Welcome to the 2021 virtual gaithersburg book festival. I am Phil Kaminski and im honored, humbled and excited to be your host for tonights presentation. Before we get started i ask that you please consider sponsoring tonights author by purchasing his book from our bookseller partner politics and prose. You will find the purchase links in the presentation description. If you consider the hardships we have been through over the past year the choice to support local and independent businesses has rarely been more necessary. We would like to extend a big thank you to our featured sponsor, the david and Michael BlairFamily Foundation for their generous support. Here we go. Today it is our utmost pleasure to have with us world renowned theoretical physicist professor michio kaku, author of many wonderful books to speak on his most recent masterpiece, the New York Times bestseller the god equation, the quest for theory of everything. Todays physicists are combining isaac newtons laws of gravity and motion with the more recent discoveries of Quantum Mechanics and Albert Einsteins relatively which as of yet have proven to be incompatible. Succeeding in this and never would ultimately tie all the forces of the universe together into one beautiful equation that will unlock the deepest po mysteries of space and time and that fascinating journey is the story of this book. He is a professor of theoretical physics at the city new york, the cofounder of string field theory and continues einsteins search for theory of everything, when the unites the four fundamental forces of the universe on direct single theory. He is the science correspondent for cbs this morning, host of the Popular Radio Program science fantastic and declaration and host of many a terrific educational tv shows on bbc and the discovery o channel. Welcome to todays program, michio kaku. Guest after such a great introduction i cant wait to hear this speaker myself. I am a Research Physicists but i also work with Bbc Television and the Discovery Channel and i get to interview some of the greatest minds of science and philosophy. Every time i interview these people i ask them the key question, the question of all questions, the question that has haunted philosophers and scientists for generations and that question is, is there intelligent life on the earth . I was watching the kardashians on tv last night and no intelligent life on this planet but actually there is one question of all questions that really has haunted the greatest minds for the past 2000 years. Is there a unifying principle . A paradigm . An allconsuming theory, a god equation that would explain the richness, variety, the splendor of our universe . That is the story of my book, the 2,000 year chase to find a theory of everything. And equation perhaps no more than one inch long the diluted Albert Einstein in the last 30 years of his life. Lets talk about the god equation. It has consumed the finest minds of the human race, hundreds of physicists are working with adam smashers, working with detectors in outer space, to try to unravel the secret of the universe itself. In other words the god equation. And equation, who knows, maybe no more than 1 inch long that will allow us to, quote, read the mind of god. I first heard about this theory when i was 8 years old, when i was 8 years old two things happened which changed my life completely. When i was 8 years old everyone was talking about the fact that a great scientist just died but on the evening news ali published was a picture of his desk and on the desk was an unfinished book and the caption said the greatest scientists of our time could not finish this book. Well, i was mesmerized. I said to myself wow what could be so hard that he couldnt finish it . Couldnt he ask his mother . It is a homework problem. Everything is a homework problem, why couldnt he finish it . I was consumed with trying to find out who was this man and what was so hard that he couldnt finish it . I found out that his name was Albert Einstein and what he couldnt finish was the theory of everything. That would allow him, in his own words, to, quote, read the mind of god. I decided, when i was around 17, to be part of this great revolution, i asked my mom, do i have permission to a build in adam smashers in the garage . Are 2. 3 million electron volt beta ou tron particle excelerator . My mom stared at me and she e said sure why not . Dont forget to take out the garbage. I assembled 400 transformers, 22 miles of copper wire and build a beta tron particle excelerator inin the garage an blue all the Circuit Breakers in the house. My poor mom mustve said to herself why couldnt i have a son who played baseball . Why cant he play basketball . And for god sake, why cant he find a nice japanese girlfriend . Why does he build these machines . I wasnt the only one mesmerized by the search for a theory of everything. For 2000 years the greatest minds in history like democritus shownwn here, thoug that adams were the basis of reality. Aristotle thought four element made of the universe but it was pythagoras who had the most ingenious idea. He said it is music. Only music is rich enough to explain all the richness and variety of the universe. One day at the agarose was noticing a liar string, he plucked it and the longer the string, the lower the note. He went i a Blacksmith Shop and he saw a sword being hammered. The lower the note. He said mathematics can explain music. The mathematics residences. Each note gives you a vibration that can be measured in the laboratory, this was a breakthrough. He even found a school to discover music and the laws of melody, the laws of harmony, the roman empire fell apart and for thousand years there was darkness. Superstition, magic and inquisitions, and then in the year 1666 there was the great plague that hit london, one quarter of the population of london perished in this huge epidemic, one man was 23 years old, he was sent home to Cambridge University comes locked down and he noticed an apple fall on his estate and then he saw the moon and he asked a question for the ages. If an apple falls, does the moon also fall . He realized that yes, the moo, celestial bodies, comets, they are falling, they are falling in free space but the mathematics was too great for his time, what did he do . He discovered calculus to solve the following apple and the falling moon problem. s name was isaac newton and he created the first theory of almost everything, and equation that summarized the laws of motion and this set into motion the industrial revolution, mechanics, steam engines, buildings, tensions on bridges, all of it could be calculated using newtons laws of motion so whenever a force is unraveled it changes human history. Think about that. Four forces govern the universe, each time a force was unraveled it changed human cu history, with newtons laws initiating the industrial revolution. Amazing. And then, 200 years later, ve faraday and maxwell worked out electricity and magnetism. If you very Magnetic Fields you get an electric field. If you very a Magnetic Field you get an electric field, and you get dynamos, generators, light bulbs, the electric revolution took place because a unifying theme emerged, electricity and magnetism are two sides of the same coin, the same way newton unified heavenly music with earthlike physics, faradayea and maxwell unified it with magnetism. Maxwell made the observation of the ages. If an electric field can create a Magnetic Field and Magnetic Field can create an electric field, can they vibrate together to create a moving way. He calculated the speed of this wave and he was shocked out of his mind, the speed of this wave was the speed of light and he said this is light. That is what light is, the unification of electric and Magnetic Fields, each one turning into the other, the universe was simpler than we thought. Radio, television, microwaves, after violets, gamma rays, all of that summarized by the words of Michael Faraday and james maxwell, unifying electricity and magnetism and then along comes einstein who says ee equals mc squared. M is the mass of hydrogen in the sun. E, the energy of sunlight. 8 unified matter and energy giving us the stars, the secret of the sun lies in the unification of matter with energy so once again it is unification that is the fundamental theme of the universe but the question is unify what . What is being unified . Before world war ii, a new philosophy began to a marriage. All of biology can be expressed in terms of chemistry. All of chemistry can be expressed in terms of physics. All of physics in turn can be expressed in terms of two theories, relativity, the theory of the very big, the big bang, what black holes and the theory of the small which is e lasers and transistors, computers, the internet, this conversation is made possible by quantum theory, these two theories dont like each other, why should god have a lefthand and righthand that dont talk to each other . Not possible, there has got to be a unification of the lefthand and the righthand. There we had world war ii, showing the power of this theory, once again when unification ofof the principlef force was unraveled, it changed human history. First we had the industrial revolution, than the electric revolution, than the Nuclear Revolution and after world war ii we begin to smash adamsons what do we find, chaos, subatomic particles emerged, this was not supposed to happen. Robert oppenheimer, father of the atomic bomb, said in frustration, quote, the nobel prize in physics should go to the physicist who does not discover a new particle this year. Physics was in turmoil. Why should the quantum theory of particles be so messy . Things are supposed to be simpler, that was the lesson we thought we learned but then nature had other plans for us so we built bigger adams smashers, much bigger than the ones i built when i was in high school, big gigantic large hadron colliders smashing protons together at 14 trillion electron volt and this is what they found. It is an ugly, it is a clumsy theory but it works. At lowenergy it does explain electrons, protons, quarks. Its called the standard model. The standard model is quite ugly. A theory and only a mother can love, 36 quarks and antiquarks, 3 identical generations of redundant particles, 23 parameters you can adjust anyway you want, look at this thing. Why should god be so fundamentally chaotic and random at the fundamental level, there has got to be a higher theory. This is a lowenergy theory but what is the highenergy theory . Two weeks ago you probably side in the New York Times, two weeks ago a crack was found in the standard model, the first crack in 50 years, for 50 years this clumsy model has held sway because it works but at Higher Energy it must fail. Why should nature be so malicious to create a universe with a lefthand and righthand that dont talk to each other and one hand, look at this, a mess, that is why people are saying there has got to be a principal, a paradigm, there has got to be a paradigm that somehow unifies this zoo of subatomic particles and we think it could be music the music of subatomic particles. Each note corresponds to a vibration but if i had a microscope and could look into an electron i would not see a dot, we think, i would see a rubber band, when you twang the web and it changes frequency and you have to give it a different name so he called tha neutrino commute weighing it again, changes frequency you have to give it another name so you holiday quark, you twanged it enough times and this rubber band gives you all the subatomic particles in nature. This is called string theory. Why do we have so many particles, nothing but notes, what is physics . Physics is a harmony of the strings, what is, street . Chemistry is what they play when they bumped into each other, what is the universe . The universe is a symphony of strings. What is the mind of god that einstein spent 30 years of his life chasing after . The mind of god would be cosmic music resonating through hyperspace, that, we think could be the mind of god. In fact, you can summarize string theory and one equation, thats my equation. My equation is an inch and a half long. It is not the final equation because more recent we discover there are membranes like beach balls or volleyballs that can also vibrate, we think our universe is a membrane so this is not the final equation, this is not the god equation but maybe somebody out there listening to this program, a young person who is energized by this talk, maybe you will find the true god equation and when you do let me give you some advice, first tell me first and we will publish together and split the nobel prize money. The next question is how can you test a theory like this, therequ are 5 ways you can tes this theory, you can look for new particles and forces, 1 5 force like what happened two weeks ago at fermilab outside chicago. A crack was found in the standard model. That maybe that crack can be filled by out particle, the next octave up, we are the lowest octave of vibrating strings, what is a higher octave . Maybe the next octave can explain this discovery made two weeks ago and dark matter which makes up most of the universe, dark matter is invisible but is predicted by string theory plus gravity waves, i will talk about that in a minute, the instant of creation itself may be photographed using gravity detectors, linear accelerators being proposed by the japanese, the chinese and the europeans and maybe there are deviations in gravity. Lets take a few of these waves to test the theory. Every textbook, every high School Textbook uses them, th universe is main madeley of adams, wrong, thats not true anymore, most of the universe is made of dark matter which is invisible and predicted by string theory, string theory says there are higher octaves of vibrating strings, the next octave up would have invisible matter so this could be the origin of dark matter. Dark matter is invisible so how do we know it is there . How do we know your glasses are there . Light bends when it goes through your glasses, that is why we know there is glass there in the same with dark matter, light bends when it goes through dark matter, thats how we know dark matter really is there and it could be nothing but a higher vibration of the string. And the questions the children ask, maybe string theory can add to the. Children ask the question if the universe is expanding what is expanding into and if you fall into a black hole, where do you go . Is time travel possible . Can you go backwards in time . D are there wormholes to other universes . What lies beyond the black hole, a white hole on the other side of a blackhole . Are there other dimensions . Other universes . None of these questions can be answered in the current framework . You need a higher theory and that is where string theory comes in. Lets try to test this theory. The European Space agency and nasa are proposing to get baby pictures of the instant of creation. This is laser in first interferometry detector in outer space, proposed by the your appearance, will give us baby pictures of the infant universe, a trillionth of a second after its birth and when we analyze baby pictures h we will see the universe emerging from the room and maybe, just maybe we will find evidence of an umbilical cord. And umbilical cord connecting our universe to a parent universe in a parallel universe. What is on the other side of a blackhole . If you fall in do you just die . What happens when you go through a blackhole . Is there a white hole on the other end of a black hole . In 1935 Albert Einstein and his student nathan rosen devised the Einstein Rosen bridge shown here which connects two universes together with a bridge, the Einstein Rosen bridge connecting our universe to another universe and perhaps another universe is in a different time in which case this would be, time machine. Physicists are leaving the world of science fiction. You have seen this before. N where have you seen this before in a Childrens Book . Years ago there was an oxford mathematician named charles dodgson. He knew about wormholes, mathematicians called the multiply connected spaces, the press calls and wormholes. Charles dodgson wrote a book about them and he could not use his name, he was a distinguished professor of math so he wrote under a pseudonym, lewis carroll, and he called it through the Looking Glass. The Looking Glass is the wormhole. A gateway between ourbo univer and a parallel universe. The next question im sure you will ask me is if there is a gateway, a wormhole between us and a parallel universe, then is Elvis Presley still alive in apparel universe . Yes, probably yes according to the quantum theory. We are talking about a multiverse of universes now. It was einstein who said the universe is a bubble of some sort, we live on the skin of the bubble, the bubble is expanding, that is called the big bang theory. String theory says there could be other universes out there, when these universes collide or fission, that is called the big bang so the big bang could be a collision of the multiverse, s multiverse of universes. This is aesthetically pleasing because my parents were buddhists and in buddhism there is no beginning or end. There is just never. Ii was raised as a presbyteria and in the presbyterian religion there is an instant when god said let there be light, there was a genesis so either the universe had a beginning or didnt, theres no two ways around it until now. Now we can meld these ideas together. Our universe had a beginning, our universe had a big bang that, our universe data genesis but there are other universes out there and what are they floating in . Near vana j higher dimension. Near vana is the true arena of all these universes. We think of space being 3dimensional, x, y, z, 3 dimensions but why three . There is nothing special about three. You talked to a mathematician and they will say three is quite ordinary. Other dimensions are more interesting and may be, just maybe we can have People Living in these other dimensions. This was that whenever, a novelist who wrote about flatland, a world on a tabletop, two dimensional people on a tabletop. When i was a child i went to the Japanese Tea Garden in San Francisco and would see the fish swimming in two dimensions, forward, backward, left, right, but up and down were forbidden, the universe was flat. The universe was two dimensional, there is no third dimension. Any fish talking about 1 3 dimension would be laughed at, a crackpot, a mystic, an idiot, there is no third dimension. Today many physicists believe we cannot yet prove that we are the fish. We spent all o our time in 3 dimensions not realizing there could be four, five, six, up to 11 dimensions, this is a hypercube, artists and physicists have been fascinated by the higher dimensional objects, led by seller dolly, seller dolly, many of his paintings are based on the Fourth Dimension. This is jesus christ crucified in the Fourth Dimension, crucified on a tesseract shown here, a 4 dimensional cube and if you saw the movie interstellar starring Matthew Mcconaughey, at the end of the movie where does he wind up . Hyperspace. It is based on string theory, string theory predicts other dimensions, thats where Matthew Mcconaughey is floating in the final scenes in the movie and seller dolly immortalized the image of melted clocks. Why melted clocks . Was trying to visualize time. Time as the Fourth Dimension and of course time could be a Fourth Dimension but believe it or not einsteins equations do allow for time travel which einstein himself realized that. Newton thought the time was like an arrow. Once you fire the arrow the arrow never deviated. Forward, backward, are two distinct realms of time. Einstein comes along and says not so fast. Time is a river. A river that can speed up andd slow down as it meanders throughout the universe, time is a river. The river of time can have whirlpools. The river of time can fork into two rivers giving us the possibility of time travel. Stephen hawking, the great physicist, looked into this question and concluded wormholes through allowed under einsteins equation. D he had doubts about going through time but space, yes. He believed wormholes could go through the fabric of space. The question is is time travel possible . There is a wrinkle . The equations say that. You dont need a time traveling delorean. The energy of a black hole, that is what it takes for the fabric of space and time to turn it into a pretzel that takes Energy Beyond comprehension. Theres another problem, the einstein theory says the universe must eventually die. This is the second law of thermodynamics. In a closed system, things rest, fall apart, rock, dk, and die. That is why we die. The second law says air is entropy, builds up in our cells, the cells begin sluggish and eventually go into senescence and eventually die. That is why we die but if you look at evolution. Evolution goes in the opposite direction. Higher forms emerging, what is wrong with the second law of higher dynamics . In a closed system, entropy always increases, chaos increases, eventually you die but eventually you get an open system like sunlight coming in from the stars, that drives evolution on the earth. If the laws of physics are a death warrant, saying that the universe itself must eventually die, to worse reverse the death of the universe. Possibly yes. If we havent blown ourselves apart the universe will approach near absolute 0. Very cold, intelligent life will be impossible. All life as we know it will eventually die but there is one and only one way to evade the second law of thermodynamics, and open system, a wormhole to another universe, if we go to another universe this universe could be younger and warmer than our universe which is on the verge of death. We will escape in a dimensional lifeboat to another universe and mess up that universe as well. We have two universes, but the point is theres an application to this theory. The application to this theory is it will allow us to survive even if the universe itself, what i end on is my favorite einstein story and i will take a few question. My favorite einstein story is of this. When einstein was an old man he was tired of giving the same talk over and over, one day the chauffeur said professor, i am really a parttime actor. I heard your speech so many times i have memorized it. Why switch places . I will put on a mustache, a wig, i will be the great einstein and you can take a rest and be my chauffeur. Einstein loved the joke so they switched places. This went along famously until one day, a mathematician in the back asked a very difficult question. Einstein thought the game is up but the chauffeur said that question is so elementary that my chauffeur over here can answer it for you. Thank you very much. What a true honor this was, fascinating presentation. We have several questions and appreciate your time on this. For those viewers who have not read the god equation, one thing this book does, a terrific job of introducing giants in the field of astronomy and physics and how one achievement paved the way for the next. I found fascinating on one occasion, one scientist died, the next to takein up his rein was born, almost as if the universe wants in its journey of knowledge to persist. Was it difficult for you to so eloquently summarize and tell tales of these geniuses . Guest it is a rather astonishing coincidence. I was shocked when i saw this that the year galileo died, and a young babycs was born in another part of europe and that young baby can complete galileos conjectures and mathematics, that baby was isaac newton. Was born the same year, and electra make this is the source, that is light. The year maxwell died a baby was born, to carry on his work. And so a cosmic coincidence that the torch was carried on by someone who was born the year the predecessor died. We are talking the whole shooting match and that is the god equation. The equation no more than 1 inch long that would allow us to summarize everything known about the universe was on one sheet of paper, you could write the theory of almost everything. Ur you could put down einsteins equation which is about an inch long and the standard model is quite ugly, clumsy, a horrible theory but it works. It is a foot long, maybe a yard long if you write it out but on one sheet of paper, one sheet of paper you could put the theory of almost everything, we could merge these hostile theories, relativity is based on smooth surfaces, trampoline thats, smooth surfaces. The quantum theory chops up everything into tiny particles. How can a theory of particles be equivalent to a theory of smooth surfaces. Einstein had an analogy, a marble, gravity and space, smooth, marble surfaces. Quantum theory is would. It has no rhyme or reason, and if einstein had never been born, we would have discovered all of einsteins theories anyway as the lowest vibration of a vibrating string. I find that remarkable. You can throw the standard model and with it to. And it is incredible. From philippines, whether light is a wave or a particle, phillips says, this seems to in turn what consciousness turns energy into madland if so it seems god is a universal consciousness. It fits what mystics described as the sense of oneness and condos consciousness. Did science uncover the existence of god, there are two major ways of understanding the double slit experiment was by rights and electron should go through one hole at a time. If i shoot through two holes what happens on the other side . What happens on the other side is you get an interference pattern as if two waves interfere with each other, that blows your mind, the electron went through both holes simultaneously. One electron goes through two holes at the same time, get used to it. Neither of them with common sense, both blow your mind away. The first interpretation comes from eugene bigand er, one of the founders of quantum theory, he says someone has to look at it as you point out, someone who is conscious has to look at the electron to say the electron went to the left, the electron went to the right, but who looks at the observer . Somebody has to observe the observer so the observer can exist, and and you have an infinite sequence, and he has to have a friend to make a measurement. How many fans are there . An infinite number leading up to god. He even wrote about mysticism, one of the founders of quantum theory, wrote about indian mysticism, making observers, making observers all the way up to god. Another way to look at this, crazier than that and that is parallel universes. The universe is split. In another it went to the right and the two universes split apart. We are constantly splitting apart. Universe after universe being split apart. Theres a tv series based on that, manion high castle is on tv. That roosevelt, and the germans won and cut up the United States because they won world war ii because an assassins bullet killed roosevelt. A bullet is a quantum event. A bullet, the flaring of gunpowder, adams could cause a misfire that sometimes guns misfire. In one universe roosevelt died, the nazis won. In the other universe, the bullet misfired, roosevelt went on to lead us in world war ii and the nazis were defeated. Two universes split by one bullet which in turn is a t quantum event based on the laws of chemistry and atoms, what is the way around us. Richard d feynman, the great physicist, and either there is a cosmic observer, i. E. God, or an infinite number of parallel universes, take your pick. In other words, get used to it. The theory works, the theory works but the philosophy behind the theory would blow your mind, two alternate heads of view, your head explodes thinking about it. Host explain to us why it is so difficult to conceive of the twee 7 dimensions beyond the four we are accustomed to or the three dimensions we know plus time . Is there a way to simply be described to a layman like myself . Guest the simple answer is no. We live in a 3dimensional world, we can move in length, width, and height, and we can conceive of animals charging at us in 3 dimensions, that is why we understand 3dimensional tigers, 3dimensional liens. Evolution did not give us the ability to visualize a 5 dimensional tiger. To envision 5 dimensional tigers. And no problem but a mathematical trick. And cannot visualize a 5 dimensional being or 5 dimensional object. Evolution didnt give us a brain big enough to do that. We slice it up, slices we understand even if the 4 dimensional, 5 dimensional, 6 dimensional object is not visualize a ball. Tricks being crosssections in order to understand these objects. Can we visualize higher s dimensional objects . No. Sorry about that. In the movie interstellar hollywood tried, they had Matthew Mcconaughey floating in a 5 dimensional cube at the end of the movie. Is that leica tesseract, shadow of a shape in another dimension . Guest if i get a box and unravel it, i have across consisting of squares, 6 squares arranged leica and that is the unraveling of a cube if i unravel a hybrid . By geta tesseract and you see the picture of Salvador Dali who popularized the tesseract. In the novel and movie a wrinklean in time, the gateway through hyperspace, is the tesseract which is unraveled for dimensional hypercube. Host some people subscribe to every answer found find brings another or the further we know the less we know. Do you consider this, why would strings be the smallest things, the ultimate substance that make up everything . Could there not be even smaller things, this thinking goes on and on indefinitely . There are two ways of looking at it, theres a final theory given the fact that one sheet of paper, the complete theory of almost everything, the standard model with einsteins theory, one method, one school of thought says it does end, this is the final theory. You cannot deny the possibility it goes on forever. This is called the onion theory. We physicists do not like to postulate a new layer of the onion unless we have 2. Is an onion possible . The answer is yes. So far we seen no necessity to go beyond the plank energy, the energy of the big bang, the h energy of a string, it is 10 to the 19th power billion electron volt, a quad trillion times more powerful than the large ne hadron collider which is our most powerful machine. String theory lives at the energy of the plank energy so theres no necessity to go farther. Could go farther . Possibly. I bet it stops. I bet it stops at the string. Host i cant imagine the calculations, seems incredible. One question. Gy Quantum Entanglement, explain to our viewers and tell your thoughts on it. Guest you know that captain kirk can communicate across the galaxy instantly. What is that . We think it could be Quantum Entanglement. If i have two electrons vibrating in unison and separate them. And vocal cord, emerges, connecting these two such that if one is up, one is spinning down. If you separate them by a galaxy, they communicate with each other, faster than the speed of light instantly. Weve done the experiment, they are aware of each others presence, faster than the speed of light. Was einstein totally wrong, it turns out the information that goes faster than the speed of light is not ctusable, not lik morse code, you can send a message on morse code but the message in Quantum Entanglement is random information. We cannot yet communicate faster than the speed of light, the only way to do that is through a wormhole, thats consistent with einsteins theory, Quantum Entanglement is probably not the way to communicate faster than the speed of light. Ive watched you talk several times, one of the best speakers ive ever seen. Everybody watching will enjoy this. I once heard you say i work with Young Children a lot every day and many of them are watching this presentation. I once heard you describe your thoughts on what the meaning of life isnt why we are here. Let our viewers know what you think the meaning of life is and what our purpose is. For humanity in general and then the meaning of life personally. The meaning of life for y humanity is a chess game that after 2,000 years, how upon move, how the bishops move and how the nights move, our destiny, our meaning is to become grandmasters of the game of chess, to find the god equation and to make use of the god equation to use it. Not just marvel at its beauty and elegance. The destiny of humanity is to find the theory of everything. That is our destiny. What about our destiny as individuals . Some people think if we sit back and the guru from a mountaintop comes down from the mountaintop and says here it is, this is your meaning of life, i think that is too easy. The meaning of life for me is the struggle to find your own destiny. It is too easy. It defeats the purpose. Whats the purpose of having a meaning of life if somebody simply tells you what it is. The purpose of life is a struggle to find your destiny. Each of us has a destiny and our meaning is the struggle to find it. Otherwise it is given to you on a platter and that the feet the whole purpose. The whole purpose of looking s for the meaning of life is to o find the struggle that revealed to us our personal destiny. And it is too easy to have someone give us the meaning of life because that defeats the whole purpose of the meaning of life. He that is how i see it. T host that is wonderful. I can only imagine the amount of preparation that goes into touring a newly released book. Your knowledge, insight, and time, on behalf of myself i want to thank you for being with us today. Le guest a pleasure and honor to speak to you today at the gaithersburg book festival. Great honor and pleasure. Recently on booktvs Author Interview program after words, secretary mark esper talked about his time in the trump administration. Heres a portion of that interview. Back to the book sacred oath, part of the constitution is article 2 which establishes the president as commander in chief and obey his lawful orders. I was fortunate because donald trump rarely issued orders but for the germany case but walk through these sequential he in terms of ukraine assistance which we were obligated under the law it would be me at times or me and john bolton and mike pompeo and i would engage the president and push them to release Security Assistance to ukraine, we learned why, i did through the media, that wasnt a case where my duty was to go back and push and press and make every argument i could to get that released. Another cases with nato or where i got the written orders withdraw troops from germany my game plan was to give my Combatant Commander general todd walters a series of principles, do some planning and reassure our allies to deter russia, take care of our troops and come back with a good concept that at the end of the day, the direct orders withdraw troops but at the same time allowed me to take those troops we withdrew from germany and consolidate them in other countries are push them forward closer to russia which met these principles id defined to deter russia and i thought it was a clever idea put forward by the Combatant Commander, briefed it to the president , we knew what we were doing when i briefed him and met what he wanted and i didnt like its origin but it was a workable solution to meet the president s intense but in a way that made strategic sense that bolstered our presence in europe and deterred the russians and look where we are today. After words has relevant just hosts interviewing nonfiction authors about their latest work, to watch this program and others visit booktv. Org after words. We will break away from our booktv program and take you live to capitol hill for what is believed to be a brief session of the u. S. Senate, senators are in recess for the remainder of this month, no votes are expected until their return on december 6th, we take you live to the u. S. Senate on cspan2. Senate will come to order. The clerk will read a communication to the senate. The clerk washington, d. C. , august 22, 2022. To the senate under the provisions of rule 1, paragraph 3, of the standing rules of the senate, i hereby appoint the honorable robert p. Casey jr. , a senator from the commonwealth of pennsylvania, to perform the duties of the chair. Signed patrick j. Leahy, president pro tempore. The presiding officer under the previous order, the Senate Stands adjourned until 2 30 p. M. On friday, august 19, 2022