Hyperspace

By Michio Kaku

As one might deduce from its ominous title, Hyperspace is an explanation and exploration of contemporary theories around using “hyperspace” theories to unify the laws of physics (into a TOE, or “theory of everything”). Beginning with a primer of the development of physics since Newton, Kaku proceeds to explain how, since Einstein, a large number of physicists believe that conceiving of the universe as having a large number of dimensions may ultimately provide the framework for consolidating the laws of physics that heretofore have been developed into one theory.

To the book’s credit, Kaku certainly manages to keep the book–which, admittedly contains some admittedly dense topics–readily digestible for most college-educated individuals. To its detriment, however, I felt that many of the more interesting discoveries and results, too often, were not delved into deeply enough: there exists a preponderance of phrases such as “the math shows that…” or “one can show that…” rather than “here’s the math:…” Sure, not a lot of people enjoy seeing a bunch of differential equations exploring the behaviors of vibrating particle strings, but the ones that do are probably the same types of people that pick up a book called Hyperspace–I thought the book would have better served by more intensive showcases of the logic behind many of its conclusions.

The book contains a few distracting elements, such as what I found to be a relatively high amount of conjecturing for a theoretical physicist, often without many caveats; for example, consider the phrase “scientific growth will probably continue to rise exponentially over the next centuries” (my emphasis) without any cited justification–it simply become an article of faith. Additionally, I am not clear on what the political climate surrounding science funding was like in the early 1990’s, but rest assured that throughout Hyperspace Kaku never lets slip the opportunity to throw shade on all the items Congress decides to spend money on that are not named “Hadron colliders.”

Overall, if you have ever felt confused by the fact that “string theory” has seemingly little to do with textiles or cheese, I am sure you could do a lot worse than with Hyperspace.

 

Favorite Passages:

    1. We live out our own lives in our own “pond,” confident that our universe consists of only those things we can see or touch. Like the carp, our universe consists of only the familiar and the visible. We smugly refuse to admit that parallel universes or dimensions can exist next to ours, just beyond our grasp. If our scientists invent concepts like forces, it is only because they cannot visualize the invisible vibrations of the empty space around us.
    2. Light from the stars, in fact, can effortlessly travel trillions upon trillions of miles through the vacuum of outer space. Experiments also show beyond question that light is a wave. But if light were a wave, then it would require something to be “waving.” Sound waves require air, water waves require water, but since there is nothing to wave in a vacuum, we have a paradox. How can light be a wave if there is nothing to wave?
    3. Hermann von Helmholtz compared the inability to “see” the fourth [spatial] dimension with the inability of a blind man to conceive of the concept of color. No matter how eloquently we describe “red” to a blind person, words fail to impart the meaning of anything as rich in meaning as color.
    4. The key step in unifying the laws of nature is to increase the number of dimensions of space-time until more and more forces can be accommodated. In higher dimensions, we have enough “room” to unify all known physical forces.
    5. If classical physics is correct, then the electron would never leave the box. However, according to quantum theory, the electron’s probability wave will spread through the box and seep into the outside world. The seepage through the wall can be calculated precisely with the Schrodinger wave equation; that is, there is a small probability that the electron’s position is somewhere outside the box…This also means that there is a finite, calculable probability that “impossible” events will occur.
    6. When depicting God or Adam and Eve, do you give them belly buttons?
    7. Philosophers call this the transition from “quantity” to “quality.” Small quantitative changes eventually build up until there is a qualitative rupture with the past.
    8. Godel showed that there will always be theorems in arithmetic whose correctness or incorrectness can never be demonstrated from the axioms of arithmetic; that is, arithmetic will always be incomplete… “This sentence cannot be proved true.”
    9. Assuming, for the moment, that one could somehow go through the center of the wormhole and return to earth, the distortion of time would still be so great that millions or even billions of years may have passed on the earth.
    10. If we can produce objects with “negative energies,” (that is, something that has an energy content less than the vacuum), then we might be able to generate exotic configurations of space and time in which time is bent into a circle.
    11. As physicist Frank Wilczek noted, “It is said that the history of the world would be entirely different if Helen of Troy had had a wart at the tip of her nose.”
    12. Physicists do not say categorically that angels and miracles cannot exist. Perhaps they do. But miracles, almost by definition, are not repeatable and therefore not measureable by experiment. Therefore, by Occam’s razor, we must dismiss them.
    13. Technology expands exponentially…In fact, the amount of knowledge that our scientists gain doubles approximately every 10 to 20 years…When extrapolating over a few decades, we find that qualitative breakthroughs in new areas become the dominant factor, where new industries open up in unexpected places.
    14. A Type I civilization is one that controls the energy resources of an entire planet…A Type II civilization is one that controls the power of the sun itself. This does not mean passively harnessing solar energy; this civilization mines the sun…A Type III civilization is one that controls the power of an entire galaxy.
    15. The puzzle facing us, however, is that we do not see signs of any advanced civilization in the heavens, at least not in our solar system or even in our small sector of the galaxy…Dyson has stressed that any advanced civilization, by the Second Law of Thermodynamics, must necessarily generate large quantities of waste heat…But no matter where we scan the heavens, we see no traces of waste heat or radio communication from Type I, II, or III civilizations…Likewise, any Type II or III civilization should be broadcasting copious quantities of electromagnetic radiation continuously for the past several thousand years, so that any intelligent life within several thousand light-years of the civilization’s planet should be able to detect its presence…The puzzle deepens when we realize that the probability of intelligent life emerging within our galaxy is surprisingly large…The fact that our galaxy is perhaps 10 billion years old means that there has been ample time for scores of intelligent life forms to have flourished within it. Type II and III civilizations, broadcasting for several hundred to several thousand years, should be sending out an easily detectable sphere of electromagnetic radiation measuring several hundred to several thousand light-years in diameter. Yet we see no signs of intelligent life forms in the heavens.
    16. It is reasonable to assume that thousands of advanced civilizations existed before our distant ancestors even left the forest and have since perished, or that thousands more civilizations will develop long after ours has died…In the “Star Trek” series, however, the Federation of Planets encounters other hostile civilizations, the Klingons and Romulans, which are precisely at the same stage of technological development as the Federation. This may increase the drama and tension of the series, but the odds of this happening are truly astronomical.
    17. As Heinz Pagels has said, “The challenge to our civilization which has come from our knowledge of the cosmic energies that fuel the stars, the movement of light and electrons through matter, the intricate molecular order which is the biological basis of life, must be met by the creation of a moral and political order which will accommodate these forces or we shall be destroyed.”
    18. The [human] exploration process depends totally on the skills of humans aboard a small number of star-ships. Although this scenario may make for intriguing human-interest dramas, it is a highly inefficient method of stellar exploration, given the large number of planetary systems that are probably unsuitable for life.

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Verdict: 3 of 5 Eugenes