Michio Kaku: What's the Fate of the Universe? It's in the Dark Matter | Big Think

Michio Kaku: What's the Fate of the Universe? It's in the Dark Matter
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Michio Kaku on what makes a supergenius.
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MICHIO KAKU:

Dr. Michio Kaku is the co-founder of string field theory, and is one of the most widely recognized scientists in the world today. He has written 4 New York Times Best Sellers, is the science correspondent for CBS This Morning and has hosted numerous science specials for BBC-TV, the Discovery/Science Channel. His radio show broadcasts to 100 radio stations every week. Dr. Kaku holds the Henry Semat Chair and Professorship in theoretical physics at the City College of New York (CUNY), where he has taught for over 25 years. He has also been a visiting professor at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, as well as New York University (NYU).
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TRANSCRIPT:

Michio Kaku: If you watch the "Big Bang Theory" on CBS television you see these clueless nerds who are doormats when it comes to the opposite sex, right. And you realize is there any basis in reality? First of all none of my friends are like that and all my friends are physicists, right.

Well there is a kernel of truth and that is some of these individuals may suffer from something called Asperger’s Syndrome which is a mild form of autism. These people are clueless when it comes to social interactions. They don’t look you in the eye, for example. And yet they have fantastic mental and mathematical capabilities. We think, for example, that Isaac Newton had Asperger’s. The greatest scientist of all time was very strange. He had no friends to speak of. He could not carry a decent conversation and yet here he was spitting out some of the greatest theories in the history of science. Calculus. The Universal Law of Gravitation. The Theory of Optics. And we think he had Asperger’s Syndrome.

Now Asperger’s Syndrome is a mild form of autism and in autism we have what are called savants. That is people that have an IQ of maybe 80 but have incredible mathematical and musical abilities. In fact, some of these individuals can hear one symphony and just play it by memory on a piano. Other people could be in a helicopter, have a helicopter ride over Manhattan, see the entire New York harbor and then from memory sketch the entire harbor. In fact, if you want to see it go to JFK Airport in New York City and you will see it as you enter the international terminal. So what is it about these people? Well, first of all a lot of them had injuries to the left temporal lobe. One individual had a bullet as a child go right through the left temporal lobe. Another person dove into a swimming pool and injured very badly the left temporal lobe. And these people wound up with incredible mathematical abilities as a consequence. And so what is it about their brains?

Well Einstein’s brain has actually been preserved. Einstein when he died had an autopsy in which case the pathologist stole the brain without permission of the family. He just realized that he was sitting next to something historic, took the brain, took it home with him, and it was sitting in a jar in his home for decades. He even drove across the country with the jar inside his trunk. And there’s even a TV special where you can actually see the cut up brain of Albert Einstein. And you realize first of all the brain is a little bit different. You can’t tell by looking at it that it’s so remarkably different but you realize that the connections between the prefontal cortex and the parietal lobe – a connection that is accentuated in people that do abstract reasoning is thickened. So there definitely is a difference in the brain of Einstein. But the question is did it make Einstein or did Einstein make this change of the brain?

Are champions born or are they made? That still is not known because people who exercise mental abilities, mathematical abilities, they can thicken that part of the brain themselves. So we know that people who do well in mathematics, brain scans clearly show that their brains are slightly different from the average brain. So in conclusion, we’re still children with regards to understanding how this process takes place. Tonight don’t go home and bang yourself on the left temporal lobe. We don’t know how it works. We just know that in a tiny fraction of these cases people with injury to the left temporal lobe, some of the become super geniuses.

Directed/Produced by Jonathan Fowler and Dillon Fitton

[LuisMartinez-smcl]

I was never good in homework but God damn I would love to sit in his classroom all day and just listen to what he has in his brain

[barzulntrollslayer]

You sir are an inspiration to the human race.

[jamestown]

I love Dr. Kaku's optimism. He hasn't given up on humanity, he has high hopes for it!

[SirKickalotDeathboot]

I think the only way to survive the end of the universe will be to unlock the knowledge on how to bend space and time, so that we somehow can timetravel back to when the universe is okay again.

[MArtinezNINux]

exactly!, I like the honesty of admitting uncertainty, but the ambition of trying to get the answer even more

[Jessie_Helms]

One thing I've thought of is this:
If most of the universe is made out of unseen material/energy, then could there be a 2nd reality within out universe? Could _we_ be the real invisible universe, considering how much smaller we (things visible, light energy/matter) are?

[readkavi]

He looks genuinely worried upon how he can escape this universe trillions of years from now. He also explained his attitude towards it.

[Mag-RF]

"Go into hyperspace", we already have that possibility: DMT

[christinam]

With the scientific progress we could make in that time, we might find a way to stabilize the universe.

[mashelauma]

What an intelect! I cant stop watching his videos.👏🏽👏🏽

[GlobalResonanceDance]

I love this guy! He's been the greatest comfort for me from all my fears (and yes, I've tried Jesus long enough).

[Joebius]

Somewhere, someone has seen this and has started stocking up on bottled water and is building a bunker against the end of the universe.

[ilyjesus]

I just love how Michio Kaku explains things, like it's so simple. "when life is freezing to death, let us escape the universe and go to another universe." easy. HAHAHA

[woronessa]

I reale liked, what he said at the ending. Like Carl Sagan, he gives some hope, some kick to all people. That we have to live, to create, not to destroy and only this way will bring us to smth, what seems to be totally impossible for the moment. Cool guy)) uhh

[stephenblackwell]

I have been listening to Kaku since the 90s on the Art Bell radio show Kaku is probably the only reason that I started learning about physics thanks for posting this video

[lucafang]

Dark energy is actually the opposite of energy because energy can't be destroyed, only altered

[Voltronev]

Good point. When I read elsewhere that dark matter was not visible in the EM spectrum I never considered that maybe we just didn't have the ability to see it yet. Perhaps string theory and parallel universes will someday account for the as of yet, unexplained properties of dark matter.

Sidenote - I love this channel. Michio is the King, but he's no Haw-king.

[nibletsmovies]

Thank you Michio. I was feeling a little down at the prospect of the big rip, which led me to your video. You have given me hope again for our species and the meaning of our lives. Thanks ever so much! Bertie

[ragefarmer]

I believe that dark matter and dark energy are the building blocks to the universe, because they are absolutely nothing at all. Darkness is the key to light (energy) and light is the key to darkness. Without darkness there could be no light visa versa. When I was younger and learned about dark energy, I couldn't wrap my head around it, but I looked across the room at a bottle of hand sanitizer when I noticed all of those tiny bubbles inside the clear gel. Those same bubbles were an outcome of an event or action. They could have come from the shaking in shipping, maybe from the gel being deposited into the bottle, or maybe even me shaking it. Whatever it was, it was there and was now in existence. It didn't change the state of the gel or make it deplete any faster; it was just pointless scars of an old pointless action. They float in the middle of something else being held together by the gel while all was bound inside of that bottle. believe the same principles apply to dark matter and dark energy along with the rest of the universe. In a universe filled with absolutely nothing, we are the the little bit of something. Maybe it's because two universes clashed at one point, or maybe we are the universe that is "just this way" in the endless amounts of universes in the infinite playground of space. Only time will tell, i guess. 

[sarahkralovetz]

To receate the big bang you need the crunch. How? Use blackholes. Everylast one of them until they cover all matter/energy.