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Here is just a spattering of interesting reading.

• Kaku on dimensions. N.B. You, good sir, have corrected someone on the Internet. The formulas have not been worked out for m-theory (10+ dimensions).
• Hameroff on the possibility of microtubules being a substrate for consciousness.
• Is everything made of mini black holes?
• Occultists meditating on subatomic particles in the late 19th century

Yeah, here are some more interesting topics:

Bigfoot: the new evidence

Is the Tooth Fairy real?

Angels: harness their power and release your potential

Here is just a spattering of interesting reading.

• Kaku on dimensions. N.B. You, good sir, have corrected someone on the Internet. The formulas have not been worked out for m-theory (10+ dimensions).
• Hameroff on the possibility of microtubules being a substrate for consciousness.
• Is everything made of mini black holes?
• Occultists meditating on subatomic particles in the late 19th century

We've only begun to scratch the surface of consciousness because of the Enlightenment bias. That the frontiers of science are peculiarly reminiscent of ancient wisdom does not mean I would blindly do away with the scientific method. In fact, scientific breakthroughs are often a marriage of inexplicable insight and subsequent deductive analysis.

The beginning of knowledge is the discovery of something we do not understand. -Frank Herbert

He's not terribly young, but Michio Kaku would be a good choice after watching some of his shows.

You can find it here: http://mkaku.org/home/?page_id=246

It's a little science+fiction, but it's anyway a great reading.

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He states that:

"(...) Berkeley astronomer Don Goldsmith reminds us that the earth receives about one billionth of the suns energy, and that humans utilize about one millionth of that. So we consume about one million billionth of the suns total energy. At present, our entire planetary energy production is about 10 billion billion ergs per second."

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and also, he suggests that we have to search for a combination of a star and a planet with great infrared emissions:

"Eventually, after several thousand years, a Type I civilization will exhaust the power of a planet, and will derive their energy by consuming the entire output of their suns energy, or roughly a billion trillion trillion ergs per second. With their energy output comparable to that of a small star, they should be visible from space. Dyson has proposed that a Type II civilization may even build a gigantic sphere around their star to more efficiently utilize its total energy output . Even if they try to conceal their existence, they must, by the Second Law of Thermodynamics, emit waste heat. From outer space, their planet may glow like a Christmas tree ornament. Dyson has even proposed looking specifically for infrared emissions (rather than radio and TV) to identify these Type II civilizations."

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Finally from the original article we see a theory i want to add to this reasoning:

"One possibility is that Wasp-18, a sunlike, medium-sized star, is a thousand times less energetic than would be expected. That would mean it produces much less friction on the planet than normal."

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Why this star has a thousand times less energy than it should have?

And for most of his life, Hawking would have agreed with you. Take a look at the book Physics of the Impossible. http://mkaku.org/

Some of the modern theories on black holes are that they are actually ring shaped, not an infinitely small point. You pass through the ring and you wind up in another universe. Of course the amount of power required not to end up being ripped apart by the tidal forces et. al. are astronomical, there is apparently a loop hole that allows for this in the math.

Well there is that Michio Kaku guy http://www.mkaku.org/ , I think he understands atring theory.
My question is 'How Long is a piece of string?'

Dr. Michio Kaku also has a radio show called Explorations that primarily features interviews with other scientists. Most of the stations that air it have audio archives of the program, too, so you can check it out if you like.

http://www.mkaku.org/radio/

Apparently, he also has a myspace page: http://www.myspace.com/mkaku

• personal website
• Wikipedia entry
• MySpace page,
• weekly radio show ( Explorations )
• and Coast to Coast AM guest profile

Slashdot, and a majority of its user base, just so happens to originate from the United States, however. So what's your beef? I hope you aren't one of those self-hating Americans. I'm not particularly proud with the place I was born, myself, since I could have, just as likely, been born elsewhere. In fact, I'm largely apathetic about my nationality.

Nevertheless, I'm a part of this society (insofar as I could be, sitting at home all day), and, in order to communicate with it, I must adopt its standards for that communication. The same argument could be made for conversing on Slashdot, as well. Of course, it isn't particularly important whether we put punctuation marks inside or outside of quotation marks to other, sentient human beings.

However, I do think we need an international language with rigidly defined syntax. It's part of being a Type I civilization, as Michio Kaku often says, and, in all likelihood, English will comprise our Type I language.

I'm impartial to what system we use for global cooperation (although, I'd have to spend quite a bit of time learning another language, were one to be adopted*), but that's the direction things seem to be going, and I really think it's a critical point that, for things like artificial intelligence and semantic computing (as well as the semantic web) to become more fully developed, our language should be very strict, like any other computing standard. You may disagree, however.

* Which is why English is the prime candidate for internationalization -- many people have already familiarized themselves with it, worldwide.

Hey Guys,

I think that many people looking at the ISS are missing the big picture in all of this.

The Alternate purpose of the ISS is to bring many nations together to do something BIG where we all contribute as a planet and invest, not in the thing itself but invest in the relationships between the various partners, afterall twenty years ago who would have suggested to have the US and the former members of the USSR working together on a project designed to have a leapfrog to the planets and beyond..

What if the former soviet scientists who were unpaid for many months went to work for countries where theyre expertise would have been used to create weopons systems (yes I know many did go) instead of building something which proves the inter-dependance of all of us on this planet regardless of race, religion or nationality.

We face a time on this earth where the planet and our misconduct to it is about to get even.. you only have until 21st December 2012 then its all game over, so the best thing is to live in peace as much as we can until the time where events will test our human fellowship and endurance. The only real good points to us which will last for time in memorial are that our voices and a gleam of our civilisation is slowly floating away about the voyagers.

Yes the ISS costs a lot of money, but comparing it to the budgets of the war machines (especially the US military) the cost is a drop in an ocean, and if it brings us together as a leap of faith, the monetary figure is totally irrelevent.

We Need more of such events (iss), just astral travelling to the other planets and solar systems isnt enough, theres so much to see out there. Just watching the dark clear sky from Myponga (South Australia - 50miles south of Adelaide, a very high glowing energy place to those like myself who are highly intuitive) we can all see the satellites and our interstellar travellers out (often) there but its important that we do have more meaningful contact on our terms.

In order to survive we must do more, this planet has had many generations of civilisations on it before, we werent the first and we wont be the last but still lets leave a legacy to the next group as we received from the ancient egyptians/atlantians civilisation who gave to us, maybe then we may rise from our level zero civilisation (see http://mkaku.org/article_physicsofextra.htm for description of level 0-4 civilisations) that we may sew the seeds so we do finally make it to eternity, to become a creator ourselves.

Live in Peace everyone
Darren

http://www.mkaku.org/
Michio Kaku is a great scientist who has learned to communicate science fluently and interestingly to the layman. I'm sure he and his work would be very interesting to young people.

This man is absolutely brilliant in not just string theory, but space and time travel, and quantum physics.

He states his belief in God, but will answer questions that he does not have 'facts' for with a: "I take a agnositc point of view on that matter.."

LOL!! Even tho I don't understand hardly a darn thing the man says.. I KNOW you will enjoy listen/reading him if you do!! :)

One interesting interview with him http://www.universetoday.com/am/publish/advanced_c ivilization_become.html

-- SlashDot's Moderation system is not broke, it is fixed.

But in today's America, to try and do such a thing would likely get you labeled as a terrorist, with no legal recourse.

Indeed an interesting point. Let's see the options:

- You can camp in front of the White House with a sign that says you're unhappy. You'll look like a nut and you're utterly useless to whatever cause you are defending.

- You can organize some movement and demonstrate in the middle of a city, shouting your opinions with hundreds of like-minded people. Then you'll piss the average citizen that has to go to work, get bored, get back home and eat TV-diner and he'll end up blaming you for the traffic jams and hate whatever message you're trying to pass.

- You can wirte to your represen... Forget that, waste of time.

- You can blow shit up. But hey, look at McVeigh. Whatever the ideas behind his actions, he killed innocents. Oh, and he's dead too now. not efficient.

So, I'm asking the question: what is there to do in a democracy to change things? Does democracy exist at all, now that mass-media can select what to talk about and present the news the way they want? Do citizens have any opinion? Does it matter who you vote for?

IMO, there's no democracy. Democracy is a buzzword, and that's all there's left of it. And I feel very sad when, in another post, I follow a link to Michi Kaku's website where I read about the future of mankind and what great discoveries are waiting to be done and then, I look around me, I look at the news and I see dumb people in charge of our countries. I think I believe Mankind will get out of this mess, but I truly wonder how. How can you stop a system that controls you? How can you hope to accomplish anything great when you do not have the courage to take a walk outside? Why would you want to change things anyway when the rest of the world is shown to you as barbaric wastelands?

Oh, and if that interests you at all, I'd HIGHLY RECOMMEND reading some of Dr. Kaku.

His is a genius, as I said. And he puts things in a very eloquent... non-physicist sort of way.

His Homepage

And here's an article about the things I just talked about.
I'd also recommend his book Hyperspace.

Oh, and if that interests you at all, I'd HIGHLY RECOMMEND reading some of Dr. Kaku.

His is a genius, as I said. And he puts things in a very eloquent... non-physicist sort of way.

His Homepage

And here's an article about the things I just talked about.
I'd also recommend his book Hyperspace.

I think Forbes was lacking in the Technology Dept.

Lightsabers
Not possible? I think most StarWars geeks, physics buffs, and George Lucas already understood the properties of light. That's why most techie sites refer to it as an "wave arc" weapon. Meaning it's not a "laser sword" more of some kind of energy/matter stream that loops onto it self. More probable, yes? PS, with all the ILM technology, why are not the lightsaber shadows removed, hmm?Do a google search on building a lightsaber, lightsaber physics. You'll find ton's of pages.

Hyperdrives
So so SO many theories on this one. Most won't work. Some are really really probable. Yes, look at the Physics of Star Trek. Read Michio Kaku. Do your homework!

3D Spacial Holograms Not Possible?! WHAT! Like almost here! A guy has already built a floating 2D projection monitor. Read this article
IO2 Techlology
FogScreen Inc.

Let's not forget other dimensions too. Hyperspace A Scientific Odyssey Through Parallel Universes, Time Warps and the Tenth Dimension http://www.mkaku.org/books/hyperspace/

just recently heard michio kaku talk about trying to measuring minute changes in gravity to show that 'parallel worlds' are right around us and ties it in with dark matter.

as far as the placebo effect goes, when i am happy- i feel good!

For anyone interested in this sort of thing, I recommend Hyperspace by Michio Kaku

One of the discussions in the book touches on objective "levels" of civilization and species.

IIRC, it can be broken down something like this:

Level 0: What humans are now.
Level 1: Mastery of the entire energy capacity of a single planet
Level 2: Mastery of the entire energy capacity of a single solar system
Level 3: etc...

He supposed that Level 2 and beyond was the point at which a civilization was effectively permanent, able to survive anything less than the total heat death of the universe.

Neat stuff.

It is a late reply so probably no one will see it, but I'll answer anyway. I remember reading a book Hyperspace by Michio Kaku something between ten and twenty years ago. In that book he wrote that he had built a cyclotron when he was a kid. There were no technical details, but you could probably find more in other of his publication, or after contacting him. He has a website MKaku.org. Good luck.

How many would-be Tolkiens/Einsteins did we lose to war without knowing?

I see you've read Michio Kaku.

TechTV: As a scientist, did you like "The Matrix" movie?
Kaku: Yes, because sometimes it's better for us scientists to suspend the laws of physics and let our imaginations roam!

This site is maintained by a professor and has a great book on string theory. http://www.mkaku.org/

This makes Joy a political target when he's in the press, but he believes that strongly about the problem our great-grandchildren could inherit. And this generational bomb is potentially a lot bigger problem than 'global warming'/air pollution thing!

Why the future doesn't need us.
Criticism *and* Support for Joy's opinions abound

And as are as 'futurists' are concerned, don't get me wrong--I love The Matrix and Michio Kaku as much as the next guy (or girl).

Dr. Kaku holds the Henry Semat Professorship in Theoretical Physics at the City College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. You can read more about him here : http://www.mkaku.org

His book "Hyperspace" deals with Kaluza-Klein theory, and it's development into superstring theory. Superstring theory, to be very basic, deals with the unification of the laws of physics into one connected equation to describe how everything works - it's the holy grail of physics and somethign Einstein was struggling with up until his death. The Superstring theory - or at least a copule of years ago when I read it - was close to accomplishing this, but with a catch. To explain the way the world works in a unified manner you needed to mathematically use more dimensions than the three spatial and one temporal one we percieve around us in our world. The fabric of our world, and I mean the very fabric, the stuff that makes up the smallest particles we can detect is theoretically considered to be the vibration of these "superstrings" in our dimensions, although the strings themselves are objects of many higher dimensions.

Now, my understanding of a theory Dr. Kaku put forward in his book, in almost a light hearted way when dealign with the subject of an expanding or collapsing universe was to suggest that the big bang was the collapsing of the unstable higher dimensional universe into the universe of four dimensions we experience today.

If the universe does come to some "Big Crunch" event in the future, then we might undergo another change of dimensions. As I said in my preamble, I offer this only as information and present no personal feelings on the matter. It has been a good while since I read Dr. Kaku's book too I must add, but it is the only alternate explanation I have seen - and based in advanced theoretical physics too.

If you're into this sort of thing you should pick up Hyperspace by Michio Kaku, it's a very interesting book that does a pretty good job of explaining multiple dimensions in a way that most can understand.

When I was working in a Bacterial Genomics lab, I used to crave faster, more powerful computers to crunch through genomic data. This type of computing power is a dream for bioinformaticists who want to, for example, create targeted cures for bacterial disease based on specific genetic idioms.

What is unfortunate is that we have an expensive, tax-payer funded processor farm that is dedicated to the useless pursuit of studying weapons of mass destruction. A great text about the myths of US nuclear policy can be found in Michio Kaku's (with Dan Axelrod) To Win a Nuclear War. It's in the style of a book like "The Hacker Crackdown", well researched, and really interesting.

If you are interested in stopping Nuclear Weapons Research in the US, another great site is that of Nobel Peace Prize Winning group Intl. Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW). I think it's telling to compare IPPNW's site to the Defense Department's Moronic Weapons of Mass Destruction Civil Support Team web site!

Firstly, IANARS.

You substitute one fallacy (ad authoritem) with another (begging the question)...

Anyhow, the big difference between a nuclear rocket and a chemical rocket "blowing up" (to use a technical term) is that while a chemical rocket is loading to the gills with volatile fuel, a nuke rocket will just sputter out. While there's pressure in the engine, there's not a office building full of volatile fuel in the equation. This makes nuke rockets somewhat safer than conventional rockets.

The worst case scenario, of course, is a catastophic mid-launch failure that scatters nuclear material over a wide area. I've read conflicting reports, though one source for which I have tremendous respect, physicist Michio Kaku has argued vehemently against nuke rockets for this reason.

It seems to me, however, that this is not an insurmountable problem. Believe it or not, it is possible for items to survive ground zero of a nucelar explosion relatively unscathed. Now steel spheres are a long way from a working nuclear core, but perhaps we let ourselves be emotionally carried away by the visual violence of an explosion: "nothing could survive that." Well, yes some things could survive that. Perhaps we just need to build engine cores that could...

I recently read Hyperspace, by Michio Kaku, and he says many current physicists studying superstring theory postulate 10 dimensions.

I know at first it sounds like they are smoking something, but Einstein's theory of the fourth dimension (time) was also not obvious when he proposed it.

The basic idea is that complicated physical phenomenon can be analyzed more simply using more dimensions. To use the Einstein example, trying to account for variations in distance and time the closer you get to the speed of light would be screwed up calulating in 3 dimensions, but easy adding a 4th one. You just have to accept that space and time can be interchanged, just like the 3 dimensions we see physically.

http://www.mkaku.org/hyper_toe.htm