Television and online, cspan is your unfiltered view of government so you can make up your own mind. Brought to as a Public Service by your cable or satellite provider. Brian brian here is a piece of video of you on this network in 1979. [video clip] at the recent government report concerning the threemile island, the government concedes that one out of 10 people will eventually die of cancer in the threemile island area. Brian do you remember that time almost 40 years ago and have you changed your thinking . Michio i remember that very vividly. I am a theoretical physicist and i work with the theories of albert einstein. Being before a Television Camera was a new experience but when the threemile island to happen, ever was that we needed a scientist about the site for this mess to the American People. So they contacted me and i said to myself this why i do for a what i do for a living. Im a physicist. I said to myself i will get on National Television and National Radio because the situation demands it. Not because i want to do it but because people had to know, the dangers, the positives, the negatives of energy, one of the Big Questions of the age. That is how i backed into becoming a media person. Brian you say in your book that there was a teacher in second grade that had a big impact on your future. Michio she said god so loved the earth that he put the earth just right of the sun, not too far that the oceans will freeze but just right from the sun. Now, i was floored. I was in second grade. This was a scientific principle with this with religious interpretation. I said that is right. If we were to close, the oceans would boil, if we were to close, the oceans would freeze. We are in the goldilocks zone of the sun. Now, of course we have seen 4000 other planets orbiting other stars and almost all of them are too close or too far from the sun. You have either two points of view, either god exists and still loves the earth or we have a crapshoot. Brian what do you think . Michio now that we have been so many planets, 4000 of them, there are billions upon billions of planets. On average, every single star you see at night has a planet going around it. Every single star on average that it is indisputable that most of them were outside the goldilocks on. This zone. You can still believe in god but that is not an argument that clinches the deal. Brian i wanted to ask you about a bunch of obvious things that you write about, what is a planet . Michio it is a mud ball that goes around a star. I say that because it does not release light of its own. It is dark, it doesnt have life of its own. It orbits around the sun gaining energy and within planets are very interesting because they could have life. That is how we got started. Even our solar system we think the planets may harbor some form of life. Maybe microbial life. We look at planets, we look at stars to find where the plants are but we focus on the planet because that is the habitat for life in the universe. Brian what is a star . Michio a star is a gigantic solar furnace. It is a ball of hydrogen gas that releases energy by converting hydrogen into sunlight. A star is in some sense a Hydrogen Bomb. It will face the same equations of einstein. E mc2. M is hydrogen, e is sunlight that comes out of the store. Brian what is a comment . Michio a comet is a dirty ice to what is a, comet . Michio a comet is a dirty ice ball that was around in the solar system. They are only 10 or 20 miles across. They arent very big. Theyre basically made out of ice remnants of the original , solar system which we think surrounded the sun now orbit in a disk. Brian what is the difference brian what is the difference between a meteor and a meteorite . Michio that flash of light that you see was an across the sky is caused by a rock that burns up in the atmosphere and that is called a meteor. Either the block itself with a streak of light. However, wanted his the ground, it becomes a mineral. We called a meteorite. If the meteor which has fallen from the sky, what is a galaxy . Brian what is a galaxy a galaxy consist of hundreds of stars left over from the creation of the universe, the big bang. It looks like a gigantic disk of stars, our galaxy for example is the Milky Way Galaxy and the nearest galaxy to us is the andromeda galaxy and we think there are about a hundred billion galaxies in the visible universe. Believe it or not that means we can actually count the number of stars in the visible universe. They hundred billion galaxies, a hundred billion stars per galaxy so that is the number of stars in the visible universe. A hundred billion times a hundred billion. Brian what is an asteroid . Michio that is left over from the creation of the solar system. We are talking about mars or jupiter. Its debris. We think it is a failed planet, a planets between mars and jupiter that never quite condensed or maybe got too close to jupiter and got broken up. Brian so if you had to pick another place to live outside of the earth, where would you go . Michio i would go to another planet. We have looked at all the planets so far. None of them are exactly earthlike, venous we once thought was tropical. Many had astronauts sunbathing on the beaches of venus. We now know venus is our evil twin. Just like the earth, closer to the sun, the temperatures are 900 degrees fahrenheit. If you were to walk on the surface of venus your feet would sink into molten metal. You dont want to go to venus. Mars is the closest. It is a frozen desert but it is the closest planet we have. Its a rocky planet. One of the moons of jupiter is europa. The moons of jupiter are interesting. It has a liquid ocean underneath the ice covered, who would have have thought you could have that going around a distant planet. The volume is larger than the oceans of the earth. Nasa wants to put a submarine under the eyes to look for life under the ice to look for life forms under the ice cover. Brian we talked about your secondgrade teacher. Do you remember when you first got interested in science . Michio i remember that very distinctly. I was eight years old. Everyone was talking about the fact that a great scientist had just died. I will never forget they flashed a picture of his desk on the newspapers and the caption says Something Like this. This is the unfinished manuscript from the greatest scientist of our time. I was eight years old. I said to myself why couldnt he finish it . What is so hard that the greatest scientist couldnt finish it . It was a homework assignment. What could be so hard that he could not answer it . Why didnt he ask his mother . What could be so hard that he could not finish it . I went to the library and found of his name was albert einstein. That book was the unified theory. The theory that would allow us to read the mind of god. I said to myself that is for me. I want to be part of this grand expedition to finish that book. Today i could read that book, i could see all of the dead ends that einstein pursued. We actually think we have it, it is called string theory. I am one of the founders of the subject. We think we can complete a book that einstein set into motion, the theory of everything. There is even an oscarwinning movie called the theory of everything. Brian go back to your childhood, where were you born . What were your parents doing at the time . Michio my grandparents came to this country about 100 years ago. They were from japan. My grandfather was part of the cleanup operation in San Francisco after the San Francisco earthquake. My family has a long history in california but in 1942, because they were japaneseamericans there are locked up at a relocation camp for four years behind machine gun and barbed wire. In 1946 they finally got out but they were penniless so they settled in palo alto which is now ground zero for silicon valley. Back then it was all apple orchards and alfalfa fields. Thats where i grew up in a farm like environment in what is now called silicon valley. Brian what did your parents do after they got out of the camp . Michio there was nothing for them to do but menial jobs. Their money was confiscated, they were broke. However, there was a certain cachet to being a japanese gardener. My father became a rather successful gardener. He wanted me to take over the business. I tried gardening for a while and then i said no way. I have to find another way to make a living. So when i was in high school i decided i have to do something. I went to my mom and said can i have permission to build and atom smasher in the garage . A 2. 3 million electron betatron particle accelerator. My mom stared at me and said sure, why not. And dont forget to take out the garbage. I took out the garbage and got 22 miles of copper wire and i built the atom smasher in my moms garage. I blew out every single Circuit Breaker in the house every time i turned it on. My poor mother must have said to herself, why couldnt i have a son who plays basketball, maybe if i buy him a baseball. And why cant he find a nice japanese girlfriend . Why does he have to build these machines in the garage . But that was a turning point because of the science fair projects i did in high school, i earned the attention of an atomic scientist. Edward teller. Edward teller pretty much took me under his wing. He arranged for me to get a scholarship to harvard. He knew exactly what i was doing. I didnt have to is going to him when antimatter was, what an accelerator was, what a betatron was. He knew immediately. He arranged for me for to get a scholarship so that started my life as a physicist. Brian how did you meet him . Michio he came to albuquerque, new mexico for the National Science fair. He was in the habit of recruiting young scientist. He went to the National Science fair. I was actually on television with him in 1963 in albuquerque at the National Science fair. When i graduated from harvard he interviewed me for a graduate fellowship but at that point he was very clear. He said i am looking for people who want to design hydrogen warheads. Your physics will be very valuable designing new and better hydrogen warheads. He offered me a scholarship. He said los alamos, livermore, m. I. T. , you name it, we can arrange for you to work there. But my interests began to veer off in the direction of when i was a child, wondering what was einsteins unfinished theory . I wanted to work on an explosion bigger than the Hydrogen Bomb. I wanted to work on the big bang, the creation of the universe itself. For me, a Hydrogen Bomb was a footnote. I wanted to work on the creation of the universe. Brian here is Edward Teller. This video goes back to 1974. [video clip] one of the seismic events that convinced me to work on this was the speech. The day after hitlers invaded the low lands, he said it is the duty of the scientists to contribute the weapons that are needed for the defense of freedom. Brian do you agree . Michio that is a point that he stressed to me directly. He said i recruiting for what the New York Times later calls the star wars scholarship. This scholarship propelled the brightest young minds in america from high school and college into los alamos to create the Star Wars Program. Now we know he had a checkered history, many of the early designs did not work for the Star Wars Program but that was the vision he had, he always had a very Clear Mission that science should be used in the interest of national security. Those times are different from today, we had a sputnik moment. In 1957, when sputnik went up, it was practically your patriotic duty to use science in the interest of america because the russians will one day orbit Hydrogen Bombs. The homeland will be endangered. That is why a whole generation of young kids became scientists and engineers and technicians. It was the socalled sputnik moment. Brian when you were growing up, when did you discover you have the brain to understand this stuff . Michio when i was a kid, i read about einstein and my favorite quote about einstein was a theory cant be explained to a child than theory is probably worthless. Meaning that every theory has a picture behind it that children can understand, newton talked about things moving in space, friction, the motion of bodies, einstein talked about clocks and meter sticks and rocketships things that children could understand. I said to myself well, it is a great idea but if they are all based on pictures and you understand those pictures then mathematics is bookkeeping. It is complicated bookkeeping, you have to learn how to do the bookkeeping of course but it is bookkeeping. It is the physical principle, the concept that makes everything move. When einstein was 16, when he was 16 he found that principle. When he was 16 years old he asked himself the question, can you outrace a light beam . We would say that is a stupid question. It took him 10 years to 16 to 26 and he finally found the answers and he changed world history. He found that you cannot outrace a light beam. That is a childrens question. I said i can understand these childrens questions. I just have to learn the mathematics. It is the principle that is involved. Today we know the speed of light is the ultimate velocity in the universe. Einstein figured that out starting at the age of 16. So all great theories have a physical principle behind it. Children can visualize. Brian as you went through that process, what were the milestones where you began to gather the knowledge and you have people that said 80 want to do this you have to go here, who else had an impact on you . Michio a lot of people tried to give me advice when i was in high school but i knew that most of the advice was wrong. I tell kids today that you have to have a role model. The wheel has been invented already. Why would you have to reinvent the wheel if you have to become a sports figure or a movie star, find somebody you admire, look at their life history, follow the path. I said to myself, i want to become a physicist. A theoretical physicist, i read about einsteins life so i knew what i had to do and at what age of my life. When do i have to get a phd . When do i have to become a professor . When do i have to work on big physical concepts . It was no mystery to me. So many young kids come up here and have bum advice from their high school advisor. They want them to a trade school or learn something that is better than pumping gas. I said to myself, tell the kids, find a role model. The wheel has been invented already. Brian was teller your role model . Michio no, it was einstein. Teller made a big pitch for me to design weapons and for me, at that point in my life i realized that the basic physics of hydrogen warheads is well known, wellestablished, as you know, china and developing nations that the Hydrogen Bomb on the got the Hydrogen Bomb practically on the first try. So, it was an engineering problem. Im a physicist. I wanted to look at the physical concept of new undiscovered things like why the big bang take place . What was the Energy Source of the big bang, why did it bang to begin with . These are questions of cosmic importance that are far beyond engineering of simply assembling a hydrogen warhead. Brian but why were you able to figure it out and most people are drowning in all this language when they would be back in high school . Michio i think we have a High School System that stresses memorization, drudgery and does not encourage the bright students to come up. For example, in asia they had the expression the nail that sticks out gets hammered down. Here is the oddball, if you are steve jobs or bill gates, you get hammered down. In america we had the expression the squeaky wheel gets the grease. Now, i was the squeaky wheel. I want to get the attention of my teachers in high school. That is why i built the atom smasher. Most of my teachers could not help me but i wanted to do it because i said to myself this is something that is doable. I just have to get the basic equipment. The basic physics i understood. It was not such a big deal for me to build an atom smasher. Brian what did you do with it . Michio i turned it on. The goal was to create antimatter. That was the whole thrust of the science fair project. I photographed antimatter. It comes naturally from a source called sodium 22. I put that in a Cloud Chamber and put it in a magnetic yield in the tract of antielectrons bent in the wrong direction. Electrons bent this way, antimatter bends the opposite way and a Magnetic Field. I took beautiful pictures, pictures that are Research Quality they tell me. I won a grand prize at the National Science fair. I will never regret doing a science experiment. That took me from a gardeners kid to getting a scholarship to harvard and then beginning to work on the unified field theory. That is how it started. Brian what did the rest of the kids think of you . Michio they thought i was nuts. Of course. The teachers that i had to work with i told them i had to cut transformer steel. I had to glue copper wire and they helped me but they did not know what i was doing. They just said here is this young kid that needs to cut 400 pounds of steel and line 22 miles of copper wire and i did it on the High School Football field. Brian how big was atom smasher . Michio it was about this big, it consumed six kilowatts of power. The Capacitor Bank was used huge because it had to store six kilowatts of power and the give us this tremendous crackling sound when i turned it on. The Magnetic Field was so powerful that in principle, it would pull the film out of your teeth the fillings out of your teeth if you got too close to it. You have to be careful, it was a hammer anything like that. In principle if i ran it on dc it would literally ran a hammer , from across the room and flinging toward you. That happened with mri machines today because they too have the