Physics of the Future: How Science Will Shape Human Destiny and Our Daily Lives by the Year 2100 (3 page)

George Linehan, author of
SpaceShipOne

Seth Lloyd, MIT, author of
Programming the Universe

Joseph Lykken, physicist, Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory

Pattie Maes, MIT Media Laboratory

Robert Mann, author of
Forensic Detective

Michael Paul Mason, author of
Head Cases

W. Patrick McCray, author of
Keep Watching the Skies!

Glenn McGee, author of
The Perfect Baby

James McLurkin, former scientist at MIT AI Laboratory, Rice University

Paul McMillan, director, Spacewatch, University of Arizona

Fulvio Melia, professor of physics and astronomy, University of Arizona

William Meller, author of
Evolution Rx

Paul Meltzer, National Institutes of Health

Marvin Minsky, MIT, author of
The Society of Mind

Hans Moravec, research professor at Carnegie Mellon University, author of
Robot

the late Phillip Morrison, physicist, MIT

Richard Muller, astrophysicist, University of California at Berkeley

David Nahamoo, formerly with IBM Human Language Technology

Christina Neal, volcanist, Alaska Volcano Observatory, U.S. Geological Survey

Michael Novacek, curator, Fossil Mammals, American Museum of Natural History

Michael Oppenheimer, environmentalist, Princeton University

Dean Ornish, clinical professor of medicine, University of California, San Francisco

Peter Palese, professor of microbiology, Mt. Sinai School of Medicine

Charles Pellerin, former NASA official

Sidney Perkowitz, professor of physics, Emory University, author of
Hollywood Science

John Pike, director,
GlobalSecurity.org

Jena Pincott, author of
Do Gentlemen Really Prefer Blondes?

Tomaso Poggio, artificial intelligence, MIT

Correy Powell, editor in chief,
Discover
magazine

John Powell, founder, JP Aerospace

Richard Preston, author of
The Hot Zone
and
The Demon in the Freezer

Raman Prinja, professor of astrophysics, University College London

David Quammen, science writer, author of
The Reluctant Mr. Darwin

Katherine Ramsland, forensic scientist

Lisa Randall, professor of theoretical physics, Harvard University, author of
Warped Passages

Sir Martin Rees, professor of cosmology and astrophysics, Cambridge University, author of
Before the Beginning

Jeremy Rifkin, founder, Foundation on Economic Trends

David Riquier, director of Corporate Outreach, MIT Media Lab

Jane Rissler, Union of Concerned Scientists

Steven Rosenberg, National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health

Paul Saffo, futurist, formerly with Institute for the Future, consulting professor at Stanford University

the late Carl Sagan, Cornell University, author of
Cosmos

Nick Sagan, coauthor of
You Call This the Future?

Michael Salamon, NASA’s Beyond Einstein program

Adam Savage, host of
MythBusters

Peter Schwartz, futurist, cofounder of Global Business Network, author of
The Long View

Michael Shermer, founder of the Skeptics Society and
Skeptic
magazine

Donna Shirley, former manager, NASA Mars Exploration Program

Seth Shostak, SETI Institute

Neil Shubin, professor of organismal biology and anatomy, University of Chicago, author of
Your Inner Fish

Paul Shuch, executive director emeritus, SETI League

Peter Singer, author of
Wired for War,
Brookings Institute

Simon Singh, author of
Big Bang

Gary Small, coauthor of
iBrain

Paul Spudis, Planetary Geology Program of the NASA Office of Space Science, Solar System Division

Steven Squyres, professor of astronomy, Cornell University

Paul Steinhardt, professor of physics, Princeton University, coauthor of
Endless Universe

Gregory Stock, UCLA, author of
Redesigning Humans

Richard Stone,
The Last Great Impact on Earth,
Discover Magazine

Brian Sullivan, formerly with the Hayden Planetarium

Leonard Susskind, professor of physics, Stanford University

Daniel Tammet, autistic savant, author of
Born on a Blue Day

Geoffrey Taylor, physicist, University of Melbourne

the late Ted Taylor, designer of U.S. nuclear warheads

Max Tegmark, physicist, MIT

Alvin Toffler, author of
The Third Wave

Patrick Tucker, World Future Society

Admiral Stansfield M. Turner, former Director of Central Intelligence

Chris Turney, University of Exeter, UK, author of
Ice, Mud and Blood

Neil deGrasse Tyson, director, Hayden Planetarium

Sesh Velamoor, Foundation for the Future

Robert Wallace, coauthor of
Spycraft,
former director of CIA’s Office of Technical Services

Kevin Warwick, human cyborgs, University of Reading, UK

Fred Watson, astronomer, author of
Stargazer

the late Mark Weiser, Xerox PARC

Alan Weisman, author of
The World Without Us

Daniel Werthimer, SETI at Home, University of California at Berkeley

Mike Wessler, former scientist, MIT AI Lab

Arthur Wiggins, author of
The Joy of Physics

Anthony Wynshaw-Boris, National Institutes of Health

Carl Zimmer, science writer, author of
Evolution

Robert Zimmerman, author of
Leaving Earth

Robert Zubrin, founder, Mars Society

Empires of the future will be empires of the mind.
—WINSTON CHURCHILL

When I was a child, two experiences helped to shape the person I am today and spawned two passions that have helped to define my entire life.

First, when I was eight years old, I remember all the teachers buzzing with the latest news that a great scientist had just died. That night, the newspapers printed a picture of his office, with an unfinished manuscript on his desk. The caption read that the greatest scientist of our era could not finish his greatest masterpiece. What, I asked myself, could be so difficult that such a great scientist could not finish it? What could possibly be that complicated and that important? To me, eventually this became more fascinating than any murder mystery, more intriguing than any adventure story. I had to know what was in that unfinished manuscript.

Later, I found out that the name of this scientist was Albert Einstein and the unfinished manuscript was to be his crowning achievement, his attempt to create a “theory of everything,” an equation, perhaps no more than one inch wide, that would unlock the secrets of the universe and perhaps allow him to “read the mind of God.”

But the other pivotal experience from my childhood was when I watched the Saturday morning TV shows, especially the
Flash Gordon
series with Buster Crabbe. Every week, my nose was glued to the TV screen. I was magically transported to a mysterious world of space aliens, starships, ray gun battles, underwater cities, and monsters. I was hooked. This was my first exposure to the world of the future. Ever since, I’ve felt a childlike wonder when pondering the future.

But after watching every episode of the series, I began to realize that although Flash got all the accolades, it was the scientist Dr. Zarkov who actually made the series work. He invented the rocket ship, the invisibility shield, the power source for the city in the sky,
etc.
Without the scientist, there is no future. The handsome and the beautiful may earn the admiration of society, but all the wondrous inventions of the future are a by-product of the unsung, anonymous scientists.

Later, when I was in high school, I decided to follow in the footsteps of these great scientists and put some of my learning to the test. I wanted to be part of this great revolution that I knew would change the world. I decided to build an atom smasher. I asked my mother for permission to build a 2.3-million electron volt particle accelerator in the garage. She was a bit startled but gave me the okay. Then, I went to Westinghouse and Varian Associates, got 400 pounds of transformer steel, 22 miles of copper wire, and assembled a betatron accelerator in my mom’s garage.

Previously, I had built a cloud chamber with a powerful magnetic field and photographed tracks of antimatter. But photographing antimatter was not enough. My goal now was to produce a beam of antimatter. The atom smasher’s magnetic coils successfully produced a huge 10,000 gauss magnetic field (about 20,000 times the earth’s magnetic field, which would in principle be enough to rip a hammer right out of your hand). The machine soaked up 6 kilowatts of power, draining all the electricity my house could provide. When I turned on the machine, I frequently blew out all the fuses in the house. (My poor mother must have wondered why she could not have a son who played football instead.)

So two passions have intrigued me my entire life: the desire to understand all the physical laws of the universe in a single coherent theory and the desire to see the future. Eventually, I realized that these two passions were actually complementary. The key to understanding the future is to grasp the fundamental laws of nature and then apply them to the inventions, machines, and therapies that will redefine our civilization far into the future.

There have been, I found out, numerous attempts to predict the future, many useful and insightful. However, they were mainly written by historians, sociologists, science fiction writers, and “futurists,” that is, outsiders who are predicting the world of science without a firsthand knowledge of the science itself. The scientists, the insiders who are actually creating the future in their laboratories, are too busy making breakthroughs to have time to write books about the future for the public.

That is why this book is different. I hope this book will give an insider’s perspective on what miraculous discoveries await us and provide the most authentic, authoritative look into the world of 2100.

Of course, it is impossible to predict the future with complete accuracy. The best one can do, I feel, is to tap into the minds of the scientists at the cutting edge of research, who are doing the yeoman’s work of inventing the future. They are the ones who are creating the devices, inventions, and therapies that will revolutionize civilization. And this book is their story. I have had the opportunity to sit in the front-row seat of this great revolution, having interviewed more than 300 of the world’s top scientists, thinkers, and dreamers for national TV and radio. I have also taken TV crews into their laboratories to film the prototypes of the remarkable devices that will change our future. It has been a rare honor to have hosted numerous science specials for BBC-TV, the Discovery Channel, and the Science Channel, profiling the remarkable inventions and discoveries of the visionaries who are daring to create the future. Being free to pursue my work on string theory and to eavesdrop on the cutting-edge research that will revolutionize this century, I feel I have one of the most desirable jobs in science. It is my childhood dream come true.