| Visions by Michio Kaku |
| 1 | Visions: How Science Will Revolutionize the Twenty-first Century Michio Kaku. Publisher: Oxford University Press 1998 Michio Kaku is the Henry Semat Professor of Theoretical Physics at the City College of New York. An internationally acclaimed physicist, he is the co-founder of string field theory. He graduated from Harvard and received his Ph.D. from Berkeley. He is the author of the critically acclaimed and bestselling Hyperspace, as well as Beyond Einstein (with Jennifer Thompson), Quantum Field Theory: A Modern Introduction, and Introduction to Superstrings. He hosts a weekly hour-long radio science programme that is nationally syndicated. In fact, most predictions of the future have floundered because they have reflected the eccentric, often narrow viewpoints of a single individual. The same is not true of Visions. |
| 2 | In the course of writing numerous books, articles, and science commentaries, I have had the rare privilege of interviewing over 150 scientists from various disciplines during a ten-year period. On the basis of these interviews, I have tried to be careful to delineate the time frame over which certain predictions will or will not be realized. Scientists expect some predictions to come about by the year 2020; others will not materialize until much later from 2050 to the year 2100. As a result, not all predictions are created equal, some are more forward looking and necessarily more speculative than others. The time frames I've identified in the book, of course, are to be taken only as guidelines, to give readers a sense of when certain trends and technologies can be expected to emerge. |
| 3 | The outline for the book is as follows: In Part 1 of Visions, I discuss the remarkable developments that await us in the computer revolution, which are already beginning to transform business, communications, and our lifestyles, and which I believe will one day give us the power to place intelligence in every part of our planet. In Part 2, I turn to the biomolecular revolution, which will ultimately give us the power to alter and synthesize new forms of life, and crate new medicines and therapies. Part 3 focuses on the quantum revolution, perhaps the most profound of the three, which will give us control over matter itself. |
| 4 | I wish to thank the following scientists who have given me their time, advice, and invaluable insights in the course of writing this book: I also wish to thank those individuals who have given me encourgement and have read large portions of this book, including Karl Drlica, Joel Gersten, Mike and Iris Anshel, Tadmiri Venkatesh, and others. HAROLD VARMUS, NIH Director "Prediction is very hard, especially when it's about the future." YOGI BERRA Three centuries ago, Isaac Newton wrote: ". . . to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on a seashore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me." When Newton surveyed the vast ocean of truth which lay before him, the laws of nature were shrouded in an impenetrable veil of mystery, awe, and superstition. Science as we know it did not exist. Life in Newton's time was short, cruel, and brutish. |
| 5 | People were illiterate for the most part, never owned a book or entered a classroom, and rarely ventured beyond several miles of their birthplace. During the day, they toiled at backbreaking work in the fields under a merciless sun. At night, there was usually no entertainment or relief to comfort them except the empty sounds of the night. |
| 6 | Most people knew firsthand the gnawing pain of hunger and chronic, debilitating disease. Most people would live not much longer than age thirty, and would see many of their ten or so children die in infancy. |
| 7 | I would especially like to thank my agent, Stuart Krichevsky, who has guided several of my popular books from conception to the bookshelf, and of course my editor at Anchor Books, Roger School, whose sharp, critical eye has vastly improved the presentation of the manuscript and also helped to focus its message with clarity and thoughtfulness. MICHIO KAKU NEW YORK, N.Y. PART ONE VISIONS 1 Choreographers of Matter, Life, and Intelligence ''There are three great themes in science in the twentieth centurythe atom, the computer, and the gene." |
| 8 | But the few wondrous shells and pebbles picked up by Newton and other scientists on the seashore helped to trigger a marvelous chain of events. A profound transformation occurred in human society. |
| 9 | With Newton's mechanics came powerful machines, and eventually the steam engine, the motive force which reshaped the world by overturning agrarian society, spawning factories and stimulating commerce, unleashing the industrial revolution, and opening up entire continents with the railroad. By the nineteenth century, a period of intense scientific discovery was well underway. |
| 10 | Remarkable advances in science and medicine helped to lift people out of wretched poverty and ignorance, enrich their lives, empower them with knowledge, open their eyes to new worlds, and eventually unleash complex forces which would topple the feudal dynasties, fiefdoms, and empires of Europe. |
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