Parallel Worlds

Title: Parallel WorldsAuthor: Michio KakuPublisher: Penguin Books 2006 (First published 2005)ISBN: 978-0-141-01463-0Pages: 381

Michio Kaku’s colossal work on what’s going on in cosmology and leading-edge physical research. Every topic imaginable in the confines of these disciplines is collated and elucidated in fine detail in the inimitable Kaku style. Though the subject and the title is a little esoteric, the world renowned author makes them understandable even to the layman. The book is divided into three main parts, subtitled The Universe, The Mutiverse and Escape into Hyperspace. In part 1, the origin and expansion of the universe is described in a lucid manner. The Big Bang and the subsequent inflation (the incredible, superliminal expansion of the Universe right after the instant of the Big Bang) are explained. Several paradoxes associated with the development of cosmology like Olber’s paradox are brought into clear light. In the second part, advanced concepts such as dimensional portals, time travel, parallel quantum universes, string and M-theories are described. Part 3 concerns itself with the eschatological models of the universe. Several variations of the end, like the Big Crunch, Big Freeze etc are given and analysed in detail. As per the latest scientific findings, the universe will continue to expand and the most likely scenario is the Big Freeze, when all the heat is dissipated due to the unabated expansion, combined with the increased separation of particles. Such a ‘heat death’ seems inevitable in several tens of billions of years which might end all intelligent life, unless such life finds a wormhole to another habitable parallel universe which exist side by side with ours all the time, but which is inaccessible to us by the limiting nature of our current technology.

Experimental results and the current state of knowledge on matters relating to the age and composition of the cosmos is illustrated. According to physicists, the universe consists of 4% matter, 23% dark matter and the remaining 73% dark energy (in the form of antigravity). Also, the data obtained from the WMAP satellite (Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe) proves that the universe continues to expand and the age of the universe is 13.7 billion years. As one group of scientists believe, parallel universes are spawning from the current one in infinite numbers, in several big bangs occurring at every instant. The Newton’s Principia Mathematica was the most famous single science publication of all time. The motivation behind the enterprise is described. Edmund Halley, an amateur astronomer studied the comet which appeared in 1682 and found the periodicity of it. The comet was later made eponymous to Halley. He was a friend of Newton and asked him what force might possibly exert on the comet for this regularity of appearances, to which Newton replied that the comet was moving in an ellipse as a consequence of an inverse square law. He said he was observing the comet with a telescope he has built and found that it was obeying the law. Halley was shocked and Newton simply said that he had calculated it. Impressed by the significance of this monumental breakthrough, Halley encouraged and financed the publication of the seminal work of which 250 copies were printed in that first run.

A nice elucidation of Olber’s paradox is given. This starts by asking why the night sky is black. Astronomers as early as Johannes Kepler realized that if the universe were uniform and infinite, then wherever you looked, you’d see the light from an infinite number of stars. Gazing at any point in the night sky, our line of sight will eventually cross an uncountable number of stars and thus receive an infinite amount of starlight. Thus the night sky should be white, instead of black. The paradox is deceptively simple, but has bedeviled many generations of philosophers and astronomers. The answer comes from the Big Bang, which states that though there may be infinite number of stars, many of them are so far away by the initial explosion that there has not been sufficient time for their light to reach earth. Also, the fixed life of stars may cause those in the visible universe to die out too.

George Gamow, a Russian scientist was the man behind the theory of the Big Bang. A curious anecdote is given of how he veered his career to science. The turning point in his early life came when he went to church and secretly took home some communion bread after the service. Looking through a microscope, he could see no difference between the communion bread, representing the flesh of Jesus Christ, and ordinary bread. He concluded, “I think this was the experiment which made me a scientist” (p.53). The origins of elements are described as, “The very light elements up to mass 5 and 8 were created by the Big Bang, as Gamow believed. Today, as the result of discoveries in physics we know that the Big Bang did produce most of the deuterium, helium-3, helium-4 and lithium-7 we see in nature. But the heavier elements up to iron were mostly cooked in the cores of the stars. If we add the elements beyond iron (such as copper, zinc and gold) that were blasted out by the blistering heat of a supernova, then we have a complete picture explaining the relative abundances of all the elements in the universe” (p.65).

There are immense gamma ray bursters in deep space as a result of immense nuclear interactions. “The discovery of them makes interesting reading. In the 70s, at the height of cold war, U.S. launched the Vela satellite to specifically spot nuke flashes or unauthorized detonation of nuclear bombs. Because a nuclear detonation unfolds in distinct stages, microsecond by microsecond, each nuke flash gives off a characteristic double flash of light that can be seen by satellite. (It picked up two such flashes in the 1970s off the coast of Prince Edward Island near South Africa, in the presence of Israeli warships, sightings that are still being debated by the intelligence community). But what startled the Pentagon was that the Vela satellite was picking up signs of huge nuclear explosions in space. Was the Soviet Union secretly detonating hydrogen bombs in deep space, using an unknown, advanced technology? Concerned that the Soviets might have leapfrogged over the U.S. in weapons technology, top scientists were brought in to analyze these deeply disturbing signals. After the breakup of USSR, there was no need to classify this information and these data was dumped on the astronomical community” (p.126).

A theory on the origin and development of the universe appealing to most of the believers is the anthropic theory. It states that the physical parameters so crucial to intelligent life are finetuned to a fine margin which implies that a superior being, sometimes called God had tweaked these settings. This is the strong anthropic principle. The weaker version of this principle states that the settings are exactly as required, otherwise we won’t be able to observe it. There may be universes in which these constants have different values in which life may not exist. Alan Guth, the scientist who discovered inflation immediately after the big bang commented on anthropic principle as, “I find it hard to believe that anybody would ever use the anthropic principle if he had a better explanation for something. I’ve yet, for example, to hear an anthropic principle of world history…The anthropic principle is something that people do if they can’t think of anything better to do” (p.249). Religionists and other god-believers often gloat over the supposed religiosities of prominent scientists like Newton and Einstein. Though the personal beliefs of scientists are no matter which need to involve the great principles they formulated, the bravado and false sense of glory of the religious propagandists are often grating on the nerves. However, Einstein’s comments on God may be useful to put them in their proper place. He said, “I believe in Spinoza’s God who reveals Himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with fates and actions of human beings….I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation….Neither can I believe that the individual survives the death of his body” (p.357).

The book however, unnecessarily attempts to reconcile scientific concepts to religious dogmas like the creative and eschatological myths prevalent in many civilizations. Kaku virtually supports the ideas of the Big Bang and parallel universes supports divine creation and nirvana. Such thoughts are disturbing in a scientific anthology. Instead of laying threadbare the illogic behind such religious concepts, he goes out of the way to suit advanced physical theories to fit the loose coat of religious fantasies which are adaptive to any theory. Also, the long list of acknowledged personalities, including nine Nobel laureates and several aspirants, is a little boastful! The author is an expert of String theory and contributed greatly to its invention. This has resulted in a long and dense description of the finer details of the theory like symmetries, n-dimesional membranes etc, which goes on top of average readers. Attempts describing the end of the universe lacks convincing detail and on many occasions, falls to the level of mere speculation and metaphysics. An unduly long portion of the book is dedicated to such theories, like escaping to parallel universes the existence of which is not verified and is not probable that they be verified for a considerable time to come.

In the final consideration, the book is of tremendous value to a reader on science and is a must if you collect such books. Michio Kaku’s books are a delight to read and the satisfaction we extract out of these magnificent works of sheer research and intuition is most gratifying. Highly recommended.

Rating: 4 Star