Michio Kaku - Visions: How Science Will Revolutionize the 21st Century

Michio Kaku
Visions

Michio Kaku is the Henry Semat Professor of Theoretical Physics at the City College of New York. Cofounder of string field theory, he is the author of the critically acclaimed and bestselling Hyperspace, as well as Beyond Einstein (with Jennifer Thompson), Quantum Field Theory: A Modern Introduction, and Introduction to Superstrings. He hosts an hour-long weekly radio science program that is nationally syndicated.

Other Books by Michio Kaku

HYPERSPACE

BEYOND EINSTEIN

F IRST A NCHOR B OOKS E DITION , O CTOBER 1998

Copyright 1997 by Michio Kaku

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Anchor Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto. Originally published in hardcover in the United States by Anchor Books in 1997.

Anchor Books and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

The Library of Congress has cataloged the Anchor hardcover edition of this book as follows:

Kaku, Michio.
Visions: how science will revolutionize the 21st century
Michio Kaku.
p. cm.
1. ScienceMethodology. 2. ScienceForecasting. 3. TechnologicalForecasting.
4. Quantum theory. 5. Molecular biology. 6. Computers and civilization. 7. Twenty-first centuryForecasting. I. Title.
Q175.K157 1997
501.12dc21 97-18493

eISBN: 978-0-307-79477-2

www.anchorbooks.com

v3.1

This book is dedicated to my parents

THIS IS A BOOK about the limitless future of science and technology, focusing on the next 100 years and beyond.

A book with the proper scope, depth, and accuracy necessary to summarize the exciting and fast-paced progress of science could not be written without the insights and wisdom of the scientists who are making the future possible.

Of course, no one person can invent the future. There is simply too much accumulated knowledge, there are too many possibilities and too many specializations. In fact, most predictions of the future have floundered because they have reflected the eccentric, often narrow viewpoints of a single individual.

The same is not true of Visions. In the course of writing numerous books, articles, and science commentaries, I have had the rare privilege of interviewing over 150 scientists from various disciplines during a ten-year period.

On the basis of these interviews, I have tried to be careful to delineate the time frame over which certain predictions will or will not be realized. Scientists expect some predictions to come about by the year 2020; others will not materialize until much laterfrom 2050 to the year 2100. As a result, not all predictions are created equalsome are more forward-looking and necessarily more speculative than others. The time frames Ive identified in the book, of course, are to be taken only as guidelines, to give readers a sense of when certain trends and technologies can be expected to emerge.

The outline for the book is as follows: In focuses on the quantum revolution, perhaps the most profound of the three, which will give us control over matter itself.

I wish to thank the following scientists who have given me their time, advice, and invaluable insights in the course of writing this book:

Walter Gilbert, Nobel Laureate in Chemistry, Harvard University

Murray Gell-Mann, Nobel Laureate in Physics, Santa Fe Institute

Henry Kendall, Nobel Laureate in Physics, MIT

Leon Lederman, Nobel Laureate in Physics, Illinois Institute of Technology

Steven Weinberg, Nobel Laureate in Physics, University of Texas

Joseph Rotbalt, physicist, Nobel Laureate in Peace

Carl Sagan, Director, Laboratory for Planetary Studies, Cornell University

Steven Jay Gould, Professor of Biology, Harvard University

Douglas Hofstadter, Pulitzer Prize winning author, Indiana University

Michael Dertouzos, Director of MIT Laboratory for Computer Sciences

Paul Davies, author and cosmologist, University of Adelaide

Hans Moravec, Robotics Institute, Carnegie-Mellon University

Daniel Crevier, AI expert, CEO of Coreco, Inc.

Jeremy Rifkin, founder of Foundation for Economic Trends

Philip Morrison, Professor of Physics, MIT

Miguel Virasoro, Director, International Center for Theoretical Physics, Trieste, Italy

Mark Weiser, Xerox PARC

Larry Tesler, chief scientist, Apple Computer

Paul Ehrlich, environmentalist, Stanford University

Paul Saffo, Director, Institute for the Future

Francis Collins, Director, National Center for Human Genome Research (NCHG), National Institutes of Health

Michael Blaese, Clinical Gene Therapy Branch (NCHG), National Institutes of Health

Lawrence Brody, Laboratory of Gene Transfer (NCHG), National Institutes of Health

Eric Green, Diagnostic Development Branch (NCHG), National Institutes of Health

Jeffrey Trent, Director, Division of Intramural Research (NCHG), National Institutes of Health

Paul Meitzer, Laboratory of Cancer Genetics (NCHG), National Institutes of Health

Leslie Biesecker, Laboratory of Genetic Disease Research (NCHG), National Institutes of Health

Anthony Wynshaw-Boris, Laboratory of Genetic Disease Research (NCHG), National Institutes of Health

Steven Rosenberg, Head of Surgery, National Institutes of Health

Lieutenant Colonel Robert Bowman, Director, Institute for Space and Security Studies

Paul Hoffman, Editor in Chief, Discover magazine

Leonard Hayflick, Professor of Anatomy at the University of California at San Francisco School of Medicine

Edward Witten, physicist, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton

Cumrun Vafa, physicist, Harvard University

Paul Townsend, physicist, Cambridge University

Alan Guth, cosmologist, MIT

Barry Commoner, environmentalist, Queens College, CUNY

Rodney Brooks, Associate Director, Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, MIT

Robert Irie, Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, MIT

James McLurkin, Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, MIT

Jay Jaroslav, Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, MIT

Peter Dilworth, Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, MIT

Mike Wessler, Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, MIT

Neal Gershenfeld, Principal Investigator, Physics and Media Group, MIT Media Laboratory

Pattie Maes, Principal Investigator, Autonomous Agents Group, MIT Media Laboratory