Michio Kaku (Transcript)

September 8, 2011

Michio Kaku
String Field Theory and the Multiverse
June, 2005

Regina Meredith: Hang on to your hats because you’re about to go on a heck of a ride through Time/Space and the Multiverse. Dr. Michio Kaku has been described as today’s Einstein in many elite circles. Add his genius for comedy and passion for the new frontier of String Field theory, of which he co-founder, and you have a veritable stand-up, theoretical physicist comedian. Dr. Kaku takes subjects that are nearly impossible for our current minds to understand and reduces them to common analogies, bringing incredibly exciting new possibilities for Mankind into clearer focus. All I can say is, “Have fun with this one.”

Regina Meredith: With your visions you hop scotch humanity through our phases of evolution from where we are now, which seems somewhat primitive on a large, cosmic scale.

Michio Kaku: Right, right.

Regina Meredith: And through this journey, you talk about our interface, conscious interface with technology and including the world of computers, etc.

Michio Kaku: Mmmhmm.

Regina Meredith: Can you speak to that a little bit right now in terms of where you think we’re going in the not too distant future in our interface with technology? And then we’re going to go on from there.

Michio Kaku: Mmmhmm. Well, we physicists have asked about what civilization will look like a hundred, a thousand, a million years beyond our technology. And, when we look in outer space, we actually look for paradigms that we may see. We look for what are called Type 1, Type 2, and Type 3 civilizations. We don’t look for little green men. We look for the energy signature of planetary, stellar and galactic civilizations.

Regina Meredith: Where are we in that mix right now?

Michio Kaku: Well, first of all, Type 1 civilization is a planetary civilization. They control the weather; they control earth quakes, volcanoes, anything planetary, they will control. Sooner or later, they exhaust the power of a planet; hurricanes and tornados are child’s play for them. And, they eventually start to use the power of their star, not just to get a sun tan, but to play with solar flares, to literally play with the entire star, to ignite stars, to play with stars like we play with coal or fire. Eventually, they exhaust the power of a star and they become galactic. They begin to colonize huge sections of the galaxy, and they start to use black holes, for example, as their primary energy supply.
Now, if you look at this scale, then you have to wonder where are we? We are Type 0 (zero). We get our energy from dead plants, oil and coal. However, on the calculator you can calculate when we will advance to these various stages. If we simply grow at three percent a year, which is very modest economic growth, then energy consumption also grows at three percent, and we will hit a Type 1 in about 100 years. Now, you can already see the emergence of a Type 1 civilization everywhere you go. When I open the newspaper, every single headline talks about the birth pang of a Type 1 civilization being born right before our eyes.

Regina Meredith: What does that look like?

Michio Kaku: First of all, the internet. What is the internet? The internet is a Type 1 telephone system; that’s all it is. We are privileged to be alive to see the birth of a new planetary Type 1 telephone system. The language of Type 1 is already out there. Most elites already speak English. You can go anywhere on planet Earth; scientific elite, business elite, cultural elite and they all speak English. So, we’re already beginning to see a planetary language being formed. A planetary economy is also being formed. Look at the European Union. These nations have killed each other for the last 5,000 years, ever since the Ice Age melted, ended, and why are they are banning together to form the European Union? To oppose us. And, who is “us?” We are NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement), OK. So, you see the emergence of a Type 1 economy emerging.

Regina Meredith: And globalization and outsourcing is part of this.

Michio Kaku: A teeny-weeny part, just a small part. People react to globalization, but they don’t realize it’s much bigger than just globalization. We also see the beginning of a Type 1 culture—you can go anywhere on the planet Earth and show people two pictures, of a man and woman, instantly recognizable by anyone on the planet Earth; Madonna and Arnold Schwarzenegger. So, my God! You know what Type 1 culture looks like. It’s going to be rock-n-roll, blue jeans, rap music, hip hop, youth culture. That’s going to be the currency, the language that this Type 1 civilization is going to speak, going to enjoy. So, we’re already beginning to see the beginnings of a Type 1 culture; entertainment, language, energy supply, politics, the beginning of a language, the beginning of—just a beginning of a Type 1 system.
Now, we are Type 0, so the transition between Type 0 to Type 1 is the most important transition in all of human civilization. Think about it; it’s the most dangerous of all transitions because there are some people who don’t want to be in Type 1. They instinctively, in their gut, know that a Type 1 system will be a system of different discourses, of different ideas and clashes of ideas, and so on and so forth. And these people who don’t want this transition are the terrorists. In their gut, the terrorists know that we’re headed for Type 1. They can’t articulate it. They don’t know the larger outlines of it, but in their gut they don’t like it. They would rather be in Type -1. So, however, I believe that this transition from Type 0 to Type 1 is the most important transition in the history of human civilization, and we are privileged to be alive to see the beginning of this transition. Our children and our grandchildren will complete the greatest transition in the history of the human race.

Regina Meredith: Is this not inspired by absolute necessity because we can’t live off of dead animals and dead plants and fossil fuels indefinitely? Is that kind of a nudging point?

Michio Kaku: It’s being forced upon us.

Regina Meredith: Yes.

Michio Kaku: In other words, some people say let’s try to stop the clock. Maybe we don’t want to be part of a planetary civilization. It’s too late. Look at the economies of the world. Like I said, the European Union is forming without anyone pushing them that direction because they know that it’s either the European Union, or Europe are also going to be wiped out by competition from the United States, China and India. And, we already see the young people of the world yearning to get on the internet, yearning to find out what other young people are doing, because young people instinctively know this is their future. They instinctively know I want to be part of this future.
And, so, I think the terrorists would like to prevent the transition, but I don’t think they are going to. But, it is going to be a rocky transition because we do have nuclear weapons, we do have biotech technology, designer germs, and so, it may not be a transition that’s fully guaranteed.
However, it’s a very interesting transition because even filmmakers have been interested in this transition. Think of a movie that talks about the most scientifically realistic encounter with another intelligent life form in the universe. In this movie, we realize that Captain Kirk, in the Enterprise, is the most inefficient way to explore outer space, hopping from planet to planet. There are a hundred billion stars in our Milky Way Galaxy. Perhaps half of those stars have planets. That’s 50 million planets in our galaxy, alone. The most efficient way for a Type 3 galactic civilization to explore their backyard is with von Neumann probes; von Neumann probes are self-replicating machines; they’re robots. They land on the Moon because the Moon is stable. There’s no erosion. You can stay there for millions of years. And it makes a carbon copy of itself. And, in fact, it makes a factory that makes millions of copies of itself. These robot probes then shoot out and land on other moons. Each one makes a million copies of itself on a moon, and then shoots out a million more. So, starting with one, you have a million probes landing on a million moons. And then you’ve got a million-million probes, and then a million-million-million probes, until you have a sphere expanding at the speed of light, containing these von Neumann probes.
Now, what do they do? They land on a moon and they simply wait. They wait for a Type 0 civilization to become Type 1. Type 0 is not so interesting. You have a lot of fights, a lot of wars, a lot of competing ideas and stuff. Type 1 is planetary, very civilized, very high level of science, very high level of economy. And, so, the probe simply waits until the civilization makes the transition from Type 0 to Type 1.
Now, where have we seen this before? We’ve all seen this before. This is the movie, 2001[: Space Odyssey], because Stanley Kubric, in the first five minutes of his film, interviewed all the top astronomers, cosmologists and physicists and asked them the question; what is the most realistic encounter with a Type 3 civilization? And, we laid it out. They would land on our moon. Our moon is stable, no erosion. They would then build factories, waiting for a Type 0 civilization to become Type 1. And, if you saw the movie, there is an instant where the astronaut touches the monolith, and he goes like this, because an alarm clock goes off. And the alarm clock signals back to the home race we have come of age.
Well, Kubric and Arthur C. Clarke were off by 100 years. It’s not going to be the year 2001; it’s going to be 2101.

Regina Meredith: 2101, mmmhmm.

Michio Kaku: In a hundred years we will be Type 1. We will have an operating Moon base. How long will it take for us to get an operating Moon base–24 hour, 24/7 Moon base? Another hundred years. And, so, I think we’re right on schedule. So, maybe on our moon there is already—who knows—there is already, perhaps, a presence of an extraterrestrial visitation.

Regina Meredith: Well, there have been . . . there have been photographs and essays, etc., written on the subject of having potentials discoveries of structures already existing on the Moon. How true might that be?

Michio Kaku: Yeah. Well, you see, we have no operating Moon base. We simply landed on the Moon a few times. And, therefore, we don’t know what kind of energy sources there are. We haven’t scanned the Moon. We don’t really have a good picture of what’s inside the Moon or what probes may exist there. There could be a probe from a Type 3 galactic civilization sitting on the Moon, and we’d never know it.

Regina Meredith: Right.

Michio Kaku: Plus, they may have nanotechnology. With nanotechnology, you don’t have to worry about Captain Kirk and the Enterprise. They could be as big as a bread box.

Regina Meredith: Mmmhmm.

Michio Kaku: You could have miniaturized probes that are part organic, part DNA and part silicon, a merger of carbon and silicon, in a device perhaps no bigger than, you know, a bread box sitting on our Moon, just waiting for us to make contact with it, waiting for us to become Type 1.

Regina Meredith: What about the—since we’re on Hollywood, what about The Matrix? Now, that really engaged an awful lot of minds, particularly those in their 20s and 30s. What is your experience with those kinds of potential realities? How do you describe where that came from and what that’s leading us to?

Michio Kaku: Well, there’re two aspects to The Matrix. One is whether or not it is physically possible to have a virtual reality indistinguishable for ordinary reality, and second of all, will the machines take over, OK. So, let’s talk about them one at a time. Our most advanced robots have the collective wisdom of a retarded cock roach, not an ordinary cock roach, a retarded, lobotomized cock roach.

Regina Meredith: (laughing) So, we’re not in danger, yet. Go ahead.

Michio Kaku: For my book, Visions, I interviewed 150 of the world’s top scientists. These are the directors of all the major scientific laboratories; these are Nobel Laureate’s. I interviewed Rodney Books, who is the director of the MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, the number one laboratory in the world. And, I asked him, “How long will it take before our most advanced robots become as intelligent as us?” And, he said, “Well, first of all, our most advanced robot is on Mars.” It’s his grandchild, in some sense. It’s the Mars Rover. It’s a real automaton. So, I asked him, “Well, how intelligent is your grandchild, the Mars Rover?” And, he said, “Well, you know, a cock roach, you know, a slow learning cock roach,” OK.

Regina Meredith: (laughing)

Michio Kaku: Now, a cock roach, you know, on a table—you raise your hand, the cock roach scans your hand and says danger! danger! runs into the cracks. I know. I used to live in a house with lots of cock roaches. However, you know, the Mars Rover, if you were to raise your tentacle to the Mars Rover on Mars, it would scan the tentacle and say is that a dog? No, not a dog. Is that a giraffe? No, not a dog.
Six hours later, it would still be wondering, you know is that a cow? Meanwhile, the alien would have gone whack! It takes six hours for our most advanced robots to walk across the room, six hours for them to scan the room. The robot has to figure out, where’s up? Where’s down? Here is a rectangle. Is it a table or is it a square or is it a pie plate, or what is it? The robot would scan a cup and it would understand all the triangles and circles and cylinders of a cup perfectly; it would see it better than us, but it would take hours for it to finally say ah! Cup, cup.

Regina Meredith: (laughing)

Michio Kaku: You know what I’m saying?

Regina Meredith: Yes.

Michio Kaku: Robots don’t have common sense.

Regina Meredith: Right.

Michio Kaku: They don’t know that water is wet; they don’t know that mothers are older than their daughters; they don’t know that animals do not like pain; they don’t know that when you die, you don’t come back the next day; they don’t know that strings can pull; strings cannot push; they don’t know that sticks can push, but cannot pull. Robots don’t know that.

Regina Meredith: So, they’re not poised to take over just yet.

Michio Kaku: Yeah.

Regina Meredith: But, let’s talk about a more realistic interface with technology, which is the interface between human consciousness and, say, nanotechnology in the world of computers. You talk about this a little bit in Visions.

Michio Kaku: Well, there is going to be a gradual merger of silicon and carbon in the future, OK. It’s already happening. People [are] already living with artificial parts in their body, and we love it because, either that, or else be paralyzed; either that or else not have use of your arms and legs. So—and, also, DNA technology is getting to the point where it will, eventually, interface with silicon. Now, of course, this is far in the future, and I think that society has to democratically—democratically have a consensus as to how far to push this thing, OK. So, I think that is going to be one direction that we’re going to go into.
Another direction is pure silicon. [Isaac] Asimov wrote about the three laws of robotics to protect us against dangerous machines. Our most advanced robot has the intelligence of a cock roach. I suspect in about 20 years, they will probably be as intelligent as a dog or a cat. And, perhaps, in 30-40 years, they will probably be as intelligent as a monkey. At that point, they could get a little dangerous, because monkeys do have their own agenda; they have their own plans, their own goals, OK. Dogs and cats may not, but monkeys probably do.
At that point, I think we have plenty of time to put a chip in their brain to shut them off if they have any murderous thoughts. So, I think there’s plenty of time. We don’t have to say oh my God, you know, one day a robot will wake up, it will be conscious and take over the world. It will be decades of experimentation with cat-like, dog-like robots leading to monkey-like robots, before we have to worry about that.

Regina Meredith: Let’s jump now, then, from that to the subject of your latest book, Parallel Worlds, and talking about going from a concept of universe to multiverse. What does this mean and what does it mean to be multidimensional? And how is this something that we can take into consideration in our lives now as we’re struggling to go out of a 0 to a 1?

Michio Kaku: Well, right now we’re rewriting all the text books in astronomy and cosmology. Cosmology has gone through three revolutions. The first revolution was initiated by Galileo, who turned the telescope to the sky and revealed, for the first time, the true splendor of the night sky. The second revolution was in the 1920s, with the giant telescopes, like Mt. Wilson, where Edwin Hubble showed that the universe was expanding. So, we have this picture, this picture that the universe is, in some sense, a soap bubble of some sort, and it’s expanding and it’s slowing down. And the soap bubble is made out of atoms, because everywhere we look we see atoms of hydrogen, helium and so on and so forth. Well that picture, we now know, is wrong. Every single cosmology textbook on the Earth is being rewritten, because we’re now entering the third era; satellites. Satellites have forced us to confront the fact that we may not be alone, that our universe may not be made out of atoms.
So, first of all, our satellites have shown that most of the universe is not made out atoms. Every textbook is wrong. Every chemistry class is wrong. Your high school chemistry teacher was wrong in saying that everything is made out of atoms. We now know that most of the universe is made out of dark matter and dark energy. Dark matter makes up 23 percent of the universe. Dark energy makes up 73 percent of the universe. The stars make up four percent of the universe. And what about us, the higher elements? We make up .03 percent of the universe. We are, by far, the vast minority of the universe. The universe is not made out of atoms. And, our soap bubble is not slowing down; it’s speeding up; it’s careening out of control. We now know that the universe is undergoing what is called de Sitter expansion. It’s exponentially expanding. It’s going to blow out. We can even see the end of the universe. And, I’ll talk about how the universe will, eventually, die. As I quote, now, from the great philosopher, Woody Allen: Woody Allen once said, “Eternity is an awfully long time, especially toward the end.”

Regina Meredith: (laughing)

Michio Kaku: Well, toward the end, it’s not going to be pretty. The universe will freeze over in a big freeze. The last component of that picture of cosmology is also wrong. It’s not just one soap bubble. We now believe there are other soap bubbles out there.

Regina Meredith: Soap bubbles that we, per chance, can’t see because it’s not part of the same .03 percent of what we are, right?

Michio Kaku: Well, our soap bubble—we’re stuck to our soap bubble like flies on fly paper. We cannot leave our soap bubble. Gravity can go between soap bubble, but we’re stuck on our soap bubble. But, we think that there are other soap bubbles. Now, they would be invisible because light only moves—light is also trapped like flies on fly paper. Light only goes on the surface of the soap bubble. So, if there’s another soap bubble right above you, you’d never know it. Now, where have you seen that before? That’s in the famous novel, The Invisible Man. In The Invisible Man, H. G. Wells gives you a reason for being invisible. He says it flatly; the Fourth Dimension; hyperspace. H. G. Wells says that we live on a plain. We spend all our time thinking that our plain is everything there is, while just above us there could be another plain. The invisible man is invisible because light passes right beneath him, OK.
Now, when I was growing up in San Francisco, I grew up visiting the Japanese Tea Garden. My mother would spend hours with me in the Japanese Tea Garden, and I would look at the Carp swimming just beneath the lily pads. And I would spend hours looking at them. I would put my nose right up to the fish, and they couldn’t seem me. Their eyes would point to the side; their universe was a two-dimensional universe. And then I imagined, what would it be like to be a fish? And, I said to myself what a fantastic world. I can move forward and backward, left and right, but the concept of “up,” up made no sense. There is no world of Up. Your eyes point to the side. The lily pads show you the end of the universe. There is no world of Up. So, then I imagined a fish who was a scientist; a scientist fish.

Regina Meredith: You must have been a trippy little kid. (laughing) But, go ahead!

Michio Kaku: Yeah, a little scientist kid living in, swimming in the pond. And the scientist would say, “Bah humbug! There’s no world of Up! There’s only the pond. What you see is what there is. What you can measure is what there is. The pond is everything; the pond is all. Nothing is the world of Up. And, so, then one day I imagined reaching down and grabbing one of the fish, the scientist fish, lifting the scientist fish into the world of Up. What would he see? He would see beings moving without fins; a new law of physics; beings breathing without water, a new law of biology. And then I would put the fish back in the pond, and what a story he would tell his friends. He disappeared from the universe and wound up in a world of Up. Now, today, we physicists believe that we are the fish. We spend all our time saying, “Bah humbug! There’s only the world that you can see and measure. There is forward/backward, left/right, up/down, and that’s all there is. The universe is what we can measure.”
Well, our textbooks are now having to be rewritten. The WMAP satellite, currently orbiting the Earth, its data is consistent with what is called, Inflation. Inflation was proposed by a good friend of mine, Alan Guth, at MIT. He may win the Nobel Prize for this theory. Inflation says that the universe expanded in a hyper charged Big Bang, but it can happen again and again and again, and the soap bubble can vision in half and bud and sprout a baby soap bubble. Universes can have babies. Stephen Hawking calls them baby universes. And, we believe that our universe may have come from a parent universe. And, perhaps, our universe also buds other universes. Now, what about the mathematics; what about the tests? Well, as I said, inflation fits all the data. It doesn’t mean it’s right, but it fits all the data. And inflation is based on the idea that it can happen again and again and again and again.
But, what about a theory of inflation? Well, that’s where what I do for a living comes into the picture. What I work on for a living is something called String Theory. I’m one of the pioneers in the subject; I’m the co-founder of String Field Theory, which is one of the main branches of String Theory. Now, String Theory says that it is the theory of everything. Einstein spent the last 30 years of his life chasing after an equation, perhaps no more than inch long, that would allow him to read the mind of God. That was the ultimate goal, the Holy Grail of Physics, an equation one inch long, just like E=MC2. E=MC2 unlocked the secret of the stars. That’s why stars twinkle; that’s why our Sun burns; that’s why we have energy on the Earth. Everything on the Earth, all energy on the Earth ultimately comes from E=MC2.

Regina Meredith: And, as one of your book titles would indicate, it’s time to go beyond Einstein.

Michio Kaku: That’s right. When, to go beyond Einstein, now, we now believe that String Theory is, perhaps, the theory of everything. When we smash atoms, we find more particles, lots and lots of particles. So, why should Nature be so malicious as to give us thousands of subatomic particles? In fact, the situation was so bad that J. Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the Atomic Bomb, once said that the Nobel Prize in Physics should go to the physicist who does not discover a new particle this year.

Regina Meredith: (laughing)

Michio Kaku: We’re drowning in particles. When I got my Ph.D. at Berkley, I had to memorize all the names of the god damned subatomic particles; Kappa Mesons, Landa Particle, Pi Mesons, Tao Mesons, Hadrons, Leptons. I couldn’t get my Ph.D., as I said; Bosons and Atrons. I couldn’t get my Ph.D. unless I memorized all the names of all these particles. I hope that in the future, to get your Ph.D. A young graduate student would simply say, “String.” We think that a vibrating string has notes. Each not corresponds to a subatomic particle. If you can get a microscope and see into the electron, you would see a rubber band, and you kick the rubber band and it vibrates in a different mode and it becomes a neutrino; you twang it and it becomes a quark; you twang it, it becomes a lepton; you twang it, it becomes a bozon. Just a little string.

Regina Meredith: A string.

Michio Kaku: So, what are we? The subatomic particles are the notes on vibrating strings. What is physics is nothing but the laws of harmony you can write on strings. Well, then, what is chemistry? Chemistry is nothing but the melodies you can play on vibrating strings. Well, what is the universe? The universe is a symphony of strings. And, therefore, what is the Mind of God? The Mind of God, in this picture, is cosmic music resonating through 10, maybe 11-dimensional hyperspace.
These strings are not ordinary strings. These strings force physical reality to be 11-dimensional.

Regina Meredith: What is the implication? We’re not just third-dimensional. We’re already heard from the invisible man scenario that we can recognize the fourth dimension. What does this mean to us?

Michio Kaku: This means that our universe is probably a soap bubble, a three-dimensional soap bubble, floating in eleven-dimensional hyperspace—that if we were to leave our universe to get to another universe, we would have to take a detour through the eleventh dimension. Now, I think that at one point, when the universe dies, this may be our only salvation. People ask me the question, “Well, you’re Unified Field Theory, the theory of everything, is it going to get me better color TV? Will I get better cable reception? I mean, what is in it for numero uno?” OK.

Regina Meredith: (laughing)

Michio Kaku: Well, I tell them that parts of the Unified Field Theory to give you better color television. I mean after all, where does color television come from? It comes from the Unified Field Theory. Where does better, you know, TV reception come from? The Unified Field Theory. But, the ultimate use of the Unified Field Theory is to, one day, leave our universe.
You see, when a black hole forms, it’s a hole and everything falls into it. It’s the ultimate roach motel. Stars fall in; they never fall out. But, even kids ask their father, they say, “Daddy, daddy, if everything falls into a black hole, where does it go.” Well, there’s one theory that says that where it goes is to a white hole at the other end of a black hole. So, think of this soap bubble spouting a baby soap bubble. That’s a black hole. Matter falls into the black hole that sprouts out the other end to create a white. Now, our universe is probably a white hole. How would you know a white hole, if you looked at it? First of all, it would be expanding; things would be rushing out, and it would be very cool as it cooled. And, by golly, doesn’t that look like our universe? Our universe is probably white hole.
Now, in six years’ time, we may be able to prove this theory. In six years’ time, NASA is going to launch LISA (Laser Interferometer Space Antenna) into orbit. It’s the most advanced satellite system ever conceived or by the human mind. Three satellites orbiting the Sun, connected by laser beams, three million miles across, dwarfing the planet Earth.

Regina Meredith: Mmmm.

Michio Kaku: Think about this; a satellite system, a triangle orbiting much, much bigger than the planet Earth. You could look at the planet Earth as a dot inside this triangle. The shock wave from the Big Bang is still reverberating on our soap bubble. It will detect gravity waves from the instant of creation. We’re going to get baby pictures of the infant universe, a family album, baby pictures. This satellite is so accurate, that it should be able to see the umbilical cord, the umbilical cord, perhaps, connecting our baby universe to, perhaps, a parent universe.

Regina Meredith: We’re at the Science and Consciousness Conference. What is the implication of this in terms of our own awakening, our own individual expanded consciousness—I say individual; I mean interconnectedness, as well—but, what does this mean to us?

Michio Kaku: Several things. First of all, as I mentioned, only a Type 3 civilization can fully utilize the power of this theory. We’re talking about the ability to bend time into a pretzel, rip the fabric of Space/Time, leap into the eleventh dimension. This is the power of a God. That’s the power of the planck energy. The planck energy is the energy of a Type 3 civilization. A Type 3 civilization would be able to open gateways, open baby universes, create a baby universe in a laboratory. They would have the power of a God. That’s what this whole sequence is building up to. So, when I talk about Type 0, Type 1, Type 2, Type 3, if we don’t blow ourselves up in this whole process of evolving from a Type 0 civilization, eventually, we’ll become masters of Space and Time. That’s one aspect.
The other aspect is more practical. It is where do we fit into the larger scheme of things? This theory, String Theory, is a quantum theory. In fact, it is the ultimate quantum theory. And all quantum theories say that everything vibrates; everything is made out of a wave. And because of that these waves intertangle with each other. This is called entanglement. And, entanglement means that our waves entangle with waves on the other side of the galaxy instantly, in fact. We are all connected via this invisible web. Einstein, at first, didn’t like this picture because if you were to move in one part of the universe, the other part of the universe will also respond to you faster than the speed of light. Einstein, at first, didn’t like it, but it’s been showing up in the laboratory. This is the famous EPR Experiment (Einstein –Podolsky-Rosen Paradox). It’s been shown many times now that entanglement does, in fact, make possible vibrations traveling faster than the speed of light.
Now, of course, the information traveling faster than the speed of light is random information. You cannot sent Morse Code this way; you cannot send tomorrow’s Stock Exchange this way. But what it does mean is that we are all entangled, our wave functions all entangle with other wave functions. And, I should also point out, in all fairness, that there is one unfinished aspect of the foundation of the quantum theory. The quantum theory is the most successful theory of all time, even more accurate than Newton’s Laws of Gravity. It works in the atomic realm, but it’s based on a foundation of sand. There’s the famous cat problem. The cat problem is the most profound paradox in the history of the universe. At the present time, no one has the solution for the cat problem.

Regina Meredith: What is that problem?

Michio Kaku: This is the famous Schrodinger Cat Problem. Schrodinger was one of the founders of the quantum theory, a theory that’s been tested to one part in ten billion. You can predict the power, the behavior of atoms to incredible accuracy. That’s why we have transistors; that’s why we have the internet; that’s why we have laser beams, because of the quantum theory. However, the laser beam, transistors, the internet is based on a foundation of sand because Nobel Laureate’s still argue over the cat problem. Let’s say I put a cat in a box. And the question is the cat dead or alive? Well, you don’t really know for sure until you look at the cat. Let’s say the cat is connected to gun, and the gun is connected to a Geiger counter, and the Geiger counter is connected to uranium. Well, to describe uranium, we have to write the wave function of uranium, which is disintegrated, and uranium which hasn’t disintegrated; 50 percent chance, maybe, that it will disintegrate; 50 percent chance that it hasn’t disintegrated. That’s the quantum theory. You’re working on probabilities, right. The Atomic bomb is based on this theory. The Atomic bomb wouldn’t work if the quantum theory were wrong. But now we hook the uranium to a gun. Well, is the cat dead or alive? Well, you have to add the wave function of a dead cat and add it to the wave function of a live cat, simultaneously. So, the cat is neither dead nor alive.
Now, you may say to yourself well, that’s stupid. How can a cat be both dead or alive? Well, the only way to tell is to open the box.

Regina Meredith: It’s probability. (laughing)

Michio Kaku: And then the cat, then, collapses into a dead cat or a live cat. Well, that means that observation determines existence.

Regina Meredith: Right.

Michio Kaku: So, you’re now left with a very horrible, absolutely incredible paradox. Either the act of observation determines the existence of a cat, or the cat is simultaneously dead and alive. Both alternatives are mind-blowing. Both alternatives shake philosophy to the very core. Let’s take the first alternative; observation determines existence, but observation requires consciousness. Therefore, consciousness makes an observation and we say the cat is alive. Well, I determine the fact the cat is alive. Well, who determines me? Somebody has to look at me to determine that I’m alive and I’m not dead. Well, who determines him? Somebody had to look at him. This is called Wigner’s Friend. Wigner was the winner of the Nobel Prize; he helped to build the Atomic Bomb, and this is called Wigner’s Friend. I have an infinite sequence of Wigner’s Friend. So, who is the ultimate Wigner’s Friend? God.
So, starting with quantum theory, which is the most objective reductionist theory of all time, we go all the way up to God. Now, let’s say you don’t want that. Let’s say you don’t believe in this Nobel Prize winner. Let’s say you believe in the other theory. The other theory is even worse. The other theory is many worlds. Most Nobel Laureate’s, now, are leaning toward the second. Steve Weinberg, winner of the Nobel Prize, has said the following:
Imagine you’re in a room and many radio frequencies are in the same room. You’re radio is tuned to one frequency, but you’re very comfortable being in a room with many frequencies, right. But, you tune into one. Well, these frequencies are now wave functions. In this room there is the wave function of dinosaurs; in this room because they never died 65 million years ago, because a cosmic event prevented the extinction of the dinosaurs. In this room there is the wave function of aliens because, perhaps, aliens decided to colonize the Earth millions of years ago. In this room there is the wave function of Alexander the Great. Perhaps he came all the way to the Americas, instead of just conquering most of the old world. Think about it. Your mind goes crazy. This is the multiverse. So, welcome to the multiverse. We now believe that, perhaps, there are an infinite number of universes out there, most of them probably dead universes. But, some of them may be separated from our universe by a single quantum event. The smallest quantum event is the cosmic ray. Let’s say a cosmic ray goes through Hitler’s mother. Hitler’s mother has a miscarriage; Hitler is never born. All of a sudden, perhaps, 40 – 50 million didn’t have to die, and they are living with us today. Or, perhaps a cosmic ray went through Roosevelt’s mother, and Roosevelt never roused the American people to oppose the forces of the axis, and I’m speaking German today, and there is a swastika behind me right now. I mean one quantum event separates from these parallel worlds.
Now, some people ask me the question, “Well, professor, if Nobel Laureates are even arguing about this, then the question is, “Is Elvis Presley still alive in one of these universes?”

Regina Meredith: Many would say yes.

Michio Kaku: Well, believe it or not, there are physicists at Oxford University, David Deutsch, for example, who would say yes, there is a universe where the King is still alive.

Regina Meredith: Wow, kids, we’ve got some things to think about. We’re blown away if we think there is such a phenomenon as our dead Aunt Lily talking through a medium to us, and you’re talking about many different potential realities.

Michio Kaku: Nobel Laureates argue about this question. This is one of the greatest unresolved questions in all of physics. Physics is fantastic; it’s incredibly accurate, but it’s based on the Cat. And, at the present time, there is no consensus on the cat problem. There are hundreds of physics conferences. My friends attend these conferences. Physicists yell at each other, they scream at each other because what is at stake is reality, itself—the nature of existence; that is what is at stake.

Regina Meredith: Michio, thank you so much for taking time.

Michio Kaku: My pleasure.

Regina Meredith: His newest book, Parallel Worlds, focuses on the newest multiverse theories. I also loved his book, Visions, which extrapolates what our lives will look like 50, 100, 1,000, and even more years into the future. Like this interview, his writing is wonderfully entertaining. You can look at a complete selection of his work on his website, listed beside his name on the menu. Until next time, thanks for watching.

Transcribed by: Vicky Jeter
Email: vicky@goldkeyendeavours.com