January 24 – Happy Birthday, Michio Kaku

By Michael Knox

January 24, 2016

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nPostednon January 24, 2016

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Hownwould you like to be a futurist?

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nThat’snsomeone who tries to systematically make and develop predictions ofnthe future based on trends in the present – and on cutting-edgenscientific developments and technological advances – and onnknowledge and reason.

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nItnis definitely NOT someone who makes predictions based on so-callednESP or magic or some sort of mystical force.

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nMichionKaku is a lot of things. He’s a writer, a speaker, and a televisionnpersonality. He’s a theoretical physicist and a college professor.nHe’s a popularizer of science.

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nButnthe FIRST thing that Wikipedia lists about Kaku is that he isna futurist. How cool is that?

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MichionKaku was born in California. Kaku’s parents met in an internmentncenter, where Americans who just happened to be of Japanese descentnwere locked up during World War II. Kaku’s parents were not able tonsurmount the prejudice against Japanese Americans in order to havenwell-paid careers, so Kaku grew up fairly poor. However, Kaku’snparents did manage to support his interests. He took him tonuniversity libraries when he was still just a kid, and they alsonallowed him to do experiments in the house.

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nAndnin the garage.

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nYeah,nabout those experiments…

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nWhennMichio Kaku was still in high school, he built an “atom smasher”n(a particle accelerator) in his parents’ garage! He used 400 poundsnof scrap metal and 22 miles of copper wire and ended up creating an2.3 million volt accelerator that generated a magnetic field 20nthousand times greater than Earth’s. It was powerful enough to createnantimatter.

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nYikes!

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nLuckily,nhis parents didn’t say, “No, honey, you cannot build a 2.3 millionnvolt ANYTHING in our garage,” like every other parent on the planetnwould surely say…And luckily, Kaku didn’t kill himself with hisnatom smasher!

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nWhatnDID result from this science fair project is that famed physicistnEdward Teller took Kaku as a protege.

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nDespitenthe fact that Kaku had showed so much promise, so young, despite thenfact that he graduated summa cum laude from Harvard University andnwas first in his physics class, despite the fact that he received anPh.D. and held a lectureship at Princeton University – n

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nDespitenall of that oh-so-special brainiac stuff, Michio Kaku was draftedninto the United States Army during the Vietnam War! He completednbasic training and advanced infantry training, but luckily the warnended before he was put in harm’s way. (!)

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nLuckilynnot just for him and his loved ones, but for all of us. Kaku has madena lot of progress in physics – he was one of the founders of stringnfield theory – but has also dedicated a lot of time and effort tonexplaining science to the general public. Take advantage of all ofnour luck by checking out his books and TV shows and videos. Here’s anfew to get you started:

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