Book review: 'Physics Of The Future: How Science Will Shape Human Destiny And Our Daily Lives By The Year 2100'

Book: Physics Of The Future: How Science Will Shape Human Destiny And Our Daily Lives By The Year 2100
Michio Kaku
Allen Lane
389 pages
Rs699

Michio Kaku’s book ends with a Mahatma Gandhi quote. That’s weird. Kaku is a renowned physicist and writes about the great advances science and technology will make by the end of this century. And then he quotes Gandhi, for whom the most advanced technology was the hand-spun charkha. By the end of the book, most readers will become Gandhians.

Kaku predicts the future of: computers, artificial intelligence, medicine, nanotechnology, energy, space travel, robots, humanity. There will be life spans of 150 years, anticipation and elimination of ailments, telepathy, magnetic levitation transport, robots for routine or dangerous work, full understanding of the brain and its manipulation to eliminate disorders, continuous body analysis, designer babies, microcomputers which can be activated by eyelid movements, conscious machines which may be more intelligent than humans, space exploration and space colonies, space aliens, re-creation of dinosaurs and other extinct species including Neanderthal man, ‘replicators’ that can assemble molecules to create anything, including furniture and even cities, and much more.

All this sounds very high-tech. But Kaku simplifies everything so that anyone, even those without a science background, can read and appreciate the book. Being a professor, Kaku is obviously a skilled teacher and knows how to convey ideas even to dumb students and provoke them to think.

The best way to enjoy the book is to have a quick glance at any section of the book’s nine chapters before leaving for office, and then to brood during the train or bus journey on the positive and negative consequences of Kaku’s predictions. You can do this daily over many days.

You will wonder how these sci-tech advances will affect your life and the life of your grandchildren and great-grandchildren; what will be their clothes, foods, work places, ways of earning; about marriage and made-to-order babies; the migration of bright and adventurous youngsters to Moon and other space colonies; the changes in their body structures which will bar them from returning to Earth conditions so that family parties can be held only in Earth-orbiting space-stations; interplanetary tuition classes for children; teens demanding brain or body modification so that they can pursue a certain career; changes in morality and aspirations; new forms of art and music and entertainment; evolution of religions, and of gurus in space stations sermonising simultaneously to devotees on Earth and in all space colonies; evolution of languages and obscenities; how politicians will use the new technologies to create conflicts for their own benefit; interplanetary feudal lords and Rupert Murdochs and Dawood Ibrahims; advances in corruption and money laundering; new ways of committing theft and murder; new weapons of terrorism which work silently without big bangs; defence industries creating more advanced weapons of mass destruction; and much more.

At the end of the journey to office you may gasp with pleasure if you are an optimist, or with horror if you are a pessimist. But it is essential to brood about the good and the bad that awaits you in the future.

Kaku speculates about the evolution of civilisation over the next thousand years, from its current primitive 0 rating because it is stuck in racism, nationalism, dictatorships, corruption, terrorism, and all the other evils we are familiar with. Once these evils are overcome and mankind is united into one Earth entity, then we will move to higher levels of civilisation and get the higher ratings of ‘Planetary’ (I), ‘Solar’ (II) and ‘Galactic’ (III). But on the last page, Kaku’s doubts overcome his optimism: can we evolve if we cannot overcome Gandhi’s elementary human formula? The Gandhi quote is:

“The Roots of Violence:
Wealth without work,
Pleasure without conscience,
Knowledge without character,
Commerce without morality,
Science without humanity,
Worship without sacrifice,
Politics without principles.”

The quote sums up the state of human society throughout history. If we couldn’t overcome these evils over thousands of years, can we do it over the next 100 years? Technology optimists and pessimists can have a good fight over this — now and in the future. The book should be made compulsory reading for corporate managers, strategic think tanks, engineering students, researchers in science and technology laboratories, and Gandhian social activists. They must learn about the dangers of gushing futurism and linear predictions which ignore the larger human social picture.

They, and futurists like Michio Kaku, should keep in mind a derivative of Murphy’s Law: “The chief cause of problems is solutions.” Have fun with the book. And think a little more than Michio Kaku expects you to.

— Dilip Raote is a senior journalist