I watched the first two episodes of Michio Kaku’s Sci-Fi Science show last night (for a review, see here). The format of the show is that Kaku uses supposedly real physics to design on his laptop a revolutionary new device, then unveils it at the end of the show to a group of sci-fi fans for what I guess is supposed to be a form of peer review. The adoring fans are suitably impressed. In the first episode the device was a warp drive, in the second a portal to other universes, based on a big accelerator and “negative matter”. In both cases “negative energy” played a big part.
Neither episode involved a non-negligible amount of legitimate science, instead treating the physics in a completely misleading way. The second episode included participation by Max Tegmark, Alan Guth and Neil Turok. I wonder if they’ve seen the final product and what they think of it.
Well, someone I work with (Thomas Roman) does research on negative energy (together with L. Ford at Tufts). They have publications going back more than a decade giving clear, small, bounds on negative energy density (see for example http://prola.aps.org/abstract/PRD/v55/i4/p2082_1). Tom frequently gives talks explaining that you won’t ever get a stable wormhole, or a warp drive, for exactly this reason. You would think Kaku might have bothered to look for papers about this, I mean Phys. Rev. D isn’t exactly obscure.
I wonder why Turok bothers getting involved in this kind of stupid stuff, especially when Kaku is the orchestrator. Is he not busy enough helping out African students?! :-\ *sigh*
Kaku is over the top, but on the positive side, lots of kids may be turned on to science by shows like this. Soon enough they will learn that real science is not like comic books.
I’m OK with this because it has “Sci-Fi” in the title. As long as they are clear that it’s just having fun with Science Fiction (yes, I know that’s questionable), I’m not going to get bent out of shape. If they had titled it “Si-Fi Pseudo-Science”, I would have sent them a fruit basket.
So have fun kids, but be sure to pay special attention to that thing called the scientific method in school. If you think this science stuff is fun, you’ll need that method to stay on the narrow path of real science. Those who have strayed off the path and are wandering in the weeds of M-Branes (and you know who you are), go back and review.
neo – kids destined for science, math, or engineering do not get turned on by BS, today or yesterday or tomorrow. Rather the opposite – they get turned onto it by looking through telescopes, playing with machines, taking things apart, and so on. The brain must be involved from the first minute. It’s not a sensual thing.
-drl
Suggested edit to avoid a double negative:
“Neither episode involved a non-negligible amount of legitimate science,…”
“Neither episode involved more than a of legitimate science,”
spattering
iota
quantum
smoot
smidgin
I like smidgin, it being the most quantative, although iota does have the fewest letters.
“Neither episode involved a non-negligible amount of legitimate science,…”
My mind will explode…
Oh, I dunno — it was not unmeaningless.
[Cribbed from Thurber]
i thought it was just me, its actually a triple negative.
how about
“Both episodes involved a negligible amount of legitimate science, …”
Everyone’s a critic. Come on, y’all knew what I meant….
“I wonder if they’ve seen the final product and what they think of it.”
No publicity is bad publicity.
Yeah, Kaku is a bit of a media whore and an embarrassment. But I’m sure that he long ago realized that there’s no market in commercial TV for shows about legitimate science. He’s simply adapted to that sad reality.
When I was a child, there was a physics guy on TV who I found absolutely mesmerizing. But he wouldn’t last two minutes in any of today’s TV markets.
To show you how things have changed, I’m 65 and, when I was in high school, I lived in the Dayton, Ohio area. During my sophomore year in high school, the local public television station showed a college course on introductory quantum mechanics at 6 in the morning. I used to get up to watch it and try to follow along. It was over my head, but I still managed to learn a lot. I don’t see anything like that on PBS these days. Even the science shows, like Nova, have been dummied down from what they used to be.
Isn’t Kaku’s non-science usually derivable from some interpretation of string theory?
David,
I don’t remember much about string theory in these TV programs, perhaps string theory is too much like real physics to be useful in making warp drives and portals to other universes.
Branes do play a role though, as part of the whole other universes business.
So honestly, you guys here who practice real science.
What specific parts can you point to that’s completely falsified?
DZS,
Kaku’s portal to another universe is based upon constructing a scaled up version of the LHC using the solar system asteroid belt. When the beams collide, they supposedly tear a hole in the fabric of space-time and open up a wormhole to another universe. This is complete nonsense, there’s no reason to believe that such a machine would do this. He then goes on to say that he will stabilize the throat of this wormhole by putting in “negative matter”. There is no such thing as “negative matter”.
Etc….
What about Jeff McGowan’s comment?
He seems to state that negative matter is real, but doesn’t possess such properties?
Conflicting views?
I think someone should gather up all of Kaku’s major mistakes and when the season is over, recap every episode and it’s flaws.
Then make an article about it, presenting this evidence for the layman / future scientists…
Jeff’s comment was about negative energy, not negative matter. Nowhere does he state that negative matter is real.
If someone were to do what you suggest, I suppose it would be a public service. It would also be a huge waste of time, since I see no reason to believe it would have any effect on Kaku or the Science Channel’s willingness to keep promoting this nonsense.
Yes, Peter is right, nowhere did I mention, or mean to mention, negative matter. Humble mathematician that I am I would never posit such a ridiculous idea. Now perhaps imaginary matter might be a fruitful idea 🙂
Sorry I misread his comment.
Well then I guess it means Kaku is wrong about negative energy on top of the existence of negative matter all together.
I understood such a task would be tiring and obviously it wouldnt stop the channel exploiting pseudoscience for money, no.
However it would most likely be picked up by most science related sites.
If he is truly as wrong as you guys state, it WILL be picked up by science sites ofcourse.
Kaku is one of the most known scientists of the 21th century, he lying that much would no doubt stirr up controversy.
It’s not a fruitless effort or else, why would you bother to write your book and keep this blog?
It has been my impression that many people, especially young, but also older, develop something that they *think* is an interest in science, but is really a type of ‘Cosmic Exhilaration Syndrome’. I think Kaku might be someone in academia who has a special appeal with this fan base.
It becomes important to make a distinction between science and scientists, which are often boring but good, and ‘cosmic exhilaration infotainment and entertainers’.
String theory seems like an area of study where it is hard to tell the difference. The idea of 11 dimensions and many universes is exhilarating and entertaining for many, and there is no evidence for it. However there are publications, citations and professorships and scientific awards and fellowships giving these ideas credibility. But the people who read this blog have heard enough about all that.
The existence or not of traversable wormholes is a topic of research addressed by some people, mainly in the general relativity community. Some major nowadays names are, for example, M. Visser or Francisco S.N. Lobo.
As buz says the idea is not new at all and goes back to Einstein himself. Famous people, as Feynman, consider it curious enough to talk about it in his book on general relativity.
The recent line of interest goes back to a paper of 1988 by M.S. Morris and K.S. Thorne (tow of the authors of one of the most famous textbook on general relativity). The research on the topic follows the scientific method. That is, is based on solutions of a well established theory, general relativity, and discussing it’s properties in order to search experimental evidence of their possible existence.
Obviously wormholes are independent of string theory. Still some ideas suggested by string theory (and in general, studies in cosmology, specially dark energy) play a role suggesting candidates for the key missing ingredient that mentions Jeff McGowan. From this computer I have not access to the paper he links, but I have read many papers that offer possible reliable candidates for that kind of mater violating NEC conditions.
At most you could call it search for exotic physics, but certainly wormholes are only a little bit stranger than black holes. Independently of everyone’s preferences I seriously doubt that any serious theoretical physicist could say for sure that they don’t actually exist.
Javier,
The question is not whether there are wormhole solutions in GR.
Do you think any serious scientists believe wormholes can be created by colliding particles at 10^7 TeV, then using “negative matter” particles to stabilize them?
Well, if we haven’t technology to send people to mart with guaranties we definitively can’t send people to kuipier belt to build an particle collider.
But that is a engineering problem, not a first principles one. If that would be the only problem it wouldn’t bee too different, in essence, to the theoretical works in, for example, Bose-Einstein condensates or nanotechnology many years before it could be available in practise. Well, possibly the main difference is economical. It is far more expensive (not to say difficult) to build such accelerators. Governments would need a very good reason to do so.
Actually I think that someone would find, sooner or later, better ways to make such high energy colliders that simply increasing it’s radius. Suppose for a moment that such a technical development is achieved and the 10 ^7 TeV could be available for an earth based device. Wouldn’t your viewpoint about the idea change if so?
The most serious problem of that idea are to see whether the physic is totally solid. The most common idea is that wormholes are continuously created and destroyed in the “quantum foam”. Supposedly high energy collisions could increase that planck scale w-h to macroscopic sizes. Obviously the problem is that “quantum foam” is a byproduct of a quantum theory of gravity and I am not sure if there are any detailed calculations in some of that theories (string theory or whatever) deriving a cross section for the creation of a measurable wormhole. I know that two or three years ago some people presented papers claiming to do that for energies available at the LHC . I read one of the papers and they used some exotic type of branes supposedly derived from string theory. They didn’t give details on the nature of that branes and referred to another papers. I didn’t follow that other papers but I read a lot of critics about them in a thread in physic forums. Maybe there are other papers on the subject, but I am not aware of them.
And, of course, still the key ingredient to stabilize the w-h, exotic matter, isn’t available. without it we could search for signatrues of w-h in colliders, but not stabilize them, and they wouldn’t be useful for “practical” engineering purposes.
Resuming, nowadays it could be considered a serious (although exotic) topic for science, but going to the practical side is only Si-Fi, precisely what the title of the program says ;-).
B.T.W I didn’t see the show and don’t know what they mention. As far as I know in principle it could be possible that a wormhole would connect parts of the universe arbitrarily far away. That includes the possibility of connecting regions out of causal contact. In particular they could connect different universes of the multiverses appearing in eternal inflation sceneries. And one could, in principle, use the wormhole to study that other universes so they would be experimentally measurable science them.
In the economic side wormholes would be potentially useful. If one mouth of the w-h would be connected to a point of great energy (near the surface of the sun for example) they could be used as a source of energy. And, of course, they could be used as a weapon.
So, one would go back to the arguments about the lack of danger of creation of black holes. If w-h could be created in colliders they could be created by collisions with cosmic rays and there is not evidence of them, so maybe , after all, there are good reasons to not be too enthusiastic with the proposal of Kaku and his solar system sized LHC.
S you can guess from this long topic I consider fun the idea of the wormholes, but only as an exotic line of research complementary of more well established topics of interest.
Myself I don’t like the way they convey ideas to the public which are plain wrong such as time travel or stabilizing wormholes with negative matter etc, think the aim is to entertain people at best, however I hope people realise this is all fantasy. I’m not sure why he talks about all this when real Physics dealing with the real world is far more interesting however that’s me.
There’s also a good post on this at:
http://badphysics.wordpress.com/2009/11/15/how-to-time-travel-4/
Cheers, Paul.
Who watches TV anyway. Any curious kid nowadays will find lots of good material online, for example Leonard Susskind’s brilliant lectures on general relativity and quantum mechanics.
alcubierre drive, i assume?
Let me try to clarify a bit the “negative energy” versus “negative matter” issue:
“Negative matter” is mostly used to describe something with opposite properties to “normal matter”, e.g. the graviational force between normal matter is always attractive, so the gravitational force between normal matter and negative matter would be repulsive. Up to now there is no reason to believe that negative matter in this sense, i.e. with this property, exists.
Well, since Einstein told us that matter is just a manifestation of energy, wouldn’t that mean that “negative energy” does not exist, either?
The point is, that “negative energy” means something different: Let’s say we look at Minkowski spacetime with quantum fields on it in the vacuum state. “Vacuum state” means that the expectation value of energy is zero.
But you can create spacetime regions where the expectation value is even lower! One example is the Casimir effect:
If you calculate the energy-stress-tensor you will get negative values! This phenomenon has been verified experimentally, therefore it is an accepted topic to talk about in the physics community.
If you want to, you can visualize the vacuum state as emptyness with quantum fluctuations, with virtual particles constantly created and destroyed. In a region with negative energy this happy dance is supressed. (IMHO this is hardly more than a metaphor).
HTH
Tim is correct in saying that relativistic quantum field theories predict states with negative renormalized energy densities, and that the simplest treatment of the Casimir effect (between two idealized perfect plane conductors) is an example of such a state. However:
(a) For realistic models of conductors, it is less clear that one gets a negative renormalized energy density between them;
(b) Experiments have verified the Casimir force, but not the Casimir energy density; a Cavendish-type experiment to measure the energy density would probably require plates around a light-year on a side;
(c ) While it is often assumed (especially by people who would like to create exotic general-relativistic effects) that one can use something like the expectation value of the renormalized stress-energy operator as a source for Einstein’s equations (this is called the semiclassical approximation), we don’t really know that this is correct. (In fact, it’s fairly clear that it can’t be right in a number of situations.)
It’s worth pointing out that the renormalized stress-energy operator is in fact a rather singular object many of whose properties are unintuitive and ill-understood. While it’s fun to think of science-fictiony implications, it would be prudent to be bear in mind our limited understanding of this.
Agreed, thanks for the clarification.
I hope this discussion explains to the general public why physicists call “negative matter” science fiction and “negative energy” a research topic.
(I should mention that I did not watch the show with Kaku and don’t intend to, I just assumed that he used the concept of “negative matter” in the same sense as I did in my previous post).
Thanks Paul for linking me over here. I agree that this is another example, again from Kaku, of popularizes doing a disservice to science. Science fiction can sometimes serve as great inspiration for people to enter into the world of physics, but if that is where their knowledge base comes from, then they are deluding themselves. There is so much beauty in general relativity understood well; if people spent the time to express the wonder in actual solutions to the Einstein equations, then they wouldn’t need to pad these specials with meaningless, misleading, fluff.
i’m just a simple person with nowhere near the education or brain power as most of you on here. i actually despise mathmatics. i am hower a realist and one how and learn from the past. i believer most of the comments made above about how crazy this guy is and how his science is flawed are the exact same attacks that newton and einstien faced. the earth is round. yeah right what a crazy idea that is. lets kick him out of the church and put him to death. the earth revolves around the sun. that guy was considered a crazy outcast as well. shoot even tesla was considered crazy for his experiments. however look at what was acomplised by these people for believing in their crazy stuff. 99% of what we have today was considered crazy and usuless at one point in time. Radio waves, crazy. the horseless cariage, crazy. telephone, crazy. electricity, crazy.
So although i may not understand, or sometimes even agree, i don’t think he deserves to be call outlandish or crazy, because most all of the “science” shows him to be wrong. countless others were considered wrong too and look where that got us.
Please don’t correct my grammer, spelling or typing. i did not proof this no do i care to.
I have a son who became a computer scientist by building controls for his electric train & moved on to a Radio Shack assembly language setup; another son went in to physics because he wanted to “discover the rules of the universe” and first started out at 3 by noticing the colors of a sunset & asked, “Who painted that?” I work with a bright scientist who began by picking up trashed electronic parts & tried to get them to work; I know a biophysicist who began by noticing moths on trees (and who spent his honeymoon in the Amazon forest). I don’t think too many people are led to science through science fiction or phony science.
It’s my understanding that serious doubts have recently been cast on the claims of Casimir force detection. It was realized by the people who made the claims (Lamoreaux, Capasso) that there were electrostatic effects that had not been taken into account.
DaveC,
I am not an expert on the current experimental status, and so I cannot speak directly to the point you raise — but, equally, that means I should have written a bit more cautiously, and not claimed that the force had been “verified,” but rather that there was some experimental evidence for it.
I believe the situation is further complicated by uncertainties about the modeling of real systems which are essential for interpreting the experimental results — and I’m not an expert on those details, either. (And perhaps the electrostatic effects you have in mind are part of that modeling….)
Simple Mind,
Of course, it’s wrong to dismiss ideas out-of-hand as “crazy,” and it’s true that some excellent ideas have been dismissed that way by people who should have known better.
But the take-home lesson from that is to think things through carefully. Usually if someone can give a good reason for an idea being crazy, it really is crazy. It’s when someone short-circuits the thinking process that the mistakes are made. (The lesson is not, as you seem to suggest, that all ideas are equally good or equally likely.)
Scientists are human beings, and sometimes they do go off half-cocked. But science at its best considers ideas carefully and gives carefully conisdered reasons for whether thet’re good or bad, likely or unlikely. The results are all around you.
“But the take-home lesson from that is to think things through carefully. Usually if someone can give a good reason for an idea being crazy, it really is crazy. It’s when someone short-circuits the thinking process that the mistakes are made. (The lesson is not, as you seem to suggest, that all ideas are equally good or equally likely.)”
This is a crucial point. It *may* be true that a lot of what survives in science may have seemed crazy when it was first proposed—I’m not at all sure that that’s been true in general—but even if it had been, that in no way implies that crazy ideas that violate well-tested physical principles are likely to be correct, any more than someone surviving a gunshot wound implies that getting shot is likely to improve your chances of living to a ripe old age.
And so far as the actual examples SimpleMind gives are concerned, I’m a little confused about what s/he could be thinking of. Exactly who thought Einstein’s ideas were crazy? His early work was controversial when it first appeared, but was recognized as foundational quite soon by the established leading physicists of the time, and was taken to be a non-negotiable starting point for the extension of quantum mechanics to high-energy physics. As for the general theory of relativity, it was recast within a decade of its publication in textbook form by one of the leading astrophysicists of the day, Sir Arthur Eddington. Again, there was plenty of controversy, but if any of the major physicists of the era regarded the theory as crazy, I’d be VERY interested in getting citation of the source. And similarly with Newton: he became in short order one of the most eminent figures in the Royal Society and very early on in his career had developed a formidable reputation—in fact, he was regarded as something of a national treasure and in his own lifetime members of the RS went so far as to accuse Leibnitz of having plagiarized Newton’s creation of differential and integral calculus. Who with any distinction referred to Newton as crazy? Hooke thought he was wrong about the nature of light, but that’s a very different thing.
There’s absolutely no basis for comparing Kaku’s flim-flam on the Science Channel with the foundational work of either Newton or Einstein. I’ve no idea where this strange legend came from that either of the latter were considered to be wrong, crazy or anything similar by the great majority of people who were experts in the field.
The majority of stuff that sounds like nonsense is almost always going to turn out to be just that.
Simple Mind
Don’t worry, I’m not into correcting others grammar. I live in that glass house and don’t want to supply anyone with rocks. We only tease Peter about his writing because he’s made so much more money at it than the rest of us.
I don’t believe you are that simple, as you went right to the heart of the issue. I’m not sure if anyone ever called Newton crazy. I doubt it as he was a rather dour sort and rarely got close enough to any other human for them to call him names. They certainly called Einstein crazy until they read his papers. I’ve heard of hardened scientists actually crying from seeing the sheer beauty of his equations for the first time. Of course, Dr. Kaku is no Newton or Einstein, but he is a trained scientist and knows a lot of his “info-tainment” is based on pseudo science. He presents these Si-Fi shows almost tongue-in-cheek, to make a profit. That’s fine; I’m no communist . But when a trained scientist presents science fiction to the lay public for entertainment, he is walking a very thin line. Please allow me to explain why I believe this is so.
Often times a scientist will request funding for a project on not much more than his own reputation. If his reputation is damaged, either by himself or by someone else, his ability to perform real science is hampered, if not completely shut down. When a trained scientist promotes pseudo science, he not only damages his own reputation but that of everyone else in his field. You don’t really have to worry about good ideas being quashed. Oh, we may fuss and squall like a bunch of children, but in the end, the best ideas always make it to the top, even if they come from a patent clerk fired from his university post.
Please understand, this is not about name calling. It is about professional ethics. If a doctor performs unnecessary surgeries, it not only hurts his reputation, but also the reputation of all doctors. If a lawyer encourages his client to lie on the witness stand, it harms the reputation of all lawyers. Each profession is guided by a central principal. In medicine it is to, “Do no harm”. In science it is to use the scientific method to discover and present scientific facts. When we allow the Doctor to operate, we must trust him to do the right thing. We have to trust him because we can’t understand what he is doing or why. When the scientist makes a claim, it is expected that he at least believes it to be true. If he is deliberately lying, he destroys that trust between the lay public and his profession. It boils down to a professional responsibility.
As I have said elsewhere, it’s ok for a scientist to have fun with science fiction. Carl Sagan did a great job with his Si-Fi book “Contact”. But Dr. Sagan knew right where that line of professional responsibility was. He used science to discover and tell the truth, and he never crossed the line. He walked right up to it on his fantastic series “Cosmos”, but he never crossed it. If Dr. Sagan told me there were “billions and billions” of stars just like ours, I’d believe him without question. If Dr. Kaku told me the same thing, I wouldn’t know if it was true, or just entertainment. Dr. Kaku is no Carl Sagan.
As I’ve said before, I’m not going to get too bent out of shape since Dr. Kaku had “Si-Fi” in the show title. But most scientists probably believe that Dr. Kaku has stepped over the line of professional responsibility. Please understand, this is not elitism, it is a simply a matter of professional ethics. In science, there is a responsibility to tell the truth, even if it doesn’t support your theory. That’s often painful and the temptation is always there to falsify data to get the funding that should rightly go to a more deserving project. Once scientists begin stepping over that line, scientific progress will grind to a halt and the progress we have achieved, like ending small pox and exploring the surface of Mars, will grind to a halt with it. If you know someone who bears that burden of professional responsibility, like a doctor or lawyer or engineer or even a professional scientist, talk to them sometime about their burden. Every single one will have had a crisis of ethics where they could have made more money or had an easier time of it if they had just compromised their principles.
Well, that’s just my own humble opinion. If you disagree with it, that’s your right. But the next time you go to the doctor to get a critical procedure done, let’s just hope it’s not another Doctor Kaku planning to inject you with negative matter just to see what happens. OK, that was extreme. I apologize.
Well, according to Heisenberg, Schroedinger kept on saying that Einstein’s photons were absurd, and that he would quit being a physicist if photons were true, until as late as 1925 or so.
Right now we have a generation of college-age people who typically believe that WATER is a fuel and that the oil cartels killed Stan Meyers, and killed the Genepax car (ran on pure water and had water as exhaust). There is a wide-spread belief that the concepts of thermodynamics and conservation of energy are “old school” if not an outright conspiracy by big oil to hide the existence of all types of over-unity power machines. Dr. Kaku is no doubt a hero of this audience…
The show is doing it’s job. It’s meant to be informitive, and drum up interest in the subject, and it’s doing both. Are his argument’s iron clad? Not by a long shot, but considering the word “Sci-Fi” is in the title and mearly the subject of theoretical physics is in itself, well, theoretical, I can give him a slight pass. You can extend that pass even further when you remember there is a time limit, and editing that he doesn’t have control of.
Do I wish there was more science to the show itself? Yes, I do but I understand that he would much rather have the show air then it end up on the cutting room floor.
So it might seem a bit blasphemous but I know of 3 people who expressed interest after watching, and 1 of them went out the next day and bought a few books. So if Kaku needs to be the Elvis of Physics, then so be it if it means even one more person takes true intrest.
maybe crazy wasn’t the propper phrase to describe the folks i mentioned , well at least a few of them. however my point is, it sometims it takes and outlandish person to come up with some outlandish ideas, that later turn into something real and believed in. sure his ideas of a light saber my seem far fetched, and they are. but his thearetical science may later lead to the discovery of something far more profound that might be the “next big thing”. i agree with what someone above me just said. I paraphrase: “sure his science may not be the most accurate, but i might inspire people”. if a show like this, that deals with the theoretical science of Sci-Fi of the popular culture, can inspire just a few people to take science, physics, mechanics, and any number of other types of avenues seriously, one of them may come up with the “next big crazy idea”. The next major life saver, the next major wepon that can keep our troops safer or that wild secret to the cosmos. I think it’s a great show, he has a excellent personality and he has a way of makeing the impossible not seem so difficult. It’s entertaining. If someone can take a subject such as theoretical physics and make it entertaining, i’d call him a genious. that subject will generally put people to sleep. I will continue to keep watching the show, because it’s entertaining. hower, i do keep in mind that he’s dealing with sci-fi, not sci-reality.
I enjoy reading the comment on this page, and enjoy reading the ones that make me realize how much i don’t know. I appreciat a forum where no one is attacking each other and calling names. i’m glad i found this place.
I thinks shows that put the emphasis on proper science and the truth inspire people much more to become scientists that what Kaku is doing. How many people became scientists because of Sagan or Attenborough? Their programs were, and are, proper science and try to display a sense of exitment for grasping the truth, not far fetched fiction.
just my 2 cents…
Jacob Bronowski’s “The Ascent of Man” was a remarkable televised science series that celebrated science, art, literature and culture in an intelligent way. A good example of how it can be done right.
To Peter, about his reply to DZS on Dec 2:
This may be where physicists get it wrong w.r.t. PR, IMHO. I would like to compare that with a more salient side of science to normal people, i.e. climate modelling, and of course climate change.
As I’m sure you’re aware, there are huge issues going on in the public representation of Earth science given the massive political impacts. As a result, this particular scientific community has reacted by engaging massively with the public and expending a significant amount of time in public forums relentlessly exposing the quacks, denalists and other lobbyists who tend to repeat the same lies and create a travesty of the scientific method. They may (and do) feel sometimes that’s it is hopeless, but I believe it has had a very positive impact.
Now, in one way what you are doing through this blog is similar in the field of particle physics and string theory, although, fortunately (?) for you, it seems there are no powerful lobbies on either side of the debate, just overdimensioned egos, quantum-level bank accounts, and faltering careers…
But my point is, in an information-driven society, I think it is not enough to show the truth (in the scientific meaning of the term) and debate in specialised forums. One also has to expose lies and combat them through generic public debate. But I guess this isn’t a thing theoretical physicists are interested in, as that appears a thankless and idiotic task (which I can wholehartedly understand).
Are we on the edge of a “New Middle Age” as a French writer recently wrote? I don’t know, but I do think scientists of the 21st century should be prepared to fight their corner for rational thinking (if not rationalism) against New Age & populist claptrap, a bit like scientists of the 16th to 18th century sometimes had to fight it against religious and political censorship.
Keep this in perspective, though: The price to pay for upholding reason now is addressing idiotic comments in the blogosphere rather than being burned at the stake. That’s gotta be an improvement 🙂
A.
“…Jacob Bronowski’s “The Ascent of Man” was a remarkable televised science series…”
Which of course influenced Sagan tremendously when doing his Cosmos series; Sagan was a big Bronowski fan.
For the most part, Kaku is shamelessly promoting pseduo-science; another thing altogether.
Could all of you really claim your vocation hasn’t been a little bit influenced by sci fi? Does the true science, which have been developped all along the 19 and 20 th century, not benefit from the pop culture of sci fi. I am sure it has a great part in your own motivations. Of course every one here ask by himself questions about nature, the sci fi yields the idea that science is enough powerful to change the world. I don’t know a lot of kids who decided by themselves to become the creator of a new method in analysis. Why so much space scientist in united states and russia? (and more why so much space scientist?) Why every one loves astrophysics and nuclear reactions, and just few people love condensed matter or atomistic? Because of an insane imagination. I was in a GR course looking the potential for the schwarzschild solution, and I suddenly wondered why last year I wasn’t so much in love with potential of di-Hydrogen. The curves are the same in essence (I mean they are potential that’s all). Now I explained myself why, I still prefer the schwarzschild one, that is not a crime.
Methods are austere, motivations are passions. ( applause, cry, so beautiful).
Sorry for english, I used to love it before I realized I was a piece o…
I have too add to the text just above that carl sagan is just frozen, I definitely don’t like him and his talk about universe and universal and so and so.