Dr. Michio Kaku discusses "the physics of Star Trek"

http://www.popsci.com/entertainment-amp-gaming/article/2009-05/warp-speed-possiblewe-ask-string-theorist

Here's a brief excerpt:

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PopSci: Let's talk about some concepts that are familiar in the show and that you talk about in your book, like teleportation. There is a scene in the movie where Kirk and Sulu are falling without a parachute, and they have to be beamed up; Chekov decides he has to do it manually. Unlike "The Next Generation," which had "Heisenberg compensators," the movie doesn't mention the Heisenberg uncertainty principle (the more precisely you locate the position of a particle, the less you can know about its momentum.) I know there has been success in teleporting atoms, but will we ever be able to teleport a human?

Michio Kaku: Well, quantum teleportation already exists. For the past 10 years, we've been teleporting photons as well as atoms of cesium and rubidium and terbium. The world record is 1,800 feet, across the Danube River. I suspect very soon that we will be teleporting molecules. I wouldn't be surprised if, in the coming decades, we are able to teleport DNA, or maybe even a virus. But beyond that, it starts to get very difficult. You have to entangle two atoms, they have to vibrate in unison, and that is very difficult beyond the molecular level. But, Star Trek takes place in the 23rd century, so maybe by then we can teleport 100 trillion cells, which is about the number of cells in a human body.

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To read the rest of the interview with Dr. Kaku, click here: http://www.popsci.com/entertainment-amp-gaming/article/2009-05/warp-speed-possiblewe-ask-string-theorist


For those who don't know who Michio Kaku is, he is a super awesome dude who built an atom-smasher in his garage when he was 14 years old (no lie). It was his science fair project. He also faught in Nam!

I highly recommend his books: Visions, Hyperspace and Parallel Worlds. He has lots of other books that I haven't read, so I can't comment on them, but the three above-mentioned are super easy to read and very well-written. Go to mkaku.org and learn all about Dr. Kaku!!!

As mentioned previously, he is super awesome.

Atom Smashers, Black Holes, and the "God Particle"

Scientists have been smashing particles into each other at high speeds for several decades. They basically use tubes that have electromagnets in them to magnetically guide the particles into each other. (Michio kaku built one at age 16, the crazy bastard...). The fruits of their labor (up until now) has been an understanding of how quarks and other sub-atomic particles behave at high energies.

But recently, a NEW and improved GIGANTIC nine billion dollar particle accelerator (or ATOM SMASHER, as nerds like to call them) has been built in Geneva Switzerland. They've been working on this thing for 20 years, but they've FINALLY finished building it. It's called the "Large Hadron Collider" and it's a 17-mile long tunnel under Switzerland.

The new hope is to find a particle referred to as "The God Particle", which is believed to be the particle that is responsible for creating all of existence as we know it. I believe Higgs fields create mass out of massless particles, and therefore create matter (in theory).


Sounds pretty awesome right?


The only problem is, some scientists are worried that a Black Hole will be created in the particle accelerator and our ENTIRE EARTH WILL BE DEVOURED.
According to Reuters:

"CERN scientists have been at pains to deny suggestions by some critics that the experiment could create tiny black holes of intense gravity that could suck in the whole planet."

At the end of this year, they will:

"...move on to produce tiny collisions that will recreate the heat and energy of the Big Bang... The detectors will monitor the billions of particles that will emerge from the collisions... "

So are scientists going to create a BLACK HOLE that will devour our planet? Michio Kaku doesn't think so, and I trust his judgment. Oh well... it would have been cool. Reknowned physicist Stephen Hawking bets we won't find the God Particle either. He's betting a whopping $100. That just screams 'confidence'.


http://www.reuters.com/article/scienceNews/idUSL846768920080909?