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Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Michio Kaku
Read between
June 4 - June 18, 2020
If our long-term survival is at stake, we have a basic responsibility to our species to venture to other worlds. —CARL SAGAN
The dinosaurs became extinct because they didn’t have a space program. And if we become extinct because we don’t have a space program, it’ll serve us right. —LARRY NIVEN
Where will human civilization be fifty thousand years into the future? What is our ultimate destiny?
Since water is the “universal solvent” capable of being the mixing bowl for the organic chemicals that make up the DNA molecule, scientists may be able to show that the conditions for life are common in the universe.
Theoretical physics (my own specialization) opens up the notion that our universe could be just a single bubble floating in a multiverse of other bubble universes. Perhaps among the other universes in the multiverse, there is a new home for us.
Operation Paperclip, to debrief and recruit former Nazi scientists.
Newton’s vision became a reality when the Soviets launched the world’s first artificial satellite, Sputnik, in October 1957.
President Richard Nixon had two speeches prepared for his TV announcement of the results of the Apollo 11 mission. One speech was to report that the effort was a failure and that American astronauts had died on the moon. This scenario actually came very close to happening.
Imagine your body made of solid gold. That’s roughly what it would take to put you into orbit. To put something on the moon can easily cost $100,000 per pound. And to put things on Mars costs upward of a million dollars per pound. Estimates of putting an astronaut on Mars are often between $400 and $500 billion in total.
In 1967, the United States, Soviet Union, and many other nations signed the Outer Space Treaty, which banned nations from claiming ownership of celestial bodies like the moon.
It banned nuclear weapons from Earth orbit and from being placed on the moon or elsewhere in space. The testing of these weapons was also prohibited. The Outer Space Treaty, the first and only one of its kind, holds to this day.
Killer asteroids are nature’s way of asking, “How’s that space program coming along?” —ANONYMOUS
Today, some are wondering whether the mining of the asteroid belt could create another Gold Rush in outer space.
They consist of iron, nickel, carbon, and cobalt, and they also contain significant quantities of rare earths and valuable metals such as platinum, palladium, rhodium, ruthenium, iridium, and osmium. These elements are found naturally on Earth, but they are rare and very expensive. As the supply of these resources on Earth is exhausted
Deep Space Transport, which will be constructed mainly in outer space. In 2029, the Deep Space Transport will have its first major test, circling around the moon for three hundred to four hundred days. This will provide valuable information about long-term missions in space. Finally, after rigorous testing, the Deep Space Transport will send our astronauts to orbit Mars by 2033.
Titan could become an important gas station in space.
In 2017, a controversy arose between two billionaires, Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook, and Elon Musk of SpaceX and Tesla. Zuckerberg maintained that artificial intelligence was a great generator of wealth and prosperity that will enrich all of society. Musk, however, took a much darker view and stated that AI actually posed an existential risk to all of humanity, that one day our creations may turn on us.
Why go to the stars? Because we are the descendants of those primates who chose to look over the next hill. Because we won’t survive here indefinitely. Because the stars are there, beckoning with fresh horizons. —JAMES AND GREGORY BENFORD
The desire to know something of our neighbors in the immense depths of space does not spring from idle curiosity nor from thirst for knowledge, but from a deeper cause, and it is a feeling firmly rooted in the heart of every human being capable of thinking at all. —NIKOLA TESLA
Galileo merely claimed that the sun, not the Earth, was the center of the universe. Bruno suggested that the universe had no center at all. He was one of the first in history to posit that the universe might be infinite, in which case the Earth would be just another pebble in the sky. The church could no longer claim to be the center of the universe, because it had none.
In order to survive the journey we would have to build multigenerational ships, put our astronauts and pioneers in suspended animation, or extend their life spans.
we see a continuing rise in the birthrate in poor countries with low levels of education and a weak economy. On the other hand, we see a leveling off of the birthrate and even contraction in some countries as they develop industry and become more prosperous.
If our fragile biological bodies cannot stand the strain of interstellar travel, there is the possibility of sending our consciousness to the stars instead.
This method involves first isolating a protein called opsin, which is involved in eyesight. When you shine a light on this gene within a neuron, it causes the neuron to fire.
[Aliens might have] capabilities indistinguishable from telekinesis, ESP, and immortality…they may have powers that seem magical…they will be spiritually advanced creatures. Perhaps they will have solved the riddle of the quantum, and will be able to walk through walls. Um, gee, they sound sort of like angels. —DAVID GRINSPOON
as robots become increasingly powerful and even surpass us in intelligence, we may have to merge with them—or face being replaced by our creations.
The next target may be to record the memories of patients suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. Then we can place a “brain pacemaker” or “memory chip” on their hippocampus, which will flood it with memories of who they are, where they live, and who their relatives are.
transhumanists believe that we should embrace it. They relish the idea that we can perfect humanity. To them, the human race was a byproduct of evolution, so our bodies are a consequence of random, haphazard mutations.
Originally, you were clay. From being mineral, you became vegetable. From vegetable, you became animal, and from animal, man…And you have to go through a hundred different worlds yet. There are a thousand forms of mind. —RUMI
Physicist Stephen Hawking has warned, “We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn’t want to meet.”
Referring to the consequence of Christopher Columbus meeting Native Americans, he concludes, “That didn’t turn out so well.”
A Type I civilization utilizes all the energy of the sunlight that falls on that planet. 2. A Type II civilization utilizes all the energy its sun produces. 3. A Type III civilization utilizes the energy of an entire galaxy.
Elon Musk has speculated that, as civilizations master advanced technology, they develop the power to destroy themselves and that the biggest threat facing a Type I civilization may be a self-inflicted one.
However, over the past half century, the Earth has been heating at an alarming and accelerating rate. We see evidence of this on numerous fronts: · Every major glacier on the Earth is receding · The northern polar ice has thinned by an average of 50 percent over the past fifty years · Large parts of Greenland, which is covered by the world’s second-largest ice sheet, are thawing out · A section of Antarctica the size of Delaware, the Larsen Ice Shelf C, broke off in 2017, and the stability of the ice sheets and ice shelves is now in question · The last few years have been the hottest ever
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Perhaps in the future, if we ever venture to other planets, we may find the ashes of dead civilizations: planets whose atmospheres are highly radioactive; planets that are too hot, because of a runaway greenhouse effect; or planets with empty cities because they used advanced biotech weaponry on themselves.
Will we gain the stars but lose our humanity in the process?
it is essential to realize that at present all known physical phenomena, from the Big Bang to the motion of subatomic particles, can be explained by two theories: Einstein’s general theory of relativity and the quantum theory.
String theory is like a gigantic cosmic snowflake, except that each prong of the snowflake represents the entire set of Einstein’s equations and the Standard Model of subatomic particles. So each prong of the snowflake represents all the particles of the universe.
There is a biblical reference that says, from ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Physicists say, from stardust we came, to stardust we will return.
rebirth is also part of this cosmic cycle.
The original picture given to us by Einstein is that the universe is a huge expanding bubble. We live on the skin of the bubble. The new picture given to us by string theory indicates that there are other bubbles out there, each one a solution of the string equations. In fact, there is a bubble bath of universes, creating a multiverse.
Just as the universe dies, the master computer declares “Let there be light!” And there was light.
Our only chance of long-term survival is not to remain lurking on planet Earth, but to reach out into space…But I am an optimist. If we can avoid disaster for the next two centuries, our species should be safe, as we spread into space. Once we establish independent colonies, our entire future should be safe. —STEPHEN HAWKING
Every dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, and the passion, to reach for the stars to change the world. —HARRIET TUBMAN
