Michio Kaku, born January 24, 1947, is an American theoretical physicist, futurist, and popularizer of science. Kaku is a professor of theoretical physics at the City College of New York and CUNY Graduate Center. He has written several books about physics and related topics, have made frequent appearances on radio, television, and film, and writes online blogs and articles. He has written three New York Times bestsellers: Physics of the Impossible (2008), Physics of the Future (2011), and The Future of the Mind (2014).
Kaku has hosted several TV specials for the BBC, the Discovery Channel, the History Channel, and the Science Channel.
Early life and education
Kaku was born in San Jose, California, to Japanese American parents. His father, born in California and educated in both Japan and the United States, was fluent in Japanese and English. Both his parents were interned in the Tule Lake War Relocation Center during World War II, where they met and where his older brother was born.
While attending Cubberley High School in Palo Alto, Kaku assembled a particle accelerator in his parents’ garage for a science fair project. His admitted goal was to generate “a beam of gamma rays powerful enough to create antimatter.” At the National Science Fair in Albuquerque, New Mexico, he attracted the attention of physicist Edward Teller, who took Kaku as a protégé, awarding him the Hertz Engineering Scholarship. Kaku graduated summa cum laude from Harvard University in 1968 and was first in his physics class. He attended the Berkeley Radiation Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley, and received a Ph.D. in 1972, and that same year held a lectureship at Princeton University.
Kaku was drafted into the United States Army during the Vietnam War. He completed his basic training at Fort Benning, Georgia, and advanced infantry training at Fort Lewis, Washington. However, the Vietnam War ended before he was deployed as an infantryman.
Academic career
As part of the research program in 1975 and 1977 at the department of physics at The City College of the City University of New York, Kaku worked on research on quantum mechanics. He was a Visitor and Member (1973 and 1990) at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton and New York University. He currently holds the Henry Semat Chair and Professorship in theoretical physics at the City College of New York.
Kaku had a role in breaking the SSFL (Santa Susana Field Laboratory) story in 1979. The Santa Susana facility run by Rocket Dyne was responsible for an experimental sodium reactor which had an accident in Simi Valley in the 50s. Kaku was a student involved in breaking the story of the leak of radiation.
Kaku has had more than 70 articles published in physics journals such as Physical Review, covering topics such as superstring theory, supergravity, supersymmetry, and hadronic physics. In 1974, Kaku and Prof. Keiji Kikkawa of Osaka University co-authored the first papers describing string theory in a field form.
Kaku is the author of several textbooks on string theory and quantum field theory.
Popular science
Kaku is most widely known as a popularizer of science and physics outreach specialist. He has written books and appeared on many television programs as well as film. He also hosts a weekly radio program.
Books
- Beyond Einstein: The Cosmic Quest for the Theory of the Universe (with Jennifer Thompson) (1987)
- Hyperspace: A Scientific Odyssey through Parallel Universes, Time Warps, and the Tenth Dimension (1994)
- Visions: How Science Will Revolutionize the 21st Century (1998)
- Einstein’s Cosmos: How Albert Einstein’s Vision Transformed Our Understanding of Space and Time (2004)
- Parallel Worlds: A Journey through Creation, Higher Dimensions, and the Future of the Cosmos (2004)
- Physics of the Impossible: A Scientific Exploration into the World of Phasers, Force Fields, Teleportation, and Time Travel (2008)
- Physics of the Future: How Science Will Shape Human Destiny and Our Daily Lives by the Year 2100 (2011)
- The Future of the Mind: The Scientific Quest to Understand, Enhance, and Empower the Mind (2014)
Hyperspace was a bestseller and voted one of the best science books of the year by The New York Times and The Washington Post. Parallel Worlds was a finalist for the Samuel Johnson Prize for nonfiction in the UK.
See more at http://mkaku.org/
