Michio Kaku: 'Reaching out to aliens is a terrible idea'

from
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/apr/03/string-theory-michio-kaku-aliens-god-equation-large-hadron-collider

Interview
String theorist Michio Kaku: 'Reaching out to aliens is a terrible idea'
Andrew Anthony
Michio Kaku in 2018.
Michio Kaku: ‘The universe in some sense is like a chess game and for 
2,000 years we’ve been trying to figure out how the pawns move.’ 
Photograph: Vladimir Smirnov/Tass via Getty Images
The physicist on Newton finding inspiration amid the great plague, how 
the multiverse can unite religions, and why a ‘theory of everything’ is 
within our grasp

Andrew Anthony
Sat 3 Apr 2021 12.00 EDT

Michio Kaku is a professor of theoretical physics at City College, New 
York, a proponent of string theory but also a well-known populariser of 
science, with multiple TV appearances and several bestselling books 
behind him. His latest book, The God Equation, is a clear and accessible 
examination of the quest to combine Einstein’s general relativity with 
quantum theory to create an all-encompassing “theory of everything” 
about the nature of the universe.

How close do you believe science is to accomplishing a theory of everything?
Well, I think we actually have the theory but not in its final form. It 
hasn’t been tested yet and Nobel prize winners have taken opposite 
points of view concerning something called string theory. I’m the 
co-founder of string field theory, which is one of the main branches of 
string theory, so I have some “skin in the game”. I try to be fair and 
balanced. I think we’re on the verge of a new era. New experiments are 
being done to detect deviations from the Standard Model. Plus, we have 
the mystery of dark matter. Any of these unexplored areas could give a 
clue as to the theory of everything.

String theory involves a great deal of theoretical physics, fiendish 
mathematics and mind-boggling abstraction. Do you think the general 
public is able to grasp the details of this debate?
I think the public is curious as to what the consequences of this theory 
could be. The universe in some sense is like a chess game and for 2,000 
years we’ve been trying to figure out how the pawns move. And now we’re 
beginning to understand how the queen moves and how you get a checkmate. 
The destiny of science is to become like grandmasters, to solve this 
puzzle that we call the universe. There are outstanding questions that 
the public wants to have answers for. For example, time travel, other 
dimensions, wormholes. What happened before the big bang? What’s on the 
other side of a black hole? None of these questions can be answered 
within the framework of Einstein’s theory. You have to go beyond 
Einstein into the quantum theory.

How much, do you think, would Isaac Newton understand of your book?
I think he would appreciate it. In 1666 we had the great plague. 
Cambridge University was shut down and a 23-year-old boy was sent home, 
and he saw an apple fall on his estate. And then he realised that the 
laws that control an apple are the same laws that control the moon. So 
the epidemic gave Isaac Newton an opportunity to sit down and follow the 
mathematics of falling apples and falling moons. But of course there was 
no mathematics at that time. He couldn’t solve the problem so he created 
his own mathematics. That’s what we are doing now. We, too, are being 
hit by the plague. We, too, are confined to our desks. And we, too, are 
creating new mathematics.

In the 60s, all we had to do was go to Congress and say one word: 
Russia. Then Congress would say: How much?
Some physicists see the search for an all-encompassing theory as 
misleadingly reductionist. How is your work received in these circles?
I’ll be very blunt, there’s a split, a split that we haven’t seen for 
many a decade. I’m reminded of the Solvay Conference, when Niels Bohr 
and Albert Einstein took opposing view on quantum theory in one of the 
greatest debates in the history of science. Well, string theory has also 
created a tremendous amount of interest, as well as a backlash. People 
say, well, where is the proof? Quite frankly we don’t have the proof, in 
the same way that Newton did not have the proof of his inverse square 
law back in 1666. Sometimes, the mathematics and the ideas are ahead of 
the concrete experimental data. That’s where the Large Hadron Collider 
comes into play.

The LHC has made headlines recently with its findings on how the beauty 
quark behaves. Will this have an impact on the theory of everything?
The Standard Model is the theory of almost everything. It works 
spectacularly well but it’s one of the ugliest theories proposed so far. 
There’s this avalanche of experimental numbers you have to put in by 
hand. But in string theory the Standard Model just pops right out. With 
just a few assumptions you get the entire Standard Model. So the point 
here is that we need experimental proof and the LHC may give us hints of 
a deviation in the Standard Model and that’s where this post-LHC physics 
comes into play.

You’ve been compared to Carl Sagan in your ability to convey complex 
science in an accessible form. How important is it to reach a large 
audience?

We had a big shock in the 1990s when we physicists proposed the super 
collider. It was much bigger than the Large Hadron Collider. It was to 
be outside Dallas, Texas, but it was cancelled. What went wrong? On one 
of the last day of hearings, a congressman asked: “Will we find God with 
your machine? If so I will vote for it.” The poor physicist who had to 
answer that question didn’t know what to say. We should have said, this 
is a Genesis machine that will create the conditions of the greatest 
invention of all time – the universe. Unfortunately, we said Higgs 
boson. And people said, $10bn for another subatomic particle? And they 
cancelled the machine.

Maintenance works on the Large Hadron Collider in February last year.
Maintenance work on the Large Hadron Collider in February last year. 
Photograph: Valentin Flauraud/AFP via Getty Images

Do colleagues resent your popular touch?
Let’s be honest, Carl Sagan experienced a backlash when he started to 
enter the public arena. There was a vote to have him initiated into the 
National Academy of Sciences and he was denied. The super collider was 
cancelled because we were in the ivory tower and had no connection with 
the taxpayer who was footing the bill. And then along comes Stephen 
Hawking. He generated so much interest and was a real physicist at the 
cutting edge of science, not a mere “populariser” – the criticism lodged 
against Sagan. So I think it was humbling. We have to sing for our 
supper. During the 60s, all we had to do was go to Congress and say one 
word: Russia. Then Congress would say two words: How much? Those days 
are gone.

You believe that within a century we will make contact with an alien 
civilisation. Are you worried about what they may entail?

Soon we’ll have the Webb telescope up in orbit and we’ll have thousands 
of planets to look at, and that’s why I think the chances are quite high 
that we may make contact with an alien civilisation. There are some 
colleagues of mine that believe we should reach out to them. I think 
that’s a terrible idea. We all know what happened to Montezuma when he 
met Cortés in Mexico so many hundreds of years ago. Now, personally, I 
think that aliens out there would be friendly but we can’t gamble on it. 
So I think we will make contact but we should do it very carefully.

There are many brilliant scientists whose contributions you discuss in 
the book. Which one, for you, stands out above the rest?
Newton is at number one, because, almost out of nothing, out of an era 
of witchcraft and sorcery, he comes up with the mathematics of the 
universe, he comes up with a theory of almost everything. That’s 
incredible. Einstein piggybacked on Newton, using the calculus of Newton 
to work out the dynamics of curved spacetime and general relativity. 
They are like supernovas, blindingly brilliant and illuminating the 
entire landscape and changing human destiny. Newton’s laws of motion set 
into motion the foundation for the Industrial Revolution. A person like 
that comes along once every several centuries.

You describe yourself as an agnostic. Has your research led you closer 
or further away from the idea of a designer God?
Stephen Hawking said that he didn’t believe in God because the big bang 
happened instantly and there was no time for God to create a universe, 
therefore God couldn’t exist. I have a different point of view. My 
parents were Buddhists and in Buddhism there is Nirvana, timelessness, 
no beginning and no end. But my parents put me in a Presbyterian church, 
so I went to Sunday school every week and learned about Genesis and how 
the universe was created in seven days. Now with the multiverse idea we 
can meld these two diametrically opposed paradigms together. According 
to string theory, big bangs are happening all the time. Even as we 
speak, Genesis is taking place somewhere in the cosmos. And what is the 
universe expanding into? Nirvana. Eleven-dimensional hyperspace is 
Nirvana. So you can have Buddhism and Judeo-Christian philosophy in one 
theory.

The God Equation by Michio Kaku is published by Penguin (£16.99). To 
order a copy go to guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply
  This article was corrected on 4 April 2021. Kaku was referring to the 
Webb telescope, not a web telescope.