The Future of Humanity: Terraforming Mars, Interstellar Travel, Immortality, and Our Destiny Beyond Earth

by Michio Kaku

Geneticists have noticed the curious fact that any two humans have almost identical DNA. By contrast, any two chimpanzees can have more genetic variation between them than is found in the entire human population. Mathematically, one theory to explain this phenomenon is to assume that, at the time of the explosion, most humans were wiped out, leaving only a handful of us—about two thousand people.

If we scan all the life-forms that have ever existed on the Earth, from microscopic bacteria to towering forests, lumbering dinosaurs, and enterprising humans, we find that more than 99.9 percent of them eventually became extinct.

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

“I reach for the stars, but sometimes I hit London.” Singer Tom Lehrer penned the words, “Once the rockets are up, who cares where they come down? That’s not my department.”

Hunters, like tigers and foxes, have eyes facing the front of their face, which gives them stereo vision as the brain compares images from the left and right eyes. This allows them to judge distance, which is essential in locating the prey. However, prey do not need stereo vision. All they need is 360-degree vision to scan for the presence of predators, and hence they have eyes on each side of their face, like deer and rabbits.

In order to hand down and accumulate essential information from generation to generation, some form of language is crucial. The more abstract the language, the more information can be conveyed between generations.

There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact. —MARK TWAIN

This means that subatomic particles are just like musical notes. The universe is a symphony of strings, physics represents the harmonies of these notes, and the “mind of God” that Einstein chased after for so many decades is cosmic music resonating through hyperspace.

Young, aspiring mathematicians, who usually scorn applications of their discipline, have to learn string theory if they want to be on the cutting edge.