Physics of the Future: How Science Will Shape Human Destiny and Our Daily Lives by the Year 2100

by Michio Kaku

I had a chance to visit this monster computer when I toured the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, where they design hydrogen warheads for the Pentagon. It is America’s premier top-secret weapons laboratory, a sprawling, 790-acre complex in the middle of farm country, budgeted at $1.2 billion per year and employing 6,800 people. This is the heart of the U.S. nuclear weapons establishment. I had to pass through many layers of security to see it, since this is one of the most sensitive weapons laboratories on earth. Finally, after passing a series of checkpoints, I gained entrance to the building housing IBM’s Blue Gene computer, which is capable of computing at the blinding speed of 500 trillion operations per second. Blue Gene is a remarkable sight. It is huge, occupying about a quarter acre, and consists of row after row of jet-black steel cabinets, each one about 8 feet tall and 15 feet long. When I walked among these cabinets, it was quite an experience. Unlike Hollywood science fiction movies, where the computers have lots of blinking lights, spinning disks, and bolts of electricity crackling through the air, these cabinets are totally quiet, with only a few tiny lights blinking. You realize that the computer is performing trillions of complex calculations, but you hear nothing and see nothing as it works.