IN SEARCH OF THE Dr. Michio Kaku was interviewed for The Commonwealth Club by Wired.com’s Kara Platoni. (Kaku photo by Andrea Brizzi; Platoni photo by Rosa Furneaux; photo above by ipicgr.)
ONCE PHYSICISTS CAN
successfully combine theories of relativity and quantum mechanics, all forces in the universe will be recognized and tied into one. Physicist Michio Kaku seeks to document this epic journey of uniting theories of space in his new book The God Equation. From the April 16, 2021, online program “Dr. Michio Kaku: The God Equation.” Dr. MICHIO KAKU, Professor of Theoretical Physics, City College of New York; Author, The God Equation: The Quest for a Theory of Everything In conversation with KARA PLATONI, Senior Editor, Science, Wired.com
KARA PLATONI: I wanted to introduce people to the big idea of your book. The theory of everything is a quest to unite the two big frameworks that we have for understanding the universe. There’s general relativity, which describes gravity and spacetime; and there’s quantum mechanics, which describes everything else—electromagnetism, strong nuclear force. So the first describes the biggest things in the universe, and the second describes the smallest things in the universe—and your quest is to unite them all under one umbrella. Why do you think there can be one theory that describes everything? MICHIO KAKU: Well, you know all of biology can be summarized in the language of chemistry; all of chemistry can be summarized in the language of physics. And all the physics can be summarized by these two great theories that don’t talk to each other.
They’re hostile theories. They have different mathematics, different physical [structures], and they don’t combine. So why should God have a left hand and a right hand that don’t talk to each other? You know, it’s amazing that the great theme of science for the last 2,000 years has been unification. Isaac Newton unified the laws of heaven with the laws of the Earth. Maxwell and Faraday united the laws of electricity with those of magnetism. Einstein with E=mc2 unified matter with energy. That’s the theme of the universe. So why should this grand theme of unification be spoiled at the most fundamental level? The level at which we have the Big Bang, black holes. And that’s why I think there has to be one unified theory that unites everything into the God equation. PLATONI: So you don’t think nature should be chaotic and messy and “red in tooth and claw,” just all over the place. KAKU: That’s right. In fact, I first heard about this idea when I was eight years old. When I was eight years old, a great scientist
