Michio Kaku - Listener Questions

[Music] welcome back to science fantasticly professor Michio Kaku on science fantastic we profile some of the most amazing jaw-dropping scientific discoveries which are revolutionizing our world and touching our lives this hour by the way is your hour okay well without further ado let's take the first listener phone call hi yes my name is Alexander callow I live out in Bristol Villa Ohio forfor 402 and I was wondering how technically possible is it to make a Dyson Sphere to harness the energy around the Sun and is it even possible if there are near foreseeable futures of civilization thank you well you asked a very interesting question every science fiction buff knows that a Dyson Sphere is a gigantic sphere that envelops an entire star so one day in the far future we'll put up solar panels that can envelop the entire Sun using up 100% of the energy of a Sun however don't hold your breath the technology to do this is a few thousand years more advanced than anything we can envision at the present time first of all just the raw materials the raw materials to build a Dyson Sphere would require starships and gigantic robots to build robots factories in outer space and then you'd have to mine the moon you'd have to mind the asteroids to build enough material using nanotechnology ultra thin wafers of silicon to envelop the entire Sun so we think that maybe a type two civilization could do this now we're type zero we get our energy from dead plants oil and coal we're pretty primitive a type one civilization has an energy of an entire planet they can play with planets they can mind the oceans they can change the weather that's type 1 type 2 can play with stars and a type two civilization is perhaps over a few thousand years ahead of us they can build a Dyson Sphere so don't hold your breath but we think we found evidence of a Dyson Sphere you probably read some of the blogs for astronomy buffs there's a star out there a star called tabbies star named out to the woman who discovered the star and sunlight drops by 20% every once in a while and some people think that anything big enough to drop star light from a distant star must be an orbiting Dyson Sphere we don't know can be ruled out if so it would be the first time that we've actually seen evidence of a Dyson Sphere in outer space by a type two civilization perhaps thousands of years more advanced than us however do we have proof that is built by an intelligent species no stay tuned you can google it heavy star ta BBY star the first example of what some people call a mega structure that might just might be built by an alien civilization in outer space who knows well moving right along let's take the next listener phone call hi Nicole calling from Chicago wondering if global warming will impact other Asian area around us and if that will impede us from actually colonizing moving farther out into the source thank you okay you trap talk temporarily I think what you're saying is global warming well that affect other planets and maybe even when they affect our ability to colonize other planets and the answer that is yes we used to think back in the 1950s that Venus was a paradise in the solar system there many science fiction novel written by Isaac Asimov and others envisioning a tropical paradise on Venus that one day our space cadet will vacation on Venus and have a great lifestyle basking in the warm Sun viñas boy were we wrong space probes have been to Venus now we now realize that instead of being like the goddess Venus is a hellhole the surface temperature of Venus is 900 degrees Fahrenheit hotter than a baker's oven hotter than the melting point of tin and most metals imagine walking on the surface of Venus and your feet sinking in molten metal and when it rains there's no relief the rains of Venus are made out of sulfuric acid so you would be crushed to death you'd melt it'd be burned alive walking on the surface of Venus and then the next question is what happened why is our nearest neighbor a twin of the earth a hellhole in outer space well Carl Sagan was the one who actually figured it out he predicted this in fact it is global warming now Venus is closer to the Sun than the earth but its atmosphere is made out of carbon dioxide carbon dioxide traps sunlight being close to the Sun it traps a lot of the sunlight heating up heating up the surface of Venus once upon a time Venus had oceans we think but the oceans boiled off and released gases that accelerate so in other words the greenhouse effect is not science fiction it actually exists in our solar system the planet Venus is superhot because of the greenhouse effect in fact we even use Venus that tests our computer programs we have computer programs for the planet Earth and some people say bah humbug you can trust computer simulations of the greenhouse effect on the earth well we test them on Venus - and bingo they come out exactly right so in other words we do have experimental proof of another planet besides the earth which has global warming now Mars also has an atmosphere made out of carbon dioxide and it also has a greenhouse effect on a small scale in fact Mars would be even colder colder than it is now without the greenhouse effect and so the question you ask is will the greenhouse effect hinder our colonization of other planets well in the case of mercury certainly true and I mean Venus Mercury and Venus are simply too hot to begin any thought of colonization and Mars we may actually want to induce an artificial greenhouse effect injecting methane into Mars to eventually create Mars into a Garden of Eden that of course is hundreds of years into the future but with Venus we see an example of global warming gone berserk okay well moving right along let's take the next listener phone call hello my name is al I'm calling from Booker Washington and I'm wondering have ours um have you ever seen turned called radiation line connecting from one star to another or in our own galaxy dr. okay okay I think what you're asking is Suren cough radiation and is there a web of Suren cough radiation connecting the stars well the answer is no but first of all let me explain when you have a nuclear accident or when you visit a nuclear power plant and you look at the fuel rods you can see the rods very intensely radioactive summers in water water so it doesn't boil off and waters because it absorbs some radiation and prevents you from getting irradiated but there's a blue glow a blue glow of radioactive materials at the bottom of a swimming pool containing nuclear waste is eerie it's dangerous it'll kill you and what is this radiation it is Sarang cough radiation Smirnoff was a Soviet physicist who said that well why do we have why do we have sonic booms we have sonic booms because jet airplanes travel faster than the speed of sound and create a shock wave and that shockwave creates the sonic boom when you go past the sonic barrier well then you said the next question light slows down in water therefore a subatomic particle can go faster than the speed of light in water and it should create a sonic boom a light boom and it should be colored in the color is blue bingo we've see it so strength of radiation is the radiation you see emitted from things that are highly radioactive in air in water because you are going faster than the speed of light in air in water which is slower than the speed of light in a vacuum now you may say to yourself aha that can't be right does that violate Einstein's theorem that you cannot go faster than the speed of light well you cannot go faster than the speed of light in a vacuum but in air in water you can in fact go faster than the speed of the slow speed of light in air and water now between the stars as a vacuum therefore there's no sorrento radiation connecting the stars now is there anything connecting the stars and the answer is yes it turns out that surrounding our Sun is a sphere of comets called the Oort cloud of comets it's spherical it surrounds the Sun and it goes for about a light year or two light years into outer space that's where long period comets come from in fact now think of our nearest neighbor Alpha Centauri we think that it too has a sphere of comets going around it which is also maybe two light-years in diameter in radius so we are four light-years from Alpha Centauri therefore some people theorize it could be a us a continuous band of comets going from our Sun to our nearest stellar neighborhood this is not a spectacular Cerenkov radiation but it does mean that there is a belt of comets that connects us with other stars now why is that useful because some physicists say that maybe we should go comet hopping jumping to Alpha Centauri maybe too difficult but we can jump from comet to comet just like the Polynesians jump from island to island when they began the colonization of Polynesia and so some people say that going to Alpha Centauri is too ambitious why not go comet hopping because there's a continuous stream of comets from our Sun to the other neighboring stars think about that okay well moving right along again let's take the next listener phone call will automation in robotics make it so no one has to work and that money is obsolete if we produce enough abundance using automation I don't think it would make sense that anyone would have to pay for it it would just have to be distributed what do you think my name is Ted from Pittsburgh well Ted you asked the $64,000 question we scientists are still debating this question which is becoming more and more urgent because our machines are getting more intelligent and the question is what happens when it becomes so intelligent that they can do most of the jobs and we humans can take a breather and relax or other people say that perhaps the robots will simply take over and say that we are parasites that we humans are unnecessary parasites and the robots will take over so you can see that your Christian goes to the very heart of the future of technology well let's try to break it down let's go back to the past during the Middle Ages there was no such thing as a salary job now when you think of a job you think of nine-to-five and you get paid money for working from 9:00 to 5:00 during the Middle Ages there were no nine-to-five jobs the fact there were no jobs at all either you were a farmer or a peasant and you lived on the farm and that's not a job that's your full-time occupation or you were an apprentice apprentice to a bookbinder an apprentice to a printer apprentice to a jeweler again there was no such thing as a nine-to-five job so nine-to-five jobs are being paid a salary is basically a byproduct of the Industrial Revolution but now the nature of work is being redefined as you pointed out because robots are getting smarter and smarter now if you get a copy of my book physics in the future I list the jobs that will become obsolete in the next Oh 10 20 years and the jobs that will still hold sway for many decades to come but let's face it on a scale of centuries which is what you're talking about Ted on a scale of centuries most human jobs will gradually replace by robots and so what are we going to do with them what about money well I remember one episode of Star Trek The Next Generation where the crew of the enterprise finds a space capsule in outer space inside it are the suspended animated frozen bodies of people who died in the 20th century or had incurable illnesses they froze themselves shot their bodies into outer space hoping that somebody in the future will retrieve the space capsule revive them and cure them of cancer cure them of death even well there's one banker on that ship a banker from the 20th century who was revived in the 23rd century 300 years later when his incurable cancer was cured and the first thing this banker asked is what year is this when he was told that he's in the 23rd century he said I'm rich I'm rich I'm rich well was he really rich we'll find out after the break we're going to talk about the future of money the future of work because this is science fantastic with Professor Michio Kaku stay tuned [Music] welcome back to science fantastic because this hour is your hour well before the break we had a question the future of money it's quite controversial there are many study groups in Silicon Valley in fact addressing this question there are several possible alternatives one is that well we become kemacite everyone is guaranteed an income no one has to work robots do everything and we live the life of the landed gentry useless appendages to our machines and then some people think that one day maybe the machines will figure it out that we are parasites and do away with us well that's one alternative there's another alternative though and this is that well we humans are programmed to be useful for example people who are retired and have money in the bank and they don't have to work what do they do do they become parasites no they do volunteer work they engage in a hobby they do that thing that they've always wanted to do but never have the time in other words they want to be active they want to be useful why is that's how our ancestors our ancestors also wanted to be useful and so the point here is that even in an optimistic future when robots do all the and there's no necessity for money then perhaps we want to be useful now as I mentioned in the Star Trek episode of the next generation a man wakes up 300 years after he had cancer cancer is now cured in the 23rd century and he says to himself I'm rich rich and then he demands that the crew of the enterprise check up on his investments check up on his bank accounts check up on his savings and his money and then the crew of the enterprise stares at him and says money what is money today if you want something you simply ask for it and replicators give it to you for free well the poor banker he suddenly realized that his nest egg is useless because if you want something you ask for it on a replicator think about that for a moment [Music] [Applause] [Music] welcome back to science fantastic and once again the lines are open you're not going to get a busy signal well moving right along now let's move on to the next listener phone call hello Doctor my name is Craig from Portland Oregon my question to you is is a rainbow a two dimensional object or a three dimensional object thank you well you asked a very distinct question first of all the composition of what is creating the rainbow is three-dimensional however our eyes of course see things that look flat and so her rainbow looks like he is two-dimensional now what causes a rainbow first of all when we were children we used to take a prism shine white light through it and it would break up into the colors of the rainbow this was first done by Isaac Newton hundreds of years ago proving that white light is actually a mixture of different colors now replace that prism with a droplet of water if you shine light through a droplet of water it too will break up white light into different colors now create thousands millions billions of droplets of water vapor each water vapor breaks up white light into the colors of the rainbow and then add them all up if you add up to this three-dimensional configuration of water vapor and then project it on to a two-dimensional retina of an eyeball well you get bingo you get a rainbow in fact this was done in the 1700s by the mathematicians of France Parisian mathematicians knew Newton's theory of the rainbow and used it to calculate what happens when light goes through billions of spherical water droplets and bingo they got a rainbow so once again the rainbow itself is created by a three-dimensional collection of water droplets but what you see is what's imprinted on the retina of your eye so the rainbow appears to be two-dimensional but what is creating it is to be dimensional okay well moving right along let's take the next listener phone call I wanted to speak out against colonizing Mars it's completely unnecessary when we have a planet year that is totally sustainable for all human beings unfortunately powers that will and greed are destroying this planet what are your thoughts on that and how do you feel about the future of where Humanity is going are we going to become more positive and destroying the planet less or are we going to continue to destroy it and allow it to happen my name is drew I'm from Miami Florida best of all best of everything to all well I think you raised a very valid point some people say why even bothered to go into outer space at all we've messed up the planet Earth now we're going to mess up Mars as well yes a point can be made however let me say one more thing when LBJ was president of the United States way back in the 60s he was criticized heavily for funding the Tyros weather satellite people said bah humbug we don't need weather satellites wanted all the weather lick your finger put it in the wind and hey you don't know what the weather is you don't need billion dollar weather satellites well that same evening just before LBJ was going to come on to defend the tyro satellite it picked up a hurricane the Tyra's satellite picked up a hurricane off the coast of Texas about to cause havoc on the people of Texas we were able to calculate when it would hit the place it would hit and the amount of damage it would create incredible and I'll never forget LBJ came on the TV and said tonight the space program has paid for itself well he was not quite right it didn't pay for itself it paid for itself many times over we forget the wonders that we get the space program not to mention the fact that the space program forced us to miniaturize transistors and that created the computer revolution of today many of the gadgets that we enjoy in our living room telecommunications weather satellites all of that is a byproduct of the space program not to mention the fact that well the dinosaurs did not have a space program and that's why they're not here today to argue that fact [Music] welcome back to science fantastic with professor Michio Kaku okay let's take the next listener phone call hi dr. Michio I left you a message without leaving my name city I'm in Williston North Dakota and my name is John Dowell I left the message about entanglement I think it might be possible for communication with no thought to distance I have a series that I'd like your opinion on um you know that star going critical supernovae repeatedly um it's it's my supposition that there's a magnetar at its center um I think that's perfect for re coalescing matter in a at a fast rate for many reasons but anyway I think that's actually what dark matter is do you think that would account for the odd behavior we observing galaxies do you think that could be what dark matter is that there's just no dark matter anyway I have a hypothesis it's a its objective surd it's a radical notion compared to what's presently known in science if it turned out to be true with revolutionize science I have a very hard technical test that could be carried out to prove it but I'm in the firm belief that it would be true basically I believe that the universe is rejuvenating itself I won't go on about why but I'll give you a little basically oddly you know what is all of this hydrogen doing hanging out intergalactically in the middle of nowhere and it roughly a uniform density except for denser regions at eight atoms per cubic meter information does light naturally carry my supposition is that light carrying the information is folded to do so carrying the information to do so is folded by the quantum foam itself to form hydrogen um yeah anyway anyway I've heard this might violate the law of conservation of energy I just don't see how it would but if you talk to me about that I'd appreciate that as a theoretical physicist that I would really appreciate that thank you Wow okay let's try to break down what you said into its many components one thing you mentioned is dark matter let me explain that every high school textbook gets it wrong every high school textbook on the planet Earth says that the universe is maybe made out of atoms we now know that is incorrect that something called dark matter which is not made out of atoms is ten times more plentiful then atoms are in fact it surrounds the Milky Way galaxy and holds the galaxies together if it wasn't for dark matter the the galaxies would have been disintegrated and blown apart billions of years ago and we owe it all to dark matter dark matter is invisible that's why it's so hard to prove and it doesn't interact with ordinary matter if I held dark matter in my hand it would literally dissolve dissolve itself through my fingers go to the concrete floor and dissolve yourself through the concrete go all the way past the core of the earth all the way to China reverse direction in China come back to the center of the earth and come back to Manhattan and it would oscillate back and forth now you mentioned that perhaps dark matter could be caused by magnet ours and supernovae well we don't think so we think that it is how space is made out of dark matter an ordinary matter well it would take a book to answer all your questions so get a copy of my book parallel worlds where I address exactly all the questions you mentioned now once again you are listening to science fantastic with professor Michio Kaku give us a call the hotline number is six one two five six four eight one three five go to website and find out where I may be speaking in your neighborhood about my next book the future of humanity [Music] welcome back to science fantasticly professor Michio Kaku as is fantastic we profile some of the most amazing jaw-dropping scientific discoveries that are changing the way we view our world and touching our lives and in this hour once again we're going to throw the lines open because this hour is your hour okay well without further ado let's move on and take the first listener phone call hello my name is Trevor Russell I live in Seattle Washington and I'm calling about Richard Miller's a book the physics of time now the physics of time he kind of concludes saying you know the Big Bang created more space or space expands so if if Albert Einstein connected space-time together as one one thing would it also make sense that the Big Bang creates more time and why the flow of time feels like it's going forward is because time is expanding in space-time Trevor Russell well you're absolutely right Einstein's theory says that at the instant of the Big Bang more space was created because space expanded but more time was created as well and in fact the modern version of the Big Bang Theory is called inflation inflation was proposed by a friend of mine professor Alan Guth of MIT who I've had on radio before and Alan proposed that yes there was a cosmic turbocharged expansion of both space and time at the very beginning of the universe replacing the old Big Bang Theory and bingo it conforms with the data for example the universe seems to be very flat Einstein said the universe should be curved a bit but the universe is quite flat when you measure it and that's because inflation was so big that it flattened out the universe so think of a soap bubble if a soap bubble is big enough the soap level appears to be flat as a consequence so yes space and time both expanded now some people don't like that idea because the rate of expansion if you calculate it it is faster than the speed of light so you might say to yourself aha Einstein contradicts himself Einstein said nothing can go faster than the speed of light but the Big Bang expanded space and time faster than the speed of light aha gotcha well not quite you see what expand was empty space not matter Einstein said matter cannot go faster than the speed of light but empty space is nothingness in other words nothing can go faster than light nothingness can go faster than light nothing this is the original expansion of empty space which did expand faster than the speed of light so I spine has the last laugh okay well let's move right on to the next listener phone call hi what keep things separate is it electrostatic repulsion or is it the Pauli exclusion principle and if it is the Pauli exclusion principle which I believe it is why is that not considered a force thank you bye well you're exactly right now perhaps you're sitting in your chair right now and you may ask yourself a simple question are you really touching the chair how close are you to the chair that you're sitting on well believe it or not you are not really sitting in your chair you're floating you're floating about one angstrom above the chair now you may say to yourself well the good doctor has lost his marbles now but after the break I'll explain why [Music] [Applause] welcome back to science fantastic with Professor Michio Kaku after I just before the break we had a call coming in saying how close can two objects get and we said that there is something called an exclusion principle which prevents two electrons from touching each other in fact you can have what is called spin up spin down two electrons they get very close to each other but they cannot exactly sit on top of each other that's the reason why you are not really seeing in your chair right now you're hovering believe it or not you're floating you're floating about one angstrom above your chair which is about ten to the minus eight centimeters because two electrons cannot exactly be in the same state that's called the Pauli exclusion principle and you may say to yourself well so what I mean why should I care this is an esoteric fact of no physical relevance at all wrong you know when we look at the atom we see all these electrons whizzing around the atom and we see that the electrons are arranged in shells beautiful shells like rooms in a hotel and you may say to yourself well they should collapse all of the electrons circling around an atom should be in random orbits random or they should all collapse and therefore chemistry is impossible because hydrogen helium they're just nothing but a bunch of random electrons going around the atom wrong why is it we have chemistry why is that we have h2o in co2 very regular crystals and our molecules as well as crystals and the reason is you have energy levels separated by exactly this exclusion principle you cannot put more than two electrons spin up spin down in the same state think of a hotel a gigantic hotel each room only has two people in it once you fill up one room you have to go to the next level once you fill that up you go to the next creating shells called a hotel that's called chemistry that's the reason why we have chemistry that's the reason why atoms don't simply collapse into a mishmash of electrons circling around each other there is a force called the Fermi force which prevents two electrons for being crammed too close together that's why we have electron shells which permits chemistry in fact if it wasn't for the Heisenberg wasn't for the Pauli exclusion principle your body would collapse into a bunch of gaseous electrons so you can thank you can thank the Pauli exclusion principle for keeping the atoms of your body stable rather than collapsing into a gas of random electrons okay well let's move right along to the next listener phone call hello I had a question my name is Andre Newton in Virginia Beach Virginia would it be possible to make a non-newtonian soap bubble say take a non-newtonian fluid and inflate it into a bubble with the same properties as a non-newtonian fluid well the short answer is No however yeah the average listener may say diem self what the hell is he talking about first of all liquids are Newtonian in the sense that each atom inside a liquid is like a steel ball so think of a collection of little steel balls all vibrating and that's one way of looking at the atoms that make up a liquid that's Newton's theory of a liquid however we have quantum mechanics which shows that if you cool this down to near absolute zero it turns into a superfluid like liquid helium or liquid nitrogen a liquid hydrogen and when you cool it down so close that you're here absolute zero it turns into a non-newtonian liquid with bizarre properties first of all a superfluid has no viscosity meaning that if you stir it instead of slowing down and coming to a halt it's been is forever forever because it has zero viscosity now you may say to yourself well that's ridiculous but that's the properties of a super fluid near the near the freezing point absolute zero now a soap bubble requires viscosity but since a superfluid has zero viscosity it means that bubbles are impossible now you think of a fluid you think of having it having bubbles but that's because you assume that it has surface tension and it has viscosity but a superfluid has neither and therefore you don't you cannot create a bubble of liquid helium now sometimes in science shows they have liquid nitrogen which is not so cold and they pour a soap soap mixture on liquid nitrogen and what you get you get a volcanic a volcano a volcano of soap bubbles coming out well you see that's still Newtonian that is not really a quantum fluid so the demonstrations you sometimes see in science museums where they pour soap over liquid nitrogen creating a volcanic eruption of bubbles is not really a non-newtonian bubble that we're talking about we're talking about something that you might find in the center of Jupiter or the center of a gas giant that is liquid like hydrogen in solid form something which we don't see very often at all ok let's move right along now to the next listener phone call what is hoping about science that you quite don't understand yourself and we'd like to understand when a mystery come out from the water so again well you ask an embarrassing question you're asking a physicist what don't we understand well there are two things that the double physicists one is the shorten jerk at problem and that is when we describe electrons we describe electrons in many states simultaneously spin up spin down moving to the left to the right the electrons when we describe them you have to add up all possible configurations of the state and that's called the uncertainty principle you don't really know for sure whether they're like trying to spin up or spin down like a top therefore you have to add the two together so an electron exists simultaneously in many multiple states now that may sound rather as a Taric but now apply that to a human being or a cat it means that a cat is a superposition of many cats so a cat can be can be dead and alive simultaneously that's how we describe a quantum cat now you may say to yourself this is nuts Einstein hated this but I'm sorry to say Einstein was wrong when we describe electrons we have to describe electrons simultaneously in all states simultaneously therefore since a cat is made out of electrons we have to add all the electrons to make a dead cat or a live cat simultaneously in other words before you look at a cat a cat is simultaneously dead and alive now this is nuts but that's called quantum physics that's why we have lasers that's why we have transistors that's why we have electronics all of those violate common sense I mean think of a laser beam a laser by rice should not exist it violates common sense a beam of pure coherent energy come on give me a break but there it is compliments of quantum mechanics now now Einstein held the common sense point of view the common sense point of view is that atoms are like steel balls everything exists in a definite state none of this up-down simultaneous business an electron is either spinning up or spinning down period end of story well I'm sad to say that Einstein was wrong we measure this in the laboratory and that's why quantum physics makes possible the Internet makes possible your iPod your iPad all of that should not exist but it does because electrons can exist in multiple space at the same time now if you ever figure out the solution to the cat problem that is how can you be dead and alive simultaneously then tell me first and we'll split the Nobel Prize together because it's worth a Nobel Prize if you could figure out the ultimate paradox in all of quantum theory the cat problem how can a cat be dead and alive simultaneously this also means by the way as I've mentioned before that Elvis Presley could still be alive but in another quantum parallel universe well unfortunately our time is up for this segment [Music] welcome back to science fantastic with professor Michio Kaku give us a call because the lines are open this is your hour okay well moving right along now let's take the next listener phone call this is Marcus Anthony from Minneapolis Minnesota just wondering if if dark matter does not exist what are the alternative models what what would happen to the rest of physics about the case that they plot well to be very frank all modern physics would collapse first of all dark matter is invisible matter because it's invisible is very hard to prove his existence but it surrounds the Milky Way galaxy holding the galaxy together the Milky Way galaxy spins ten times too fast for its own good by the laws of Isaac Newton the galaxy should fly apart our son should be drifting in intergalactic space we would be frozen to that we shouldn't be here the very fact that we are here today talking about this means that dark matter is holding the galaxy together now some people don't like this there's a nobel prize waiting for the person who finally figures it out so some people say well maybe Newton was wrong but you see so far we see no deviation from Zeus's laws of motion and you can't rule it out but the people who say that Newton himself was wrong do not have a coherent theory that is compatible with other observations the observations we see in the galaxy are all consistent with Newton's laws of motion so why should the motion of galaxies violate Newton's laws of motion with everything else everything else obeys Newton's laws of gravity except of course when you hear the speed of light and then you need an Stein's theory of relativity so yeah all modern physics would collapse as we know it if we had to abandon the Newtonian theory of dark matter so dark matter exists but we why if you can figure it out you will win a Nobel Prize in Physics okay well moving right along now let's take the next listener phone call what major things about the United States education system have to change in order for students to become thinkers and doers rather than just people who memorize facts what things can teachers do to get students to remain curious rather than to beat them beat it out of them well you know in the future the internet will be in your contact lens so you'll simply blink and see the periodic chart just simply blink and see all the amino acids right there in your eyeball and you won't need to memorize things anymore so our educational system is out of date we should prepare students for the time when concepts principles are more important than simply memorizing the details because you'll be able to simply blink and get all those details so first we should stress principles concepts rather than memorizing trivial details [Music] welcome back to science fantastic as we probe the cutting edge of science this is dr. Michio Kaku professor of theoretical physics inviting you to call six one two five six four eight one three five and be part of the fun so let's move right along now to the next listener phone call hi I'm Sadie from Walt 413 North Dakota and my question is is using our knowledge of you of Newton's universal law of gravitational attraction do you think that we could calculate a human's gravitational attraction to a particle that is at the edge of the universe and how it got there being the emission of the Big Bang well you asked a pretty tall order so let's break it down first of all Newton's theory of gravity Newton says that everything has gravity even your body and therefore if you were to move your body the gravitational information of you're moving your body travels at the speed of light says Einstein and eventually we'll reach the ends of the universe so yes in that sense what you do with your body will have some effect on stars some effect on galaxies that are millions billions of light years away the effective course is going to be very small however you ask a slightly different question will your motion of gravity affect the end of the universe well the universe may have no end we're not really sure about this we think the universe had a beginning that's the big bang theory but we don't know if the universe is going to have an end physically or in time that's a question mark at the present time now there's something called Olbers paradox where the astronomer over asked that question is there an end to the universe and he said the following he said if the stars are evenly distributed if the stars are evenly distributed throughout the entire universe and the universe is infinite then the amount of light that hits your eyeball should also be infinite and your eyeball should melt the skies should be white not black and you will disintegrate fast in an infinite universe where there's an infinite amount of light from an infinite number of stars well obviously the sky is black at night so here's the paradox why is the night sky black by rights it should be white because if the universe is infinitely big infinitely old then there's an infinite number of stars and light should hit your eyeball and you should melt well this is Olbers paradox the paradox lasted for centuries kepler himself hundreds of years ago thought that the universe therefore must be like a ball a finite ball of stars because otherwise it would melt many people have tried to find the solution of this the first one by the way the why should it correctly get the answer was Edgar Allen Poe the mystery writer Edgar Allen Poe was actually honest amateur astronomer and he was puzzled by all those paradox and so he was the one who actually got it right well officially that's it for this segment of science fantastic [Music] welcome back to science fantastic with Professor Michio Kaku the lines are open well before the break we had a simple question and that is if the human body has Newtonian gravity will it influence something on the edge of the universe well first of all yes your body does have gravity we can measure it in fact in the laboratory it's extremely tiny so the gravitational effect of your body millions and millions of miles away is not going to be very great at all but you asked a different question is there an end to the universe is there a wall beyond which we cannot move now we don't think so but think of a sphere if you're an ant on a sphere and you ask the anticipation does the sphere have an end well the N can go round and around and around the sphere and never hit the end so the end would say that in his two-dimensional world is flat the universe is infinite but we live in three dimensions we look at the ball in its entirety and say ha the universe is of all is finite so in other words a ball is infinite in two dimensions and finite in three dimensions now a sign says the same thing for the universe if I shoot an arrow in one direction perhaps one day the arrow will come back from the other direction so the universe in this case would be infinite in three dimensions and finite in four dimensions in other words the universe would be a hyper sphere now what is the answer to the question is the universe infinite or not we don't know the leading theory right now is called inflation inflation seems to indicate that the universe is infinite and flat but it has been verified yet my friend Alan Guth proposed the theory he may eventually win the Nobel Prize for inflation because it does fit many points but the ultimate answer we don't know at the present time sorry about that okay let's move right along now to the next listener phone call this is Harold from Washington Iowa that's two questions if that's okay thank you for taking my questions what have what else have we learned about tabby star with aren't anything new about a teddy star and also I'd like to ask if I may have what have we learned about that interstellar traveler that asteroid that passes our solar system at this moment thank you well your first question you ask is rather embarrassing because we scientists actually don't know the answer there's something called tabbies star named after the women astronomer who discovered it and it dips in is intensity periodically every two years it divs by up to 20 percent in its luminosity now that's not supposed to happen nowhere in the universe do we see something like this this means that an object has moved in front of the mother star and created a shadow now the shadow of a Jupiter moving in front of our Sun dims starlight by 1% so Jupiter no matter how big it is casts a shadow that dims starlight by 1% now some object we don't know what it is has moved in front of tabi star that dims it by 20% now this has left the sauna Murs pulling their hair out astronomers are going crazy trying to figure out what in God's name can possibly dim starlight by 20% every two years but just a few months ago almost every astronomer on the planet Earth turned their telescopes that heavy stars because on schedule a schedule every two years it dims Y by about 15 to 20 percent well this time it only dimmed 3% but it dims on schedule so we still don't know the answer some people think is alien life from outer space however that alien life would have to be extremely advanced to create something that is 20 times bigger than Jupiter which is the biggest planet by far in the solar system so the answer to your first question is we're clueless it's embarrassing is one of the biggest embarrassments in astronomy today what could possibly dim starlight by 20% if not by an alien civilization now you also ask another question yes there is an interstellar object traveling through our solar system now we have Newton's laws of motion when we see an object moving in out of space we could run the videotape forward or backward because we can predict is future motion and calculate the motion of the past objects that we see in our solar system sure enough go around the Sun and they are inside the solar system however recently scientists tracked an object and its trajectory if you were to run the videotape backwards but put it in deep interstellar space this has sent the astronomical community once again in tethers because it is a visitor this object is a visitor from another solar system now what do we know about it first of all it is irregularly shaped so some people say aha maybe it's a spaceship but well most astronomers would simply say that it's either a burnt-out comet or an asteroid that's been drifting for billions of years slowly moving between one solar system to the other so that's the latest theory of this interstellar visitor the first one that we've ever seen from another solar system well unfortunately our time is up once again you've been listening to science fantastic with Professor Michio Kaku good day [Music]

Channel: Cuckoo for Kaku

Views: 24,019

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Id: xCRQ8R4I0yQ

Length: 57min 16sec (3436 seconds)

Published: Wed May 09 2018