Quotes from Michio Kaku

mathematician's patterns, like the painter's or the poet's, must be beautiful; the ideas, like the colors or the words, must fit together in a harmonious way. Beauty is the first test; there is no permanent place in the world for ugly mathematics." And that beauty is symmetry.

Because both quantum theory and Einstein's theory of gravity are united in ten-dimensional space, we expect that the question of time travel will be settled decisively by the hyperspace theory. As in the case of wormholes and dimensional windows, the final chapter will be written when we incorporate the full power of the hyperspace theory.

Tachyons at first seem to violate causality, but physicists believe that their true purpose was to set off the big bang and hence they are not observable anymore.

Three of the four forces (excluding gravity) are therefore united by quantum theory, giving us unification without geometry, which appears to contradict the theme of this book and everything we have considered so far.

When we force a smile, we activate facial muscles with our prefrontal cortex. But when we smile because we are in a good mood, our nerves are controlled by our limbic system, which activates a slightly different set of muscles. Our brains can tell the subtle difference between the two, which was beneficial for our evolution.)

When bathed in telomerase, skin cells divide indefinitely, far beyond the Hayflick limit. ..... But it should be pointed out that telomerase has to be regulated very carefully, because cancer cells are also immortal and they use telomerase to attain that immortality.

Rotating in four-dimensional space unifies the concept of space and time, turning one into the other as the velocity is increased. This beautiful, elegant concept, that symmetry unifies seemingly dissimilar entities into a pleasing, harmonious whole, guided Einstein for the next fifty years.

in string theory, the dimensionality of space-time is fixed at ten dimensions.

Feynman once wrote, quantum mechanics "describes nature as absurd from the point of view of common sense. And it fully agrees with experiment. So I hope you can accept nature as She is–absurd.

Einstein wrote, "Quantum mechanics calls for a great deal of respect. But some inner voice tells me that this is not the true Jacob. The theory offers a lot, but it hardly brings us any closer to the Old Man's secret. For my part, at least, I am convinced that He doesn't throw dice.")

If our brains were simple enough to be understood, we wouldn't be smart enough to understand them. —ANONYMOUS

Theories have four stages of acceptance: i. this is worthless nonsense; ii. this is interesting, but perverse; iii. this is true, but quite unimportant; iv. I always said so. —J. B. S. HALDANE, 1963

After that cancellation [of the Superconducting Super Collider in Texas, after $2 billion had been spent on it], we physicists learned that we have to sing for our supper. ... The Cold War is over. You can't simply say "Russia!" to Congress, and they whip out their checkbook and say, "How much?" We have to tell the people why this atom-smasher is going to benefit their lives.

More recently, these electrodes have targeted a new area of the brain (called Brodmann's area number 25) that is often overactive in depressed patients who do not respond to psychotherapy or drugs. Deep brain stimulation has given almost miraculous relief after decades of torment and agony for these long-suffering patients.

If you haven't found something strange during the day, it hasn't been much of a day. —JOHN WHEELER

White lies, in fact, are like a grease that makes society run smoothly.

Only those who attempt the absurd will achieve the impossible. —M. C. ESCHER

Consciousness turns out to consist of a maelstrom of events distributed across the brain. These events compete for attention, and as one process outshouts the others, the brain rationalizes the outcome after the fact and concocts the impression that a single self was in charge all along.

If at first an idea does not sound absurd, then there is no hope for it. – ALBERT EINSTEIN

The popularity of perpetual motion machines is widespread. On an episode of The Simpsons, entitled "The PTA Disbands," Lisa builds her own perpetual motion machine during a teachers' strike. This prompts Homer to declare sternly, "Lisa, get in here…in this house we obey the laws of thermodynamics!

Like the invention of the telescope, the introduction of MRI machines and a variety of advanced brain scans

So string theory and M-theory are really the same theory, except that string theory is a reduction of eleven-dimensional M-theory to ten dimensions.)

Unfortunately, with the collapse of classical civilization, these philosophical discussions and debates were lost. The concept that there could be a paradigm explaining the universe was forgotten for almost a thousand years. Darkness spread over the Western world, and scientific inquiry was largely replaced by belief in superstition, magic, and sorcery.

To make Harry Potter invisible, one would have to liquefy him, boil him to create steam, crystallize him, heat him again, and the cool him, all of which would be quite difficult to accomplish, even for a wizard