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 .