Visions - Michio Kaku

   1997; 355 pages.  Full Title: Visions – How Science Will Revolutionize the 21^st Century.  New Author? : No.  Genres : Physics; Futurology; Science; Speculative Non-Fiction.  Overall Rating : 9½*/10.

 

    There’s a curious phenomenon that happens as the world approaches a “turn of the century”.  People like to speculate on what their world will be like after another hundred years.  At the end of the 1800s, some fascinating predictions were made for how life in the following century would unfold, almost all of which were far afield, particularly from a technological point of view.  One of them is pictured at the end of this review.

 

    As the year 2000 approached, Michio Kaku decided to share his views of where science and technology are headed in the coming century.  Who the heck is he, what does he know about such complicated stuff, and why should we care what he thinks is going to take place over the next 100 years?

 

    Well, Michio Kaku is not your average layman.  He’s a Professor of Theoretical Physics, the cofounder of something called String Field Theory, and the host of a nationally-syndicated radio science program.

 

    It might be enlightening to read his Visions of the future.

 

What’s To Like...

    The sixteen chapters of Visions are divided into four sections:

Part 1: Visions (Chapter 1)

    An overview and predictions for 1997-2000.

Part 2: The Computer Revolution  (Chapters 2-6)

    Smart Cars, Robots, Holograms, Computers that Think, et al.

Part 3: The Biomolecular Revolution  (Chapters 7-12)

    Killing Tumors via Gene Therapy, Living Forever, Clones, Making Angels, et al.

Part 4: The Quantum Revolution  (Chapters 13-16)

    Nanotechnology, Antimatter, Warp Drives, Wormholes, et al.

 

    The chapters are fairly long, averaging just over 22 pages apiece.  But Michio Kaku breaks them down into bite-sized subsections, mostly only 1 or 2 pages in length, which made it much easier for me to focus on the physics-y concepts being presented.  It also helped that he gave a lot of those subsections catchy titles such as:

    Roadkill on the Information Highway  (pg. 121)

    Of Microbes, Mice, and Men  (pg. 151)

    How Long Can We Live?  (pg. 212)

    What Happened Before the Big Bang?  (pg. 350)

 

    Michio Kaku generally divvies up his next-century predictions into the time slots of 2000-2020, 2020-2050, and 2050-2100.  Once in a while he ventures even further into the future, but those predictions are understandably very iffy.  The fact that the book was published 26 years ago means that his first time slot is now “history”, and it was fun to look at how many of his “visions” have, and have not, come to pass.  The first excerpt below is an example of just how accurate most of his predictions are.  On the whole, he’s spot on, but we’ll list a couple of his “misses” a bit later.

 

    There’s a nice blend between “hard science” topics and popular ones.  At one point, five “Star Trek” gizmos are examined:

Force Fields, 

Starships, 

Portable 

Ray Guns, 

Transporters/Replicators, and Invisibility (Cloaking Devices).

    Michio Kaku concludes that four of those are scientifically impossible to achieve.  Guess which one might eventually be developed?  We’ll leave the answer in the comments section.

 

    In addition to all the cutting-edge technology that is discussed, Visions is also a trivia lover’s delight.  A few examples are: the origin of the word “turnpike”, how to grow a new hand (surprise!: it’s already been done!) why cats are more detached and reserved than dogs, and what percentage of all humans who have walked this earth are alive today.  Who says a science book has to be dull?!

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  4.7/5 based on 266 ratings and 105 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.02/5 based on 2,366 ratings and 99 reviews.

 

Excerpts...

    Eventually, accessing the Internet may resemble talking to the Magic Mirror of children’s fairy tales.  Instead of typing arcane codes and symbols into a Web navigator and being flooded with fifty thousand incorrect answers, in the future we may simply talk to our wall screen or tie clasp and access the entire planet’s formidable body of knowledge.  This Magic Mirror, endowed with an intelligent system complete with a human face and a distinct personality, may act as an adviser, confidant, aide, secretary, and gofer all at the same time.  (pg. 44.  Shades of Siri and Alexa!)

 

    NASA has wisely decided not to repeat the same mistake made in the 1960s, when the space program was largely driven by the Cold War and collapsed after the politicians lost interest in the moon.  It is difficult to chart the future of space travel because the driving force behind the space program has often been politics, rather than science, with politicians demanding that astronauts perform glamorous but largely ceremonial stunts in space which could be done by robots for a fraction of the cost.  As one politician put it: “No Buck Rogers, no bucks.”  (pg. 299)

 

“Bioengineered crops can’t be recalled.”  (pg. 245)

    There is zero cussing in Visions, but that's the norm for science-y books.  Also, the usual geek caveat applies: if things like quantum physics, DNA, and nanotechnology don’t interest you, you probably should give this book a pass.

 

Here are a couple of “misses” in Visions:

    a. Cancer will be cured by 2020.  So will most infectious diseases.

    b. Newspapers will flourish during the Computer Age.

     c. CDs will be our primary way of storing and transporting information.

    d. Enron will contribute to solar energy development.

    e. The middle class will continue to grow in size.

 

    To be fair, a lot of these visions came with caveats.  Kaku notes that if a pandemic hits, then the timing of the disease cures gets set back significantly.  Newspapers will prosper only if they change their ways, doing things such as customizing their content for each customer.  And Enron had not been exposed as a scam.  

 

  But these misses pale in comparison to Michio Kaku’s “hits”.  For me, Visions was both an enlightening and captivating read.  This was my third book by this author, and I’ve loved every one of them.  Full disclosure: I am a chemist by career, so of course I’m fascinated by science-geeky books like this.

 

    9½ Stars.  As promised, here is a postcard depicting one of the many visions made just prior to 1900 predicting daily life one hundred years hence.  For more of these Google-Image the word “FutureDays”.