The Book: Michio Kaku
Humans are on the verge of "becoming masters of nature,"
p. 10.
Reductionism is at a dead end and synergy is replacing specialization. Much as Snow argued.
p. 11.
"Nature is smarter than we are."
Michio Kaku, Visions, Part 2
2 The Invisible Computer 23
3 The Intelligent Planet 43
4 Machines that Think 70
5 Beyond Silicon 99
6 Second Thoughts: Will Humans become Obsolete? 118
Chapter Sections pages
2 The Invisible Computer 23
The Disappearing PC 24
Three Phases of Computing 26
The Third Phase and Beyond 27
Moore’s Law 28
What drives Moore’s Law? 29
Sensors and the invisible computer 30
The Smart Office and home of the future 32
The MIT Media Lab 33
Wearable computers 35
The Smart Room 36
Smart Cards, digital money and cyber cash 37
Smart Cars 38
Virtual Reality and cyber science 40
Doomed by the point one limit? 41
3 The Intelligent Planet 43
Why no policeman on the block 44
How the Internet came about 45
Mother of all Nets 48
The Historical significance of the Internet 49
How the Internet will shape our lives 51
Bottlenecks on the Internet 52
The Merger of TV and the Internet 55
Wall Screens 56
Speech Recognition 58
Intelligent Agents 59
Expert Systems 60
Common Sense is not so common 62
The Encyclopedia of Common Sense 64
Ife in 2020 66
Conclusion 69
Chapter Sections pages
4 Machines that Think 70
Creating the Future 70
Cross-fertilization of the Three Revolutions 72
Machines that Think 73
Preprogrammed Robots 76
Robotics and the Brain 78
Talking Robots 81
Robotics meets Quantum Physics 82
What are Dreams? 85
COG 87
Can Robots Feel? 90
Robot Consciousness 93
Degrees of Consciousness 96
5 Beyond Silicon 99
Into the third dimension 101
Optical Computers 102
Holographic Memory 103
DNA Computers 104
Quantum Transistors 107
The Ultimate Computer 109
Beyond 2050 110
Bionics 112
Merging Mind and Machine 114
The Distant Future: Growing Cyborgs in the lab 115
6 Second Thoughts: Will Humans become Obsolete? 118
Eavesdropping on the Internet 119
Roadkill on the information Highway 121
Jobs Which Will Flourish 123
Industries which will change–or Die 124
Winners and Losers 126
Increase the Pie 128
What creates wealth in the 21st century 128
Robotic Dangers: Self-aware Robots 130
Robots as Killing Machines [War now] 131
Robots that go mad 132
Can Three Laws Protect Us? (Asimov) 133
The Three laws of robotics 134
Michio Kaku Visions: Part 3
THE BIOMOLECULAR REVOUTION
7 Personal DNA Codes
8 Conquering Cancer –Fixing Our Genes
9 Molecular Medicine and the Mind / Body Link
10 To Live Forever
11 Playing God: Designer Children and Clones
12 Second Thoughts: The Genetics of a Brave New World
Chapter Sections pages
7 Personal DNA Codes
“The future...now we know its in our Genes”
Mapping the Human Genome 140
Predictions for the future 141
# of genes for each organ 142
Molecular medicine 144
What is Life? 146
From Quantum physics to DNA 147
Reading the Code of life 149
Of microbes, mice and men 151 Humans have 5 billion base pairs
Human family tree 152
DNA Testing 154
Synergy between Computer & DNA Research 156
Computational Biology 157
DNA on a Chip 158
Post Genome (comp.. 2004) Era 159
8 The Father of Gene Therapy 163
Three stages in medicine 165
Scourge of Cancer 165
A Unified Theory of Cancer 166
P-53 The Key to most Cancers 167
Telomeres the fuse for cancer 169
Cancer in 2020 171
Hereditary Diseases: Ancient Scourge 172
How Hereditary Diseases have altered History 173
The Final Frontier: SCIDS 177
From 2020-2050 178-79
9 Is there a mind / body link?
Eliminating Killer Viruses 183
Origins of Viruses 185
HIV 186
Computers and the Aids family tree 187
Unraveling the AIDS genome 188
New Microbes 190
Too much of a good thing 191
Designer Molecules 192
Of Molecules and Mystics 194
Mind Body link 196
Imaging Devices for the 21st Century 198
10 The Search for the Fountain of U=Youth 202
Animals that are Immortal 202
How old was Juliet? 203
The Physics of Aging 204
Aging: You’re just getting rusty 205
Hormones: the elixir of life? 206
Cancer and Aging 207
How long can we live? 212
You aren’t what you eat: The Caloric Theory 215
11 Manipulating the genes 221
Transgenic Animals and Plants 222
Polygenic traits 227
Genes for body shape 224
Genes for behavior 231
Master Genes for the Eye 235
Master Architecture for the body 237
Angels in America 238
12 Nuclear Energy vs. Genetic Revolution 243
You can’t recall a crop 244
Who Owns the Genome 246
Gens and Privacy 246
Are Genes Us? 248
After 2020: Manipulating our Germ Line 251
To Clone a Human 253
The Eugenics Movement 256
Biological Warfare 257
Legislating the Genome 259
Michio Kaku Visions: Part 4
IV THE QUANTUM REVOLUTION
“Anyone who is not shocked by the quantum theory does not understand it.” N. Bohr.
13 The Quantum future 205
14 To Reach the Stars 295
15 Toward A Planetary Civilization 323
16 Masters of Space and Time 338
Chapter Sections pages
13 Nanotechnology and molecular machines 266
MEMS to 2020 269
After 20202: Building molecular machines 270
Room temperature superconductors (dream) 273
Maglev Trains 276
Fusion Harnessing a piece of the sun 277
Fusion vs. Fission 281
Breeders and Terrorism 282
Here comes the [power of the] sun 283
The Hybrid / Electric Car 285
The Next Generation of Lasers 287
Antimatter Engines 290
Defying the known limits of Physical laws 292
Portable Ray Guns 292
Force fields 293
Invisibility 294
14 “possibility of extinct life on Mars
From now to then 296
Mars the Frozen Desert 298
Space Station 299
X-33 the workhorse of the 21st century 301
The Orient Express
2020 to 2050
Extra solar panels in space 306
Finding earth-like planets in outer space 307
Creating a Garden of Eden in Space 309
Building a starship 311
Nuclear Pulsed Rockets 313
Photonic Engines 314
Suspended animation 315
Cosmic Collisions 316
To die in Fire and Ice 318
Aliens in Space will they look like us? 319-20
15 Toward A Planetary Civilization 323
Dangers faced by our type (O) of civilization 324
Type I: planetary civilization 325
Type II: civilization—invulnerable to any natural disaster 326
Type III: civilization – Conquering the Galaxy 327
Toward a planetary civilization 329
Planetary Collapse 330
Population explosion vs Diminishing Resources 331
Reversing the Great Diaspora 333
End of the Era of Nations 334
The Rise of the Middle class 335
De Facto Planetary Language and Culture 336
16 Masters of Space and Time 338
The Fourth Pillar: space and time 339
Black Holes and Wormholes 341
Time Travel 342
The problems with Wormholes & Time machines 344
Toward a Theory of Everything 345
Two Polar Opposites 346
Superstrings 348
The Tenth Dimension 349
What happened before the big bang? 350
The Multiverse 352
The Fate of the Universe 353
Conclusion 355
Examples of the shift we are experiencing and where it is headed:
• Automation can refabricate our experience, but can it replace experience?
• Artificial intelligence: if not top down is it bottom up at MIT?
• Nanotechnology and robotics from the quantum mechanical world.
• Laws of technical change are rarely if ever broken.
Hawthorne's dream of electricity, based on his understanding of the telegraph.
p.43.
"Perhaps . . . science and technology advance and thrive . . . when scientists and engineers interact with one another."
This remark is an example of Pacey's dialog.
p. 45.
Argument over the top down approach
pp. 79-80.
Writing about technological changes.
21st century prognostications
Transportation:
“The Hybrid takes advantage of many ways in which electric batteries, motors, flywheel, and small gas engines can be figured. In one design, an electric battery is used for stop-and-go urban traffic, where endurance is not important. When the car is idling, the car’s energy is shifted to a rapidly spinning flywheel. In this way, even when the car is stopped at a light or in heavy traffic, a large amount of energy is being stored quietly through the action of a spinning wheel.”
p. 285.
“store large amounts of kinetic energy.”
“The Swiss Esro car, for example, . . . gets an astonishing 120 to 150 miles per gallon of gas.” By using composite materials.
p. 286.
“it is unlikely that such a jump start for solar electricity will come from the federal government. . . . However, in 1995, two commercial companies, the Enron Company, the largest supplier of natural gas, and Amoco Coroporation, which owns Solarex* and produces solar cells, began a joint venture to supply an entire city of 100,000 people with solar electricity.”
“They claimed that the $150 million solar plant they are building will be able to supply electricity at 5 cents per kilowatt-hour, about two cents cheaper than fossil fuel plants.”
p. 284.
*OkSolar.com Serving The Industry Since 1988.
“Every year, the economics of solar power become more favorable, while the cost of fission power soars and the problem with burning fossil fuel grow.”
“wind-power, geothermal power, cogeneration. . .
“inevitably will continue to grow and prosper in the twenty-first century, in spite of the foot dragging by the politicians.”
p. 284.
reference:
Visions: How Science will Revolutionize the 21st century.
Pacey on Meaning | Pursell | Technology defined | Dimensions of Technology | Chronology
Arnold Pacey, Technology in World Civilization
Pursell | Tenner | Pacey–World| Pacey–Meaning | Postman | Eberhart | Snow | K aku
