview.
		Amazing subject, isn't it?
		Dr. Michio Kaku is my guest, and here he is once again.
		And, you know, I just realized, Professor, that I have not yet asked you one question from the list of questions that they set up for the show.
		We got off on to so many other tactics, but before I do ask at least a couple of those, I want to talk about this machine.
		I really like machines, Professor.
		And a machine to escape to another universe because ours is failing and getting cold and no longer livable is really intriguing.
		What would the nature of such a machine be?
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		Well, first of all, if you take a look at Norse mythology for some inspiration, they have the Twilight of the Gods, or Godadamerung, or Ragnarok, where there's a gigantic battle in the heavens, and Odin and Thor die, and the whole universe becomes cold and dies as a consequence.
		But then an island forms, a tiny island, and seeds begin to sprout, and then the human race starts up again in this island.
		And that's how this whole Gatodamerung myth ends, this Norse mythology.
		Well, the universe is dying.
		The latest data indicates that it's accelerating out of control.
		It's going an exponential expansion called a Desider expansion.
		And it's going to get awfully cold in the future, so cold that intelligent life will necessarily die when temperatures reach an absolute zero.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		The machine.
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		Now, the machine is designed to reach the Planck energy.
		The Planck energy is the ultimate energy.
		It's the energy at which space and time become unstable.
		Bubbles begin to form, and the so-called space-time foam becomes visible.
		We think that at very small distances, space becomes foamy, like soap bubbles.
		But at the Planck energy, these bubbles can become large.
		And so I advocate in the end of the book, an advanced civilization facing death will build a gigantic accelerator, like the one that's opening up next year in Geneva, Switzerland, to concentrate enough firepower at a single point to reach the Planck energy.
		They may have to use super laser beams and atom smashers the size of the asteroid belt of the solar system.
		I even give you some of the details of how big it would have to be.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		How big?
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		Well, probably about 10 light years across.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh my god.
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		We are talking about something that will stretch across star systems.
		And its final acceleration may be inside the asteroid belts, where stations inside the asteroid belt concentrate the energy in a circle and then slam all this energy at a single point, reaching the Planck energy.
		The Planck energy is a quadrillion times larger than that that'll be attained next year in Geneva, Switzerland with the Large Hadron Collider.
		And it could be the last ditch effort, the last project ever done by an intelligent species in our universe.
		It's make or break to create a machine about 10 light years across, sufficient to slam particles to reach a temperature approaching that incredible amount.
		Now, you can calculate the size of the wormhole that may be created.
		Hopefully it'll be big enough to transport a whole civilization through.
		But I even give you in the book a worst case scenario, in which case perhaps only molecules can go through this wormhole that's created.
		But even at the molecular level, you could probably transport enough data through the wormhole to recreate the DNA of your species on the other side of the wormhole.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh my God.
		So you're not really saying that we escape.
		You're saying that our DNA is a problem.
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		Well, I'm saying that if we can stabilize the wormhole, then we, then human beings, our descendants many times over, all of us will go through.
		However, in a worst case scenario, maybe the wormhole is not large.
		Many physicists believe that wormholes can be created, but they're going to be small.
		You would need fantastic amounts of energy to open up the mouth of the gateway so that it is big enough to create a looking glass.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		One sad ending, Professor.
		I mean, we don't end up sending ourselves, and so we might be able to send ourselves.
		No, I got that.
		But you're suggesting that, well, maybe not, too.
		And maybe the only thing we could send would be our DNA.
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		Well, and our memories and our personalities to recreate them on the other side so that you would send robots, tiny molecular-sized robots, to then create DNA vats that would then clone the species with their memories, which is nothing but information, right?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I'm not clear how the DNA transports memory.
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		The DNA does not, but you would send binary code to the wormhole, which encodes the personalities, memories of everyone in the previous civilization.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, my God.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		So you believe that, for example, a planet full of people, however many there would be at that time, could be reduced to memories and molecules.
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		That's right.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Memories and molecules.
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		Right.
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		And you would send both the molecules, which would then form DNA factories, which then clone the species without a memory, and then the information would go through the wormhole, which would then program the brains to have the memories and personalities of their predecessors.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Professor, then why isn't it possible that that's how we got here?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That somebody did exactly that?
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		Well, it's possible that a neighboring soap bubble next to ours is very old, and it is experiencing this sitter expansion.
unidentified		Yes.
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		And perhaps they left their universe to go to a warmer one.
		And we, by comparison, are much warmer than a universe where all the black holes are blinking out, and there's nothing but Hawking radiation left.
		So it's conceivable that they would probably want to enter a universe much like our universe, which is still relatively young.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I mean, that's a whole theory of creation there, buddy.
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		That's right.
		We are talking about mythologies.
		We are talking about Genesis.
		We're talking about Nirvana.
		We're talking about God of Damarung.
		All the ancient mythologies start to come into play when we talk about the life and death of an entire universe or a multiverse.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		But I mean, if it's something we could do, then it would be something somebody else could do.
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		That's right.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And that could easily be how we got here, and it would explain an awful lot of things, wouldn't it?
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		Well, you would have to be at least type 3 to even begin to create a machine that is several light years across.
		And, you know, preferably type 4 to have all the energy necessary to play with these things.
		But again, there's nothing in the laws of physics.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		But there are things in the laws of math that say, according, I believe, to your theory, that there must be type 1s, 2s, 3s, and maybe even 4s out there right now.
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		Right.
		Highly likely that if you have a type 0 civilization getting off the ground, that unless it self-destructs, it'll go through this sequence and eventually become type 3 and eventually become galactic.
		In fact, Carl Sagan used to wonder, if there was a type 3 civilization in our backyard, would we be intelligent enough to even know it?
		And he came to the conclusion, no.
		We are so stupid in our technology, we wouldn't even be able to know that we're in the middle of a type 3 civilization.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		But we could have been seeded.
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		Well, Fred Hoyle, one of the world's leading cosmologists of the 20th century, believed in the panspermia theory, in which case we were seeded.
		He claimed that life starts very soon after the age of meteors ends.
		And how could life have started so quickly after the meteor bombardment stopped on the planet Earth?
		And so he believed that spores came from out of space to jump-start life on Earth.
		Who can say for sure?
		It's one speculation versus another.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
		Yes, although I suppose there could be a kind of forensic proof of something like that someday.
		In other words, the fingerprint of a designer.
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		Well, you know, on Star Trek, there was this one episode where they tried to explain why the Klingons and the Rombulans look just like us and are separated by just 100 years in technology.
		And in that episode, rather ingenious, there was a primordial DNA created by a species that seeded our sector of the galaxy.
		So we're all descended from the same DNA.
		And that's why the Klingons and the Rhombulins look just like us, except they have different nose makeup.
		So that was one way to explain w how these species can mate with each other, because if you have two aliens, uh they cannot mate with each other because their DNA is totally different.
		Uh That would explain why mating is possible on Star Trek, because we were seeded from the same original DNA.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You know, almost everything you say is so optimistic about life being out there in various stages of development, some of them very far advanced.
		And since you believe that, seem to believe that, certainly I've listened very carefully tonight, and you seem to believe that, then you ought to be a supporter of SETI-like affairs.
		You should be a supporter of attempts to locate life.
		And I guess you are, aren't you?
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		Yes, but I just think that SETI is not going to find anything.
		I would put money on the table that they're probably not going to find that much in outer space because we're looking at the wrong place.
		Our instruments are too crude.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		If you were running SETI and had an unlimited budget, something SETI can only wish for and dream about, but if you did, how would you look, Professor?
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		Well, assuming I had an unlimited budget, I would start to look at different frequencies beyond hydrogen.
		That is, I think, the worst place to look because that's where all the garbage is.
		Why would an advanced species want to communicate on the garbage frequencies of exploding stars and dying stars?
		There's a lot of static out there.
		Why communicate on the static?
		I would start to Fourier transform all the different frequencies and start to look for different kinds of harmonics, different kinds of frequencies, possibility of laser communication, possibility of spread spectrum communication, all of which cost much more money than SETI can afford.
		So I'm not astonished at all that they found nothing.
		If they find anything, it'll be a miracle.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, all right.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Would it be justified if somebody came before Congress with a plan and asking for enough money to really go at it the way you just talked about, would you back such an effort?
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		Well, as a scientist, I would.
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		However, politicians, you know, they have the purse strings, and they look at health care costs rising.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, I know, I know, I know.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		But if you were called to testify about the worthiness of such a project, you would support it.
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		Oh, sure.
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		I would definitely support it because, you know, like I said, since we left the forest, this could be an event on that magnitude if we were ever to make contact with an extraterrestrial civilization.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		How much concern do you have that contact, certainly our military has a lot of concern about this kind of thing, that contact with another civilization could indeed be dangerous.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		How much concern would you have?
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, it's possible.
		I mean, you know, if you're ants confronting workers building a 10-lane superhighway, your concern is not that you're going to be invaded, not that you're going to be experimented with.
		Your concern is that you're going to get in the way.
		You're going to get paved over.
		That's the big concern that they are so advanced that they just may plow you under and not even know it.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Just as though you step on an anthill by mistake and kill all the poor little ants.
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		A big concern.
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		When we meet another intelligent species in space, we should be separated by a few million years.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		How big a concern?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		50, 50?
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		Well, you know, the distance between an ant and a human is actually small compared to the distance between type 0 and type 3.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		70%?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I mean, you're answering a question no one has ever been willing to answer for me.
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		What is the question again?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, the question is, by what percentage would you be concerned that it would be a negative outcome to have contact with a very advanced civilization, assuming that only the advanced one would contact us?
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		Well, I think we should have a 100% guard that they could be hostile, but I think the probability that they are hostile is very near zero.
		Because by the time you're type 3, you are immortal.
		Nothing known to science can destroy a type 3 civilization.
		Supernovas, ice ages, meteor impacts, all can be deflected or dealt with.
		By the time you're type 3, you are immortal.
		Nothing known to the laws of physics can destroy a type 3 civilization other than suicide.
		And so I would suspect, because also they're so old, you know, type 3 civilizations, just to get one off the ground, a minimum of maybe 100,000 years to a million years to get one off the ground, have gone through all the savagery and all the chaos of their origins from the swamp.
		They've had time to iron out all the sectarian, fundamentalist, racial, religious differences that typified their rise from the swamp.
		That they're not going to want to come to Earth to plunder us because, first of all, there are many other uninhabited planets that have mineral wealth that can be plundered.
		Why bother to plunder a planet that's inhabited?
		There are lots of mineral-rich planets that are not inhabited, that they can plunder at will.
		And they're not going to want to necessarily mate with us or do hidden experiments because we're not going to be made out of the same DNA.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Take our women.
		Here's a question for you, Professor.
		Is there any rationale that you could imagine for a civilization to commit suicide?
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		Yes, there are.
		I think there are rationales.
		I think by the time you become type 3, there is the possibility that you've seen everything and therefore cease to have any interest in the rest of the universe.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You have learned all there is to learn?
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, this actually happened in human history in the 1400s.
		The Chinese assembled the largest fleet known to humanity to sail around the world, and the emperor wanted to know what was out there.
		This is way before Columbus.
		The fleet was huge compared to Columbus's fleet a few decades later.
		And the fleet brought back lions and tigers and elephants, and there are engravings of elephants in Beijing as a consequence of this.
		But the emperor's attitude was, is that all?
		And as a consequence, he burned the boats.
		And that's why China was set back 500 years.
		That's why the West overtook China, in some sense, because they burned the boats.
		They ceased to be curious about the outside world.
		They thought that we're number one.
		In fact, what does China mean, right?
		Central country.
		So they thought they were number one, and therefore there was no need to explore the rest of the world.
		And that's how the West overtook China.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		So then you can imagine a Type 3 civilization simply finally knowing it all.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And then concluding there is no good reason to go forward because there is nothing more to be known.
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		That's conceivable.
		Again, I don't think it's the most likely avenue.
		You know, there are 100 billion stars in the Milky Way galaxy.
		And if even only a fraction of them have planets, that means there are an awful lot of planets to explore, each one with a different ecology and a different probability of life.
		And so I would suspect that they would have many, many new frontiers to conquer, not to mention the possibility of higher dimensions.
		So I would say that the probability of their committing suicide, like how the Chinese committed civilization suicide by burning the boats, I think would be kind of small.
		I think they're going to be peaceful because they've had millions of years to outgrow the savagery of their origins.
		And I think they're going to be curious.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		In the end, you're actually a very optimistic person, aren't you?
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		optimistic in the sense that I think the, if life is a crapshoot, then the odds favor an optimistic Type 3 civilization.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right, I've got to do this.
		I mean, it's ridiculous.
		I got off track with Professor Kaku, which is easy to do.
		And so let's roll through these very quickly.
		We just captured dust from a comet.
		Now, I kind of thought maybe it was dangerous.
		I guess it's important.
		And I'm worried that it's dangerous.
		Professor?
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		Well, it's not dangerous because the tail of a comet is better than any vacuum we can create on the planet Earth.
		The tail of a comet is basically a vacuum.
		However, there are tiny little ice particles and dust particles, which could give us an indication of how the early solar system formed.
		Now, this is also important because we think that a comet storm may have killed off a dinosaur 65 million years ago.
		The solar system is surrounded by a shell of comets called the Oort cloud.
		It's a spherical shell that surrounds this disk called the solar system.
		And as our solar system moves through the galaxy, it encounters galactic dust and debris, and it jiggles.
		It jiggles the Oort cloud of comets, sending some barreling down into the solar system.
		So some scientists believe that that's what killed off the dinosaurs.
		That the solar system probably dipped into the galactic plane, where it was quite dusty, because that's, of course, where we come from.
		We come from galactic dust.
		So as the solar system dipped into the disk of the galaxy, it jiggled the Oort cloud of comets, sending comets barreling down to the planet Earth.
		And that's probably what wiped out the dinosaurs.
		And that might wipe us out if our solar system goes through more galactic dust and causes more jiggling of this Oort cloud.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes, I saw a discovery special, and they described exactly what would occur if a large comet hit Earth.
		And they showed the Earth ultimately becoming a ball of fire nearly as hot as the surface of the Sun and all life being extinguished, except, the theory went, perhaps life at some depth in the Earth that would live through the heat of, you know, be in just the right place so that the surface heat wouldn't kill them and the heat center of the Earth wouldn't kill them.
		And this thin little layer of microbial life would emerge eventually when the planet cooled to once again start life on Earth.
		Does that make sense?
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		That's right.
		That may have been what killed off the chilobites.
		You realize that the comet or meteor that wiped out the dinosaurs was probably only six miles across, approximately.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		But Halley's Comet, the famous Halley's Comet, it's about 20 miles across, about the size of Manhattan.
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		So if Halley's Comet were ever to hit the Earth, and we go through the tail of Halley's Comet all the time, every 76 years, but if we were ever to be hit by a Halley's comet, the devastation would be much worse than that of 65 million years ago.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Do we have the capability to stop Halley's comet if it was on a trajectory, hello, to Earth?
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		The worst thing you could do is to blow it up.
		Then you'd have a whole bunch of mini-comets coming at you, which would cause even more devastation than a single comet.
		What you want to do is nudge it out of the way.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		With what?
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		When it's far out, put rockets, thruster rockets on it, just enough to nudge it so that it misses the Earth.
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		And that's probably the safest way to keep the comet intact.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And that would be scientifically possible today?
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		Not today, but however, we are going to be harpooning comets and doing all sorts of landing maneuvers on these extraterrestrial bodies.
		We've landed on asteroids, and one of these days we're going to land on a comet.
		The idea is to harpoon it, and then at some point stick a booster rocket on it, just enough to nudge it out of the way so that it misses the Earth.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay, a Pluto mission.
		We are, in fact, Pluto's in trouble.
		I think in danger of being declassified as a planet altogether, but we're going to Pluto.
		Is that correct?
		And apparently, we had 20 pounds of plutonium on board, the last space shot.
		And I take it you don't think that's a good idea.
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, I'm all for exploring the solar system.
		I'm a great fan of the different missions that are taking gorgeous photographs of Jupiter and Saturn.
		However, they're not going to go away.
		They're going to be there next year, the year after.
		There's no rush.
		So I think we should create a fleet of space probes that use solar, ion, different kinds of energy generating methods without nuclear.
		I have my doubts as to whether we should send large quantities of nuclear materials into space, because what can go wrong eventually will go wrong.
		At a certain point, the odds catch up to you.
		We have booster rocket failure about 1% of the time.
		And it's sad to say, but the two shuttle disasters came in pretty much on time.
		That's the record for massive failures in outer space, about 1%.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Or here on Earth, you know, I live very close to this neat little place called Yucca Mountain.
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		And they've had so many fiascos with regards to whether or not they can keep it buried for 10,000 years.
		And the latest federal judge says, well, the possibility may be for millions of years.
		Because we physicists believe that this radiation could be, you know, dangerous for millions of years.
		The 10,000-year figure that they pulled out of a hat is quite arbitrary, actually.
		So that's my attitude, that sooner or later the odds catch up to you.
		We had a great shot just a few days ago with the New Horizons mission to Pluto, nine and a half year mission to Pluto.
		But my attitude is Pluto is not going to go away.
		It'll be there next year.
		It'll be the year after that.
		And we should think of more advanced systems that don't use nuclear because that could be the end of the space program.
		If we have a misfire with plutonium in space and plutonium lands on Disney World, there are going to be a lot of angry people saying that we should shut down NASA.
		And I want to save the space program.
		Save it from itself.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		How big a risk are we taking when we launch a vehicle like that, equipped like that?
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		Well, again, 1% for booster rocket failure, for major catastrophic failure of the mission itself.
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		And if you take a look at the number of space shuttles, space shuttle launches, we are talking about that general ballpark.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Would NASA make a case that the plutonium, even in a massive explosion, would survive without killing people on the ground?
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		Well, they say that they've hardened the RTGs.
		They put different kinds of layers of protective stuff around it.
		But when something blows up, you get a lot of shrapnel.
		And the shrapnel and the heat would, I think, be sufficient to breach the containment and release the plutonium.
		And NASA itself, NASA itself, if you read their environmental impact statement, has gorgeous maps of Florida showing the areas of possible contamination.
		And we even talked to one of the retired NASA officials in charge of evacuating Florida.
		And he mentioned that in some scenarios, the cloud of plutonium dust will go over Disney World.
		Now, he said that this is what they planned for.
		And again, the probabilities are very small.
		I grant that.
		You know, we're not hysteric saying the sky is going to fall tomorrow.
		But my attitude is sooner or later the odds catch up to you.
		And even the hint, even the hint that a plutonium cloud went over Disney World would be sufficient to wipe out the economy of Central Florida.
		And we have a lot of angry parents waiting for the end of the space program.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, yes, indeed.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I think that indeed would be the end of the space program.
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		So my attitude is let's save the space program and not endanger it unnecessarily by having space missions of, you know, marginal scientific value like this one.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, Professor, maybe then you could explain to me how the mission got authorized in the first place.
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		Well, you know, there are people who want to push power in space, and Prometheus is the next thing down the line.
		That's a nuclear rocket, not just the nuclear battery.
		The previous missions had just had nuclear batteries in space.
		But the next one is Prometheus, which is a nuclear rocket.
		And, you know, in its defense, they say that they'll put a reactor in space in orbit and then turn it on in orbit so it's not going to blow up on the launch pad.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Is that not reasonable?
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		Reasonable, yes.
		But, you know, nature has a way of subverting the reasonable alternatives.
		If you have a misfire in orbit and you have a crippled spacecraft in orbit, like we've had many times in the past, we once had an angry alligator when the escape shroud did not leave our space capsule.
		And we had a dead satellite orbiting the Earth called the Angry Alligator.
		Well, let's say we have an angry alligator with a nuclear reactor on board.
		And we have this time bomb orbiting the Earth, and people taking odds as to where it's going to land.
		Now, we've had this before.
		The Russian space program was much more clumsy at this than the U.S. space program.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I seem to recall something with nuclear materials coming down in Canada, wasn't it?
unidentified		That's right.
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		Cosmos 954 plowed into the northern territories of Canada, spewed out 100 pounds of enriched uranium over several hundred miles.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Really?
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		And the contamination was enormous.
		They had to, of course, try to pack the ice so they wouldn't contaminate the surrounding environment with enriched uranium.
		But if that thing had hit London or Moscow or a populated area, again, that would have been the end of the space program.
		People would say it's simply too dangerous to put radioactive materials in space.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Would something like that re-entering over a major city, would it kill thousands of people?
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		Not initially.
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		Most of the damage, well, there would be, of course, damage from the impact.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Long-term cancers?
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		Well, you would have plutonium dust and uranium dioxide dust in the air, sufficient to be lodged in the deep lungs, about a micron or so in size, sufficient to give you cancer over a long period of time.
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		And you wouldn't be able to cough it out because the ciliary action of the lungs would not be able to pick up particles of that small size.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		There'd be a lot of people very upset about that.
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, property values would plunge.
		People would be ruined.
		People would be very angry.
		And even if it didn't, quote, kill that many people instantly, it would eventually perhaps kill hundreds of thousands over a long period of time.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, that's a pretty damn big risk.
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		And it's just a risk that I think is small.
		I mean, I agree with NASA it's a small risk.
		But why even bother to put the space program at risk when there are alternative methods?
		There are fuel cells, solar, ion, there are different kinds of alternatives that have been looked at in the past.
		And a Pluto mission, I think, is nice, but it's kind of marginal.
		Pluto, we think, is actually a comet, an overgrown comet of the Kuiper belt.
		It's not really a planet at all.
		And so why bother to risk the space program for an atomic rocket called Prometheus?
		The advantage of Prometheus is that it could go to Mars not over a two-year span, but maybe over three to six months.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Interest of time here, Stephen Hawking is beginning to back off recent statements.
		Now that's really a headline grabber right there.
		He's backing off recent statements about what?
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		He made the front page of the New York Times last year when he backed off by saying that black holes will eat up information forever.
		If you throw the Encyclopedia Britannica into a black hole, that information is gone forever.
		It's never retrievable again.
		Well, that violates string theory.
		String theory is a quantum theory, and as such, the radiation should slowly seep out again.
		Encoded in the radiation seeping out of a black hole should be the Encyclopedia Britannica's information.
		So he admitted he was wrong last year.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I see.
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		And he has at least the guts to admit that.
		But he's also beginning to back off on the theory of everything.
		He was one of the early people to push the idea of a theory of everything.
		Supersymmetry, supergravity, super strings, all excited his imagination.
		So he said, we're nearing the end of physics.
		So now we have not hit the end of physics, and the naysayers are coming out.
		And he's beginning to say, well, you know, maybe we were premature in saying that, you know, it's around the corner.
		But again, my attitude is I have a longer-term perspective.
		We'd all like to have the theory of everything in our lifetime, but maybe it's not going to happen in our lifetime.
		That doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
		It just means we're not smart enough.
		The equations are well known and well-defined, by the way.
		I wrote many of them myself.
		Any young kid listening to this program can read my book, Introduction to Superstrings and M-theory, learn the equations, and finish off the theory.
		The theory is unfinished at the present time.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And it probably will take a young, brilliant person, won't it?
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		Maybe listening to this program.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Maybe.
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		Inspired to get a copy of my book or other books, learn string theory, and finish it once and for all.
		And then we'll know for sure whether it's a theory of nothing or a theory of everything.
		So it's a decidable question.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Do we have our current quota of Hawkings?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Are we producing as many Hawkings and Cockus as we should be?
unidentified		Well, the problems are tougher.
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		And remember, Einstein had experimental clues that he could latch on to.
		The wobbling of Mercury, for example.
		He could latch on to these things, and he knew he was on the right track.
		Now we're talking about, you know, looking at the instant of creation.
		So we have not that much data on these things.
		And so we don't have the experimental clues that Newton and Einstein had back in those days.
		And the mathematics has gone right through the roof.
		So it takes a very skilled mathematical physicist to be able to work with string theory.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		So again, my question is, are we getting our quota of people who can handle this stuff?
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		Well, these people come around once every 100 years or so.
		It took 200 years between Newton and Einstein.
		So sometimes we get impatient, just like we get impatient for the next Hollywood movie star and the next hit movie.
		Science is not done that way.
		Sometimes it does take time, and we get impatient.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Is it your theory that generations could go by without getting that brilliant mind that comes from who knows what?
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		It could happen that way.
		Like I said, it took about 200 years before black holes were finally discovered in outer space.
		After 200 years of naysayers, 200 years of snickering and thumbing your nose at black holes.
		Now we have gorgeous photographs of the accretion disk of black holes in outer space.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		So on the other hand, somebody could come along, as you mentioned, tomorrow and suddenly solve it all.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And I remember asking you once, if we solved it, if we came up with that equation that literally explained everything, it really wouldn't mean all that much in practical terms to us right away, would it?
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		Right.
		If you're looking at a chess game, it would take you a while to figure out the rules of chess, right, how pawns move.
		But that does not mean you're a grandmaster.
		Once we figure out the chess game of life, the chess game of the Big Bang, the chess game of physics, it doesn't mean that we're grandmasters, that we'll be able to manipulate and create wondrous things.
		It just means we figure out how pawns move and how kings move and the rules of the game.
		So that's where we are today.
		We think we're very close now to figuring out the rules of the game, the game being the universe.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, the rules of my game are about up here.
		I have to pay attention to the clock.
		Parallel Worlds, your book, is it available now nationwide, generally?
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		That's right.
		Go to my website, mkaku.org, mkaku.org, And you know, it tells you about the book, and also go to Amazon.com.
		And in England, by the way, it was a finalist for the Samuel Johnson Prize for Nonfiction.
		That's the rough equivalent of their Pulitzer Prize.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Congratulations.
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		So I was, my British publisher were just elated that it was a finalist for their Pulitzer Prize.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right, Professor, congratulations.
		And I read a little from the book so people could understand.
		It is so eminently digestible, not stuffed up at all.
		Professor, thank you for being here, and we'll do it again soon.
		Take care, my friend.
michio kaku ▲ ● ▼		Okay, anytime.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Good night.
		That's a brilliant, brilliant man, Professor Michio Kaku.
		And that's about it for me tonight, folks.
		I'm sorry I didn't get to the calls that I had waiting.
		Perhaps it is as well.
		Please, the hour that's coming up is going to be a repeat of what I had to say about the loss of my very dear wife.
		And so though there are some difficult moments in it, I would ask you, as one gentleman obviously did in Oregon, do not call the Sheriff's Department, please.

▲