Michio Kaku (; born January 24, 1947) is an
American theoretical physicist, futurist,
and popularizer of science (science communicator).
He is a professor of theoretical physics in
the City College of New York and CUNY Graduate
Center.
Kaku has written several books about physics
and related topics, has made frequent appearances
on radio, television, and film, and writes
online blogs and articles.
He has written four New York Times best sellers:
Physics of the Impossible (2008), Physics
of the Future (2011), 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 ==
Kaku was born in San Jose, California, to
second-generation Japanese-American parents.
His father and mother were both born in California;
his father was born in Palo Alto, and his
mother in Marysville.
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, who was about to be drafted, joined
the United States Army in 1968-1970 during
the Vietnam War.
He completed his basic training at Fort Benning,
Georgia, and advanced infantry training at
Fort Lewis, Washington.
However, he was never deployed to Vietnam.
== 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 RocketDyne
was responsible for an experimental sodium
reactor which had an accident in Simi Valley
in the 1950s.
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 ===
Kaku is the author of various popular science
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)
The Future of Humanity: Terraforming Mars,
Interstellar Travel, Immortality, and Our
Destiny Beyond Earth (2018) ISBN 978-0525589532Hyperspace
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.
=== Radio ===
Kaku is the host of the weekly one-hour radio
program Exploration, produced by the Pacifica
Foundation's WBAI in New York.
Exploration is syndicated to community and
independent radio stations and makes previous
broadcasts available on the program's website.
Kaku defines the show as dealing with the
general topics of science, war, peace and
the environment.
In April 2006, Kaku began broadcasting Science
Fantastic on 90 commercial radio stations
in the United States.
It is syndicated by Talk Radio Network and
now reaches 130 radio stations and America's
Talk on XM and remains the only nationally
syndicated science radio program.
Featured guests include Nobel laureates and
top researchers in the fields of string theory,
time travel, black holes, gene therapy, aging,
space travel, artificial intelligence and
SETI.
When Kaku is busy filming for television,
Science Fantastic goes on hiatus, sometimes
for several months.
Kaku is also a frequent guest on many programs,
where he is outspoken in all areas and issues
he considers of importance, such as the program
Coast to Coast AM where, on November 30, 2007,
he reaffirmed his belief that the existence
of extraterrestrial life is a certainty.
During the debut of Art Bell's new radio show
Dark Matter on September 16, 2013, Bell referred
to Kaku as "the next Carl Sagan", referring
to Kaku's similar ability to explain complex
science so anyone can understand it.
Kaku has appeared on many mainstream talk
shows, discussing popular fiction such as
Back to the Future, Lost, and the theories
behind the time travel these and other fictional
entertainment focus on.
=== Television and film ===
Kaku has appeared in many forms of media and
on many programs and networks, including Good
Morning America, The Screen Savers, Larry
King Live, 60 Minutes, Imus In The Morning,
Nightline, 20/20, Naked Science, CNN, ABC
News, CBS News, NBC News, Al Jazeera English,
Fox News Channel, The History Channel, Conan,
The Science Channel, The Discovery Channel,
TLC, Countdown with Keith Olbermann, The Colbert
Report, The Art Bell Show and its successor,
Coast to Coast AM, BBC World News America,
The Covino & Rich Show, Head Rush, Late Show
with David Letterman, and Real Time with Bill
Maher.
He was interviewed for two PBS documentaries,
The Path to Nuclear Fission: The Story of
Lise Meitner and Otto Hahn and Out from the
Shadows: The Story of Irène Joliot-Curie
and Frédéric Joliot-Curie, which were produced
and directed by his former WBAI radio colleague
Rosemarie Reed.In 1999, Kaku was one of the
scientists profiled in the feature-length
film Me & Isaac Newton, directed by Michael
Apted.
It played theatrically in the United States,
was later broadcast on national TV, and won
several film awards.In 2005, Kaku appeared
in the short documentary film Obsessed & Scientific
about the possibility of time travel and the
people who dream about it.
It screened at the Montreal World Film Festival;
a feature film expansion is in development
talks.
Kaku also appeared in the ABC documentary
UFOs: Seeing Is Believing, in which he suggested
that while he believes it is extremely unlikely
that extraterrestrials have ever actually
visited Earth, we must keep our minds open
to the possible existence of civilizations
a million years ahead of us in technology,
where entirely new avenues of physics open
up.
He also discussed the future of interstellar
exploration and alien life in the Discovery
Channel special Alien Planet as one of the
multiple speakers who co-hosted the show,
and Einstein's Theory of Relativity on The
History Channel.In February 2006, Kaku appeared
as presenter in the BBC-TV four-part documentary
Time which seeks to explore the mysterious
nature of time.
Part one of the series concerns personal time,
and how we perceive and measure the passing
of time.
The second in the series deals with cheating
time, exploring possibilities of extending
the lifespan of organisms.
The geological time covered in part three
explores the ages of the Earth and the Sun.
Part four covers the topics of cosmological
time, the beginning of time and the events
that occurred at the instant of the big bang.
On January 28, 2007, Kaku hosted the Discovery
Channel series 2057.
This three-hour program discussed how medicine,
the city, and energy could change over the
next 50 years.
In 2008, Kaku hosted the three-hour BBC-TV
documentary Visions of the Future, on the
future of computers, medicine, and quantum
physics, and he appeared in several episodes
of the History Channel's Universe series.
On December 1, 2009, he began hosting a 12-episode
weekly TV series for the Science Channel at
10 pm, called Sci Fi Science: Physics of the
Impossible, based on his best-selling book.
Each 30-minute episode discusses the scientific
basis behind imaginative schemes, such as
time travel, parallel universes, warp drive,
star ships, light sabers, force fields, teleportation,
invisibility, death stars, and even superpowers
and flying saucers.
Each episode includes interviews with the
world's top scientists working on prototypes
of these technologies, interviews with science
fiction fans, clips from science fiction movies,
and special effects and computer graphics.
Although these inventions are impossible today,
the series discusses when these technologies
might become feasible in the future.
In 2010, he began to appear in a series on
the website Gametrailers.com called Science
of Games, discussing the scientific aspects
of various popular video games such as Mass
Effect 2 and Star Wars: The Force Unleashed.
Kaku's popularity in American culture can
largely be attributed to his charismatic way
of explaining complex scientific theories
in layman's terms.
While his technical writings are confined
to theoretical physics, his public speaking
and media appearances cover a broad range
of topics, from the Kardashev scale to more
esoteric subjects such as wormholes and time
travel.
In January 2007, Kaku visited Oman.
While there, he talked at length to select
members of that country's decision makers.
In an interview with local media, Kaku elaborated
on his vision of mankind's future.
Kaku considers climate change and terrorism
as serious threats in man's evolution from
a Type 0 civilization to Type 1 on the Kardashev
scale.He is featured in Symphony of Science's
songs, "The Quantum World", "Our Place in
the Cosmos", "The Secret of the Stars", and
"Monsters of the Cosmos"
On October 11, 2010, Michio Kaku appeared
in the BBC program "What Happened Before the
Big Bang" (along with Laura Mersini-Houghton,
Andrei Linde, Roger Penrose, Lee Smolin, Neil
Turok, and other notable cosmologists and
physicists), where he propounded his theory
of the universe created out of nothing.Over
January 22–25, 2011, Kaku was invited to
the fifth annual Global Competitiveness Forum
(GCF), held in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, next
to renowned specialists including the British
journalist Nick Pope, the Canadian ufologist
Stanton Friedman, and the French astrophysicist
Jacques Vallée.Kaku appears on the DVD and
Blu-ray extras of the 2012 version of Total
Recall, discussing the technological aspects
of the future explored in the film.
=== Web series ===
In 2018, Kaku hosts the web series Next World
with Michio Kaku on CuriosityStream.
== Policy advocacy and activism ==
Kaku has publicly stated his concerns over
matters including people denying the anthropogenic
cause of global warming, nuclear armament,
nuclear power and what he believes to be the
general misuse of science.
He was critical of the Cassini–Huygens space
probe because of the 72 pounds (33 kg) of
plutonium contained in the craft for use by
its radioisotope thermoelectric generator.
Conscious of the possibility of casualties
if the probe's fuel were dispersed into the
environment during a malfunction and crash
as the probe was making a 'sling-shot' maneuver
around Earth, Kaku publicly criticized NASA's
risk assessment.
He has yet to comment on the successful mission.
His remark from an interview in support of
SETI, "We could be in the middle of an intergalactic
conversation... and we wouldn't even know",
is used in the third Symphony of Science installment
"Our Place in the Cosmos".
Michio Kaku is also a member of the CuriosityStream
Advisory Board.
== Personal life ==
Kaku is married to Shizue Kaku and has two
daughters, Alyson and Michelle.
== In 
popular culture ==
In 2016, Kaku appeared in a TV commercial
for TurboTax.In 2001 the British rock band
Muse released their Origin of Symmetry album.
The theme and name of the album is based on
Kaku's book Hyperspace.
== Works ==
Kaku, Michio; Trainer, Jennifer, eds. (1982).
Nuclear Power: Both Sides.
New York: Norton.
ISBN 0-393-01631-5.
Kaku, Michio; Jennifer Trainer Thompson (1987).
Beyond Einstein: Superstrings and the Quest
for the Final Theory.
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
ISBN 0-19-286196-4.
Kaku, Michio; Daniel Axelrod (1987).
To Win a Nuclear War: The Pentagon's Secret
War Plans.
Boston: South End Press.
ISBN 0-89608-321-7.
Kaku, Michio (1993).
Quantum Field Theory: A Modern Introduction.
New York: Oxford University Press.
ISBN 0-19-507652-4.
Kaku, Michio (1994).
Hyperspace: A Scientific Odyssey Through Parallel
Universes, Time Warps, and the Tenth Dimension.
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
ISBN 0-19-286189-1.
Kaku, Michio (1998).
Visions: How Science Will Revolutionize the
21st Century.
New York: Oxford University Press.
ISBN 0-19-288018-7.
Kaku, Michio (1999).
Introduction to Superstrings and M-Theory.
New York: Springer.
ISBN 0-387-98589-1.
Kaku, Michio (1999).
Strings, Conformal Fields, and M-Theory.
New York: Springer.
ISBN 0-387-98892-0.
Kaku, Michio (2004).
Einstein's Cosmos: How Albert Einstein's Vision
Transformed Our Understanding of Space and
Time.
London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson.
ISBN 0-297-84755-4.
Kaku, Michio (2004).
Parallel Worlds: The Science of Alternative
Universes and Our Future in the Cosmos.
London: Allen Lane.
ISBN 0-7139-9728-1.
Kaku, Michio (2008).
"M-Theory: The Mother of All Superstrings"
in Riffing on Strings: Creative Writing Inspired
by String Theory.
New York: Scriblerus.
ISBN 978-0-9802114-0-5.
Kaku, Michio (2008).
Physics of the Impossible.
New York: Doubleday.
ISBN 978-0-385-52069-0.
Kaku, Michio (2011).
Physics of the Future: How Science will Shape
Human Destiny and our Daily Lives by the Year
2100.
New York: Doubleday.
LCCN 2010026569.
Kaku, Michio (2014).
The Future of the Mind: The Scientific Quest
to Understand, Enhance, and Empower the Mind.
New York: Doubleday.
ISBN 978-0385530828.
Kaku, Michio (2018).
The Future of Humanity: Terraforming Mars,
Interstellar Travel, Immortality, and Our
Destiny Beyond Earth.
New York: Doubleday.
ISBN 978-0385542760.
== Filmography ==
== 
See also ==
Anti-nuclear movement in the United States
List of peace activists
Carl Sagan
