Michio Kaku forecasts the future of space travel

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The co-founder of Field String Theory explains why the universe has 11 dimensions rather than any other number.

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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:

Question: Why are there only 11 dimensions in the universe rather than something higher? (Submitted by John Menon)


Michio Kaku: I work in something called String Theory, that’s what I do for a living. In fact, that’s my day job. I’m the co-founder of String Field Theory, one of the main branches of String Theory. The latest version of String Theory is called M-Theory, “M” for membrane. So we now realize that strings can coexist with membranes. So the subatomic particles we see in nature, the quartz, the electrons are nothing but musical notes on a tiny vibrating string.


What is physics? Physics is nothing but the laws of harmony that you can write on vibrating strings. What is chemistry? Chemistry is nothing but the melodies you can play on interacting vibrating strings. What is the universe? The universe is a symphony of vibrating strings. And then what is the mind of God that Albert Einstein eloquently wrote about for the last 30 years of his life? We now, for the first time in history have a candidate for the mind of God. It is, cosmic music resonating through 11 dimensional hyperspace.


So first of all, we are nothing but melodies. We are nothing but cosmic music played out on vibrating strings and membranes. Obeying the laws of physics, which is nothing but the laws of harmony of vibrating strings. But why 11? It turns out that if you write a theory in 15, 17, 18 dimensions, the theory is unstable. It has what are called, anomalies. It has singularities. It turns out that mathematics alone prefers the universe being 11 dimensions.


Now some people have toyed with 12 dimensions. At Harvard University, for example, some of the physicists there have shown that a 12-dimensional theory actually looks very similar to an 11-dimensional theory except it has two times, double times rather than one single time parameter. Now, what would it be like to live in a universe with double time? Well, I remember a movie with David Niven. David Niven played a pilot, who was shot down over the Pacific, but the angels made a mistake, he was not supposed to die that day. And so the angels brought him back to life and said, “Oh, sorry about that. We killed you off by accident; you were not supposed to die today.”


So in a great scene, David Niven then walks through a city where time has stopped. Everyone looks like this. And there’s David Niven just wandering around looking at all these people. That’s a world with double time. David Niven has one clock, but everyone else has a separate clock and these two clocks are perpendicular to each other. So if there’s a double time universe, you could walk right into a room, see people frozen in time, while you beat to a different clock. That’s a double time universe.


Now this is called F-Theory, “F” for father, the father of strings. It’s not known whether F-Theory will survive or not; however, M-Theory in 11 dimension is the mother of all strings. And that theory works perfectly fine. So to answer your question, in other dimensions, dimensions beyond 11, we have problems with stability, these theories are unstable, they decay back down to 11 dimensions, they have what are called anomalies, singularities, which kill an ordinary theory. So the mathematics itself forces you to 11 dimensions.


Also because this is a Theory of Everything, there’s more room in higher dimensions to put all the forces together. When you put gravity, electromagnetism and the nuclear force together, four dimensions is not big enough to accommodate all these forces. When you expand to 11 dimensions, bingo, everything forms perfectly well.

[paweszafaowicz]

Finally! Michio again <3
We've been missing

[KangarooDude]

Heck he's old af now, I don't wanna see this man go yet :(

[Cody]

Yeah billionaires wont save us, you only make that much money by underpaying your workers and abusing a broken system

[WonderousLover]

Missed hearing michio! One of my favorite videos was by him and the reason I even subscribed to this channel!

[Knards]

It saddens me that I watched so intently, the beginning of the space race. And then throughout my life, we went no where. and I will be long gone before we go anywhere again

[matthewmalpeli]

Robots should rule space, not billionaires

[tomg]

Most billionaires wont live long enough to see space colonization either way we should be funding our space and ecological programs so that we don't have to rely on private companies but the way our whole government is structured money is likely to be diverted to needless military expenses and Company bailouts anything else

[tux]

He said a lot of words, but he didn't make an argument. He detailed more or less the status quo today, but gave no explanation as to why it is the way it is, or why it couldn't be changed in order for government to repeat its space race triumphs. He gave zero arguments to quell the legitimate concerns people have about private ownership of space.This was a very weak effort to explain, justify, or inspire. It was just free market dogma that has been said a million times in a million different context with nothing to do with space.

[brendyn]

What about NASA's 2024 mission to the moon?

[grnppj]

So one day, only the super rich can go to vacation to visit the planet earth. Damn capitalism

[MickeyThomas]

The free market will continue space exploration. Nothing wrong with that if NASA is not going to take the next step

[invox]

I don't agree with this. Without Goverment or Public support if something happens to these Billionaires, there is literally NO ONE to move their projects forward. To have such valuable Humanity endeavours in the hand of a few is a mistake. These are projects that will take decades (if not more), so this has to be in the hands of the People.

[soaringeagle]

Dr.Kaku is back with a bang.I like listening to such a great physicist, I feel inspired.Great love from Kenya.

[jaswati]

Here's it again. The man that's the reason why everyone is subscribed to this channel.

[BaneTrogdor]

What a terrible thought, to be dependent of billioners for science and space exploration !

[Tots]

In the simplest way possible very few people on this earth think of humanity as a species. Elon Musk being one of those people. He intends to use his power and push humanity into the actual “space age”

[timtupman]

I think Michio was a little too harsh on NASA here. Plenty you can criticise, but they're still the "Grandaddys" of space, know their stuff and have a mountain of expertise. Correct me if I'm wrong, but NASA is still the only organisation that has successfully landed a payload on the surface of mars, which Elon Musk has said is INCREDIBLY hard. It's beside the point to pitch SpaceX against NASA, since they have similar goals and are usually working together, not really competing. SpaceX is great, Blue Origin great, NASA great. If NASA can use some of its money more efficiently by contracting out to these private companies, everybody wins.

[chris]

Finally!, his back, Japanese Morgan freeman

[jeanettewaverly]

Why does Dr. Kaku's message fail to comfort me? (a rhetorical question)

[matthiasbrumbaugh]

Okay, but lets all make an effort to prevent an Exxon Valdez like situation from happening in space please?