Michio Kaku: The Universe in a Nutshell (Full Presentation) | Big Think

0:10 My name is Professor Michio Kaku.

0:12 I'm a professor of theoretical physics at the City University

0:16 of New York and I specialize in something called string theory.

0:21 I'm a physicist.

0:25 Some people ask me the question, "What has physics done for me lately?

0:29 I mean, do I get better color television,

0:31 do I get better internet reception with physics?" And the answer is yes.

0:35 You see, physics is at the very foundation of matter and energy.

0:40 We physicists invented the laser beam, we invented the transistor.

0:45 We helped to create the first computer.

0:48 We helped to construct the internet.

0:50 We wrote the World Wide Web.

0:53 In addition, we also helped to invent television, radio,

0:57 radar, microwaves, not to mention MRI scans, PET scans, x-rays.

1:02 In other words, almost everything you see in your living room,

1:08 almost everything you see in a modern hospital,

1:11 at some point or other, can be traced to a physicist.

1:15 Now, I got interested in physics when I was a child.

1:20 When I was eight, a great scientist had just died.

1:22 I still remember my elementary school teacher coming into the room

1:26 and announcing that the greatest scientist of our era has just passed away.

1:31 And that day, every newspaper published a picture of his desk.

1:37 The desk of Albert Einstein.

1:39 And the caption said, I'll never forget,

1:43 "The unfinished manuscript of the greatest work of the greatest

1:47 scientist of our time." And I said to myself, "Why couldn't he finish it?

1:52 I mean, what's so hard?

1:54 It's a homework problem, right?

1:56 Why didn't he ask his mother?

1:58 Why can't he finish this problem?" So as a child of eight,

2:01 I decided to find out what was this problem.

2:04 Years later, I began to realize that it was the theory of everything,

2:09 the Unified Field Theory.

2:13 An equation that would summarize all the physical forces in the universe.

2:18 An equation like E=mc².

2:20 That equation is half an inch long

2:23 and that equation unlocks the secret of the stars.

2:27 Why do the stars shine?

2:29 Why does the galaxy light up?

2:31 Why do we have energy on the earth?

2:35 But then there was another thing that happened

2:36 to me when I was around eight years old.

2:38 I got hooked on the Saturday morning TV shows.

2:42 In particular, Flash Gordon.

2:44 And I was hooked.

2:47 I mean, every Saturday morning watching programs about alien from outer space,

2:52 star ships, ray guns, invisibility shields, cities in the sky, that was for me.

2:58 But after a few years, I began to notice something.

3:02 First of all, I began to notice that well,

3:04 I didn't have blond hair and blue eyes, I didn't have muscles like Flash Gordon,

3:10 but it was a scientist who made the series work.

3:14 In particular, a physicist.

3:15 He was the one who discovered the ray gun, the star ships.

3:20 He was the one who created the invisibility shield.

3:23 And then I realized something else.

3:25 If you want to understand the future, you have to understand physics.

3:30 Physics is at the foundation of all the gadgetry,

3:34 the wizardry, all the marvels of the technological age,

3:39 all of it can be traced to the work of a physicist.

3:41 Physics and the Impossible Physics and the Impossible Most of science

3:46 fiction is in fact well within the laws of physics,

3:49 but possible within maybe 100 years.

3:51 And then we have impossibilities that may take 1,000 years or more.

3:57 That includes time travel, warp drive, higher dimensions,

4:02 portals through space and time, star gates, worm holes.

4:08 You know, if you were to meet your grandparents at the year 1900,

4:12 they were dirt farmers back then.

4:14 They didn't live much beyond the age of 40, on average.

4:18 Long distance communication in the year 1900 was yelling at your neighbor.

4:23 And yet, if they could see you now,

4:26 with iPads and iPods and satellites and GPS and laser beams,

4:30 how would they view you?

4:32 They They would view you as a wizard or sorcerer.

4:36 However, if we can now meet our grandkids of the year 2100,

4:41 how would we view them?

4:44 We would view them as gods, like in Greek mythology.

4:48 Zeus could control objects around him by pure thought.

4:54 Materialize objects just by thinking.

4:56 And there're perks to being a Greek god,

4:59 Venus had a perfect body, a timeless body.

5:02 And we are beginning now to unravel the genetics at the molecular level,

5:08 of the aging process.

5:09 And then Apollo, he had a chariot that he could ride across the heavens.

5:14 We will finally have that flying car

5:16 that we've always wanted to have in our garage.

5:20 By the year 2100, we will have the power of the gods.

5:24 To paraphrase Arthur C.

5:26 Clark, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable

5:30 from from divinity." So let's now begin our story.

5:38 The History of Physics The history

5:40 of physics is the history of modern civilization.

5:44 Before Isaac Newton, before Galileo,

5:47 we were shrouded with the mysteries of superstition.

5:51 People believed in all sorts of different kinds of spirits and demons.

5:56 What made the planets move?

5:59 Why do things things interact with other things?

6:02 It was a mystery.

6:04 So, back in the Middle Ages, for example, people read the works of Aristotle.

6:09 And Aristotle asked the question, "Why do objects move toward the earth?

6:14 And that's because," he said, "objects yearn, yearn to be united with the earth.

6:19 And why do objects slow down when you put them in motion?

6:24 Objects in motion slow down because they

6:27 get tired." These are the works of Aristotle,

6:30 which held sway for almost 2,000 years until

6:34 the beginning of modern physics with Galileo and Isaac Newton.

6:41 When the ancients looked at the sky,

6:44 the sky was full of mystery and wonder, and in the year 1066,

6:50 the most important date on the British calendar, there was a comet,

6:55 a comet which sailed over the battlefield of Hastings.

6:59 It frightened the troops of King Harold, and a young man from Normandy,

7:02 swept into England and defeated King Harold at the Battle of Hastings,

7:11 creating the modern British monarchy.

7:15 But the question is, where did the comet come from?

7:19 What was this comet that mysteriously paved

7:21 the way for the coming of the British monarchy?

7:25 Well, believe it or not, that same comet,

7:28 the very same comet that initiated the British monarchy,

7:33 sailed over London once again in 1682.

7:36 This time, everyone was asking the question, "Where do comets come from?

7:43 Do they signal the death of the king?

7:47 Why do we have messengers from heavens in the sky?" Well,

7:51 one man dared to penetrate the secrets of comets, and that was Isaac Newton.

7:57 In fact, when Isaac Newton was only 23 years old,

8:01 he stumbled upon the universal force of gravitation.

8:05 According to one story, he was walking on his estate in Woolsthorpe,

8:10 and he saw an apple fall.

8:12 And then Isaac Newton saw the moon,

8:15 and then he asked the key question which helped to unlock the heavens.

8:20 If apples falls, does the moon also fall?

8:24 And the answer was, "Yes." And answer overturned thousands of years

8:33 of mystery and speculation about the motions of the heavens.

8:38 The moon is in freefall, just like an apple.

8:42 The moon is constantly falling toward the earth.

8:47 It doesn't hit the earth, because it spins around the earth,

8:51 and the earth is round, but it's acting under a force, a force of gravity.

8:58 So Newton immediately tried to work out

9:01 the mathematics and he realized that the mathematics

9:03 of the 1600's was not sufficient to work out the motion of a falling moon.

9:09 So what did Isaac Newton do?

9:11 When he was 23 years old,

9:13 not only did he stumble upon the force of gravity, but he also created calculus.

9:19 In fact, he created calculus at the rate at which you learn it,

9:24 when you are a freshman in college.

9:27 And why did he create calculus?

9:29 To calculate the motion of a falling moon.

9:33 The mathematics of his age was incapable of calculating

9:37 the trajectories of objects moving under an inverse square force field,

9:41 and that's what Isaac Newton did.

9:43 He worked out the motion of the moon.

9:46 And then he realized that if he understands the moon,

9:50 he also understands the motion of the planets in the solar system.

9:57 And Isaac Newton invented a new telescope.

9:59 It was the reflecting telescope and he was tracking the motion of this comet.

10:06 Well, it turns out that everyone was talking about the comet,

10:10 including a rather wealthy Englishman by the name of Edmund Haley.

10:15 So Edmund Haley, being a wealthy merchant, decided to make a trip to Cambridge

10:21 to talk to England's illustrious scientist, Sir Isaac Newton.

10:25 Well, Edmund Haley asked Newton, "What do you make of this comet?

10:30 No one understands comets, they're a mystery.

10:33 They've been fascinating people for centuries,

10:36 for millennia, what are your thoughts?" And then,

10:39 I paraphrase, but Isaac Newton said something

10:42 like this, he said, "Oh, that's easy.

10:46 That comet is moving at a perfect ellipse.

10:49 It's moving in an inverse square force field.

10:52 I've been tracking it every day with my reflecting telescope and the path

10:58 of that comet conforms to my mathematics exactly." And of course,

11:03 we don't know what Edmund Haley's reaction was,

11:06 but I paraphrase, he must have said

11:09 something like this, he said, "For God's sake,

11:12 man, why don't you publish the greatest work in all of scientific history?

11:17 If correct, you have decoded the secret of the stars, the secret of the heavens.

11:25 Nobody understands where comets come from." And then Newton responded and said,

11:31 "Oh, well, it costs too much.

11:33 I mean, I'm not a wealthy man, it would cost too much to summarize this calculus

11:38 that I've invented and to work out all the motion of the stars." And then Haley

11:43 must have said this, he must have said, "Mr.

11:45 Newton, I am a wealthy man.

11:47 I have made my fortune in commerce.

11:50 I will pay for the publication of the greatest

11:54 scientific work in any language." And it was Principia.

12:01 The principals, the mathematical principals that guide the heavens.

12:06 Believe it or not, this is perhaps one of the most important works ever

12:11 written by a human being in the 100,000 years since we evolved from Africa.

12:17 Realize that this book sets into motion a physics of the universe.

12:23 Forces that control the motion of the planets,

12:29 forces which can be calculated, forces which govern the motion of cannonballs,

12:35 rockets, pebbles, everything that moves,

12:38 moves according to the laws of motion and the calculus of Sir Isaac Newton.

12:45 In fact, even today, when we launch our space probes,

12:48 we don't use Einstein's equations,

12:50 they only apply when you get near the speed of light or near a black hole.

12:55 We use Newton's laws of gravity.

12:56 They are so precise that when we shoot

12:59 a space probe right past the rings of Saturn,

13:02 we use exactly the same equations that Isaac Newton unraveled in the 1600's.

13:08 That's why we have glorious photographs of the rings of Saturn.

13:09 That's why we have fly-by's right past Neptune.

13:10 That's why we've been able to unravel the secrets of the solar system,

13:13 compliments of the laws of motion of Isaac Newton.

13:18 So what Newton did was not only did

13:21 he set into motion the ability to calculate planets,

13:24 he also set into motion a mechanics.

13:28 Machines now operated upon well-defined laws: Newton's three laws of motion.

13:35 The first law of motion says that objects in motion stay in motion forever,

13:42 unless acted on by an outside force.

13:44 You see that in an ice skating rink.

13:47 You should a puck and it goes all the way down forever,

13:51 unless acted upon by an outside force.

13:53 That's different from Aristotle's law of motion.

13:57 Aristotle said, "Objects in motion eventually stop,

14:01 because they get tired." The second law of motion says,

14:06 force is mass times acceleration.

14:08 And that equation made possible the Industrial Revolution.

14:13 Steam engines, locomotives, factories, machines,

14:19 all of it due to the mechanics set

14:21 into motion by Isaac Newton's second law of motion,

14:24 force is equal to mass times acceleration.

14:27 And then Newton had a third law of motion.

14:29 For every action, there's an equal and opposite reaction,

14:32 that's the law of rockets.

14:34 That's why we have rockets that can sail into outer space.

14:38 which could have been calculated by Isaac Newton himself.

14:38 So the lesson here is, when scientists unravel the first force of the universe,

14:45 gravity, that number, 25,000 miles per hour,

14:38 that's the escape velocity of the earth, a number So the lesson here is,

14:41 when scientists unravel the first force of the universe,

14:45 gravity, that set into motion the Industrial Revolution.

14:49 A revolution which toppled the kings and queens of Europe,

14:54 which displaced feudalism, ushering in the modern age.

14:58 All because a 23-year-old gentleman looked up and asked the question,

15:04 "Does the moon also fall?" You know, when I was a kid growing up in California,

15:11 I would see pictures of the Empire State Building.

15:13 And I said to myself, "How could that possibly build such a big

15:17 building and not know that it's going to fall?

15:20 I mean, why doesn't it fall?

15:22 They didn't build scale models of the thing,

15:24 you couldn't have an Empire State Building that big

15:26 to test whether it's going to fall or not.

15:29 How did they know ahead of time that that building wouldn't fall?

15:33 And the answer is: Newton's laws of motion.

15:37 In fact, today, I teach Newton's laws of motion,

15:40 and you can actually calculate the forces

15:42 on every single brick of the empire state building,

15:46 using Newton's second law of motion, force is mass times acceleration.

15:51 When Newton unraveled the force of gravity, that was the first force.

15:57 Now, let's take a look at the second force,

16:00 an even greater force which has touched all of our lives,

16:05 and that is the electromagnetic force.

16:08 Ever since humans saw lightning bolts light up the sky,

16:12 ever since they were terrified by the sound of thunder,

16:16 they've been asking, "Do the gods propel lightening bolts and create thunder?

16:21 Are they angry at us?" Scientists began to realize that the lightning

16:27 bolts and the thunder can be duplicated on the earth.

16:31 That we can actually create mini lightning bolts using electricity.

16:36 But it wasn't until the 1800's that finally we begin

16:40 to unlock the second great force which rules the universe,

16:44 the electromagnetic force.

16:46 Michael Faraday would give Christmas lectures in London,

16:50 fascinating everyone from adults to children.

16:53 And he would demonstrate the incredible properties of electricity.

16:59 Some people, for example, ask a simple question.

17:00 If you're in a car or an airplane,

17:02 you get hit by a lightening bolt, why don't you all get electrocuted?

17:06 Why don't you all die?

17:07 Well, Faraday answered the question.

17:10 He would create a cage.

17:12 He would walk into this steel cage,

17:15 electrify it, and he wouldn't get electrocuted at all.

17:18 That's called a Faraday cage and every time you walk into metal structure,

17:23 you get shielded by this metal object.

17:26 Well, what Michael Faraday did was, he helped to unleash the second

17:32 great revolution with something calls Faraday's Law.

17:36 A moving wire in a magnetic field,

17:40 has this electrons pushed, creating an electrical current.

17:45 That simple idea unleashed the electric revolution.

17:52 And that's why we have hydroelectric generators,

17:54 dams that produce enormous amounts of power,

17:57 That's why people build nuclear power plants.

18:00 That's why we have electricity in this room right now!

18:04 On a very small scale, you use that in your bicycle.

18:06 When you put a bicycle lamp on your bicycle,

18:09 the turning of the wheel spins a magnet.

18:13 The magnet then pushes electrons in a wire

18:16 and that's why electricity lights up in your bicycle lamp.

18:19 So in other words, electricity and magnetism were unified into a single force.

18:25 We once thought that electricity and magnetism were separate.

18:29 Now we know they are in fact the same force.

18:35 So if a moving magnet can create an electric field,

18:39 this means that a moving electric field can create a magnetic field.

18:44 But if they can create each other, why can't they oscillate and create a wave?

18:51 So that moving electric fields create magnetic fields,

18:55 create electric fields, create magnetic fields, infinitum to create a wave?

19:00 Well, around the time of the American Civil War, a mathematical physicist,

19:05 James Clerk Maxwell, calculated, using the work of Faraday,

19:09 the velocity of this wave.

19:13 And in one of the greatest breakthroughs of all time,

19:16 James Clerk Maxwell calculated the velocity of this wave

19:19 and found out it was the velocity of light.

19:23 And then he made this incredible discovery: this is light.

19:30 That's what light is.

19:33 It doesn't by accident travel at the speed of electricity, it is light itself.

19:42 wave, and that wave is called light.

19:42 And the equations were written down by James Clerk Maxwell.

19:45 Unfortunately, Michael Faraday And the equations

19:43 were written down by James Clerk Maxwell.

19:45 Unfortunately, Michael Faraday himself did not have a formal education.

19:49 He could not put into mathematical form his own work.

19:53 James Clerk Maxwell was a theoretical physicist, just like myself.

19:57 He wrote down the mathematical physics of oscillating electric

20:00 fields and magnetic fields and they are called Maxwell's equations.

20:05 These equations have to be memorized by every physicist in grad school.

20:11 You cannot get your PhD without memorizing these equations.

20:14 Every engineer deals with radar and radio has to memorize these equations.

20:19 And so, if you go to Berkley,

20:21 where I got my PhD, you can buy a t-shirt which says,

20:25 "In the beginning God said, the four-dimensional divergence of an antisymmetric,

20:32 second rank tensor equals zero, and there was light.

20:36 Ladies and gentlemen, this is the equation for light.

20:44 of light, we physicists today want to have

20:44 a one inch equation that summarize all physical reality.

20:44 Well, Michael Faraday in his own lifetime was heralded as a great scientist,

20:44 and how many scientists do you know appear on money?

20:44 Well, there he is, on the British 20-pound note.

20:44 So it's very rare that a scientist appears on a nation's currency,

20:44 but so great was a contribution of Michael

20:44 Faraday that there he is on the 20-pound note.

20:44 The Electromagnetic Revolution and The Nuclear Age The consequences

20:44 of the electromagnetic revolution touch all of us.

20:47 This is a picture of the The consequences

20:45 of the electromagnetic revolution touch all of us.

20:47 This is a picture of the earth from outer space.

20:51 Look at this picture.

20:52 Europe electrified, you can actually see the fruits

20:56 of all of our efforts to create electricity,

20:59 to energize our lives, in one picture, seeing the earth from outer space.

21:05 So let's now talk about how Faraday

21:08 and Maxwell's work touches your life as well.

21:12 This is the internet.

21:14 The internet is a simple byproduct of the electromagnetic force.

21:16 And you can see that where there is the internet, there is prosperity.

21:21 There is science, there's entertainment, there's economic activity.

21:25 Where there's no internet, there's poverty.

21:28 And in the future, the internet will be

21:32 miniaturized and it will be placed in your glasses.

21:35 Your glasses will recognize people's faces and display their biography

21:38 next to the image as you talk to them, and then when they speak Chinese to you,

21:44 your glasses will translate Chinese into English

21:47 and print out subtitles right beneath their image.

21:50 So in the future, you will know exactly who

21:53 you are talking to without even talking to them,

21:57 and this means that at a cocktail party,

22:00 if you're looking for a job, but you don't know who the heavy hitters are,

22:03 in the future you will know exactly who to suck up to.

22:07 In the future, chips will only cost a penny,

22:11 because we can manufacture tinier and tinier transistors You will

22:16 have Faraday's electromagnetic force inside your body This is a pill.

22:20 It has a chip in it.

22:22 The chip is smaller than an aspirin pill, It also has a TV camera and a magnet.

22:28 When you swallow it, the magnet guides the camera,

22:31 taking pictures of your stomach, your intestines, because we all know

22:35 what middle-aged men fear the most: colonoscopies.

22:38 And, this gives new meaning for the expression "intel inside." Now,

22:45 let's talk about the next great forces which rule the universe.

22:50 We talked about gravity, which allows us to calculate the motion of the planets.

22:55 The mechanics created by Newton helped to unleash the Industrial Revolution.

23:00 Michael Faraday worked out the electromagnetic force,

23:04 which gave us the wonders of the electric age.

23:07 And now, let's talk about the nuclear age, the stars and the sun.

23:14 People have been fascinated by the sun,

23:18 Apollo was the god that strode across the heavens in his fiery chariot.

23:22 But hey, when you calculate how long coal or oil will burn like the sun,

23:26 you realize that in just a few hundred years, the sun would burn to a crisp.

23:33 So what could possibly last for billions of years?

23:37 There must be a new force, a nuclear force.

23:42 Einstein and others helped to unravel the secret of the stars.

23:47 The nuclear force comes in two types, weak and strong.

23:52 The weak nuclear force governs radioactive decay.

23:56 The strong nuclear force is one of the strongest forces in the entire universe.

24:00 It's so strong it holds our protons together,

24:04 ever since Genesis, the beginning of time.

24:08 The equation which allows for the liberation

24:12 of energy is Einstein's famous equation E=mc².

24:16 What Einstein showed was that the faster you move, the heavier you get.

24:22 So your weight is not a constant.

24:24 When you move very rapidly you get heavier,

24:27 something which we measure every day in the laboratory.

24:31 Now, this means that the energy of motion transformed into mass,

24:37 because you get heavier.

24:39 Now, listen carefully.

24:41 The faster you move, the heavier you get.

24:45 Which means that the energy of motion, "E" turns into "m", your mass.

24:50 And the relationship between E and m is very simple,

24:53 it takes one second to write it down on a sheet of paper, it is exactly E=mc².

25:01 So the nuclear force helped to explain the secret of the sun.

25:05 But it also created a Pandora's box,

25:08 because inside the nucleus of the atom, are particles.

25:13 And when you smash these particles, what do you get?

25:18 More particles.

25:19 And when you smash them, what More particles.

25:22 In fact, we are drowning in subatomic particles.

25:26 Hundreds, thousands of subatomic particles every time we smash atoms.

25:31 Now, we smash atoms using something called atom smashers,

25:35 or particle accelerators.

25:36 I built my own particle accelerator when I was in high school.

25:41 When I was in high school, I went to my mom one day and I said,

25:46 "Can I have permission to build a 2.3 million electron volt betatron

25:51 particle accelerator in the garage?" And my mom said, "Sure, why not?

25:56 And don't forget to take out the garbage!" And as a high

26:00 school kid I asked for 400 pounds of transformer steel.

26:03 I asked for 22 miles of cooper wire.

26:06 Because I wanted to create a six kilowatter,

26:08 10,000 gauss magnetic field, to energize my atom smasher.

26:11 With 22 miles of copper wire, how could you wind it?

26:14 We did it on the high school football field.

26:17 With 22 miles of copper wire on the goalpost, gave it to my mother,

26:21 she ran to the 50 yard line unraveling the spool of wire,

26:25 she gave it to my father who then ran to the goalpost

26:28 and we wound 22 miles of copper wire on the high school football field.

26:33 Well, finally my atom smasher was ready.

26:36 It consumed six kilowatts of power,

26:38 that's every single ounce of power my house could deliver.

26:45 I plugged my ears, I closed my eyes, I turned on the power,

26:49 and I heard this huge crackling sound as six

26:53 kilowatts of power surged through my capacitor bank and then

26:57 I heard a "pop pop pop" sound as I

27:00 blew out every single circuit breaker in the house.

27:03 The whole house was plunged in darkness.

27:07 My poor mom, every time she'd come home she'd see the lights flicker and die.

27:13 And she must've wondered "why couldn't I have a son

27:16 who plays baseball?" Why can't he learn basket ball?

27:19 And for god's sake why can't he find a nice Japanese girl?" I mean,

27:24 why does he have to build these machines in the garage?

27:27 Well, these machines that I built in my garage

27:31 earned the attention of a physicist Edward Teller, father of the hydrogen bomb.

27:36 And he arranged for me to get a scholarship to Harvard.

27:40 And my career got a head start!

27:42 He knew exactly what I was doing.

27:45 I didn't have to explain to him that I was experimenting with antimatter.

27:49 I was creating anti-electrons in my mom's garage,

27:51 and using atom smashers to eventually create beams of antimatter.

27:57 Antimatter is the opposite of matter.

27:59 It has an opposite charge.

28:01 So an electron has negative charge.

28:04 The positron, or anti-electron, has positive charge.

28:07 This means that you can now create anti-molecules and anti-atoms.

28:12 Anti-hydrogen was made at CERN, outside Geneva,

28:15 Switzerland And also at Fermilab outside Chicago

28:18 Where you have anti-electrons circulating around anti-protons.

28:23 And in Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long

28:25 Island just recently they detected anti-helium!

28:30 We have two anti-protons with two anti-neutrons to create anti-helium.

28:35 For every piece of matter there is a counterpart made out of anti-matter.

28:40 And when the two collide, by the way,

28:43 it releases the greatest energy source in the universe.

28:48 It is 100 percent conversion of matter

28:51 to energy by Einstein's equations E=mc squared.

28:58 Inside the nucleus of the atom we have

29:01 particles upon particles when you smash them apart.

29:05 In the 1950's we were drowning in subatomic particles.

29:09 In fact, J.

29:10 Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the atomic bomb, once made a statement.

29:16 He declared that "the Nobel Prize in physics should go to the physicist who

29:21 does not discover a new particle this year."

29:24 That how many particles were being discovered.

29:29 So, let's talk about the Particle Zoo.

29:32 Right now, we physicists have unlocked hundreds,

29:36 thousands of subatomic particles.

29:38 And we've been able to piece them together into a jigsaw puzzle.

29:44 It's called the "standard model." It has 36 quarks,

29:48 19 free parameters, 3 generations of quarks no rhyme,

29:54 no reason, but this is the most fundamental basis

29:57 of reality that we physicists have been able to construct.

30:02 Billions of dollars.

30:03 20 Nobel prizes.

30:04 have gone into the creation of the standard model.

30:09 and it is the ugliest theory known to science, but it works.

30:13 There's one piece missing, and that one piece missing is called the Higgs-Boson.

30:19 We expect to find it.

30:20 We want to create a higher version of this theory and that theory,

30:26 we think, is string theory.

30:30 String theory is based on the simple idea

30:33 that all the four forces of the universe Gravity,

30:37 electromagnetic force, and the two nuclear forces, can be viewed as music.

30:44 Music of tiny little rubber bands.

30:46 So if I had a super microscope,

30:48 and I could look right into the heart of an electron What would I see?

30:53 I would see a vibrating rubber band.

30:55 And if I "twang" it, it turns into a neutrino.

30:57 I "twang" it again and it turns into a quark.

30:59 I "twang" it again and it turns into a Yang-Mills particle In fact,

31:03 if I "twang" it enough times, I get thousands of subatomic particles

31:07 that have been cataloged patiently by physicists.

31:14 String theory, we think, is a theory of everything.

31:18 Now, string theory, in turn,

31:20 can be summarized in an equation about an inch long That's my equation!

31:25 This is called string field theory.

31:27 And how will we test it?

31:32 We are building a machine.

31:33 The biggest machine of science ever built in the history of the human race.

31:38 Outside Geneva, Switzerland.

31:41 It is the Large Hadron Collider.

31:45 So the Higgs-Boson, we think, will be created by the Large Hadron Collider.

31:50 A tube 17 miles in circumference with two beams of protons

31:54 circulating in opposite directions Then slamming

31:58 together creating a shower of particles,

32:01 and among these particles we hope to find the Higgs-Boson, but not only that.

32:06 We hope to find particles even beyond the Higgs-Boson.

32:09 The next set of particles beyond the Higgs-Boson are "sparticles" The next

32:13 layer of the jigsaw puzzle are

32:16 called sparticles—super particles Nothing but higher vibrations,

32:19 higher musical notes of a vibrating string.

32:23 And what else can we do?

32:25 We can also unlock secrets of the big bang.

32:28 You see, Einstein's equations break down and the instant

32:31 of the big band and the center of a black hole.

32:35 The two most interesting places in the universe

32:40 are beyond our reach using Einstein's equations.

32:44 We need a higher theory, and that's where string theory comes in.

32:49 String theory takes you before the Big Bang, before Genesis itself.

32:53 And what does string theory say?

32:56 It says that there is a multiverse of universes.

33:02 Where did the Big Bang come from?

33:05 Well, Einstein's equations give us this compelling picture

33:08 that we are like insects on a soap bubble.

33:12 A gigantic soap bubble which is expanding.

33:16 and we are trapped like flies on fly paper,

33:18 we can't escape the soap bubble and that's called the Big Bang Theory.

33:23 String theory says there should be other

33:26 bubbles out there in a multiverse of bubbles.

33:32 When two universes collide it can form another universe.

33:36 When a universe splits in half it can create two universes,

33:40 and that, we think, is the Big Bang.

33:43 The Big Bang is caused by either the collision

33:48 of universes or by the fissioning of universes.

33:53 If there are other dimensions,

33:55 if there are other universes, can we go between universes?

34:00 Well that, of course, is very hard,

34:03 but Alice in Wonderland gives us a possibility that maybe

34:08 one day we might create a wormhole between universes.

34:13 This is a wormhole.

34:16 Think of taking a sheet of paper and putting two dots on it.

34:20 The shortest distance between two points is a straight line.

34:25 But if I can fold, if I can fold

34:27 that sheet of paper Then perhaps I can create a shortcut.

34:32 A shortcut through space and time, called a wormhole.

34:36 This is a genuine solution of Einstein's equations.

34:40 We can actually see this in string theory.

34:42 The question is: how practical is it to go through one of these things?

34:47 We don't know.

34:48 In fact there's a debate among physicists today, Stephen Hawking,

34:52 many physicists are jumping into the game of trying to figure out

34:57 whether it's physically possible to go all the way through a wormhole.

35:03 Because if you could, then you might be able to use this as a time machine.

35:08 Since string theory is a theory of everything, it's also a theory of time.

35:15 And time machines are allowed in Einstein's equations,

35:18 but to build one is extremely difficult.

35:22 Far more energy is required than a simple Delorean with plutonium.

35:31 You know, trillions of years from now the universe is going to get awfully cold.

35:35 We think the universe is headed for a big freeze.

35:39 Stars will blink out, stars will cease to twinkle,

35:42 and the universe will be so big it'll be very cold.

35:46 At that point all intelligent life in the universe must die.

35:52 The laws of physics are a death warrant for all intelligent life.

35:58 There is only one way to escape the death of the universe,

36:03 and that is leave the universe.

36:06 We are now entering the realm of science fiction,

36:09 but at least now we have equations equations of string theory which will

36:13 now allow us to calculate if it is possible to go through a wormhole,

36:19 to go to another universe where it's warmer,

36:21 and perhaps we can start all over again.

36:27 If you were to summarize the march of physics through the last 10,000 years

36:34 it would be the distillation of the laws of nature into four fundamental forces.

36:40 Gravity, electricity and magnetism, and the two nuclear forces.

36:44 But then the question is "is there a fifth force?"

36:47 A force beyond the forces we can measure in the laboratory.

36:51 And believe it or not there are physicists

36:54 who have looked very carefully for a fifth force.

36:57 Some people think maybe it's psychic phenomena.

37:00 Maybe it's telepathy.

37:01 Maybe it's something called psi power.

37:04 Maybe it's the power of the mind.

37:06 Maybe consciousness!

37:07 Well, I'm a physicist.

37:10 We believe in testing theories to make

37:13 sure they are falsifiable and reproducible.

37:16 We want to make sure that on demand

37:19 your theory works every single time without exception.

37:23 And if your theory fails one time, It's wrong.

37:26 In other words, Einstein's theory has

37:29 to work every single time without exception.

37:32 One time Einstein's theory is proven to be wrong, the whole theory is wrong.

37:37 Well, so far we can reproduce these four physical theories,

37:41 but a fifth theory cannot be reproduced.

37:44 We've looked for it.

37:45 Some people think that maybe a fifth force may be short range.

37:49 Like, not over the nucleus of an atom, but ranging over several feet.

37:53 And we can't find any.

37:57 We physicists in the last ten years have discovered

38:02 a new energy source larger than the galaxy itself.

38:06 Dark energy.

38:08 Realized in our universe today 73 percent of our universe,

38:12 matter and energy, 73 percent is in the form of dark energy.

38:17 The energy of nothing!

38:18 That's what's blowing the galaxies farther and farther apart.

38:22 That's the energy of the Big Bang itself.

38:25 Kids ask the question, "If the universe banged,

38:28 what made it bang?" And the answer is dark energy.

38:32 73 percent of the universe's energy is dark energy.

38:36 23 percent is dark matter.

38:38 Dark matter is invisible matter.

38:39 If I held it in my hand it would go right through my hand.

38:42 It holds the galaxy together.

38:44 23 percent of the universe is dark matter.

38:47 Stars made out of hydrogen and helium make up four percent of the universe.

38:52 And then what about us?

38:54 We, the higher elements.

38:56 We made out of oxygen, carben, nitrogen, tungsten,

39:00 iron We make up .03 percent of the universe.

39:06 In other words, we are the exception.

39:09 The universe is mainly made out of dark energy.

39:12 The universe is mainly made out of dark matter.

39:16 Overwhelming the stars, overwhelming the galaxies in fact.

39:20 Now what is dark matter, which makes up 23 percent of the universe?

39:25 No one knows.

39:27 String theory gives us a clue, but there's no definitive answer.

39:33 So in other words, for you young aspiring physicists out there in the audience,

39:38 You may be saying to yourself right now, "Why should I go into physics?

39:42 Because you guys already have a candidate for the unified field theory, right?

39:46 Just realize that every single physics textbook is WRONG.

39:51 Every single physics textbook on the Earth says

39:54 that the universe is mainly made out of atoms Right?

39:57 There it is!

39:58 The universe is mainly made out of atoms.

40:00 Wrong!

40:01 In the past ten years we have come

40:04 to the realization that most of the universe is dark.

40:08 And there's a whole shelf full of Nobel Prizes for the young

40:12 people who can figure out the secret of dark matter and dark energy.

40:19 Let me give some advice to you if you are a young physicist,

40:23 perhaps just getting out of high school You have dreams of being Einstein,

40:28 you have dreams of working on string theory

40:30 and things like that and then you hit freshman physics.

40:34 Let me be blunt: We physicists flunk most student taking elementary physics.

40:40 And we're more or less encouraged to do so by the engineering department.

40:43 We don't want to train engineers who make bridges that fall down.

40:47 We don't want to create engineers that create skyscrapers that fall over.

40:51 There's a bottom line: you have to know the laws of mechanics.

40:55 So before you can work with the laws of Einstein,

40:58 you have to work with the laws of friction, levers, pulleys and gears.

41:02 As a consequence we have a very high flunk-out rate in elementary physics.

41:06 So if you're a young physicist graduating

41:08 from high school with stars in your eyes,

41:10 and you encounter freshman physics for the first time, watch out!

41:15 If you have a rough time, that's the way it is.

41:19 I started out my life as an experimental physicist.

41:22 Then I went to Harvard and then I talked to my adviser,

41:26 one of the world's greatest experiment physicists,

41:28 Professor Pound And he told me maybe it's time to give it a rest.

41:32 He said to me, "Your skills are much better suited to what you love the most,

41:37 which is theory." "Mathematics.

41:39 The world of higher dimensions." And I realized that he was probably right.

41:45 The thing about physics, or science that really intrigues me the most is to find

41:51 the most fundamental basis for everything

41:53 Rather than trying to massage a theory,

41:56 or make a theory prettier, Why not find out why it works?

42:00 What makes it tick?

42:01 And that's what I do for a living.

42:03 I'm a theoretical physicist.

42:04 Thank you very much!