Michio Kaku, nuclear batteries on spacecraft, and Pioneer One(internet TV show)

[Krikkit]

So this was all one thought process I just had and I wanted to get your opinion on a couple things and inform you of one other thing.

Muchio Kaku:

So I was just on Tumblr and someone on my followers list posted a picture of the man along with the caption "Greatest physicist of my time, and my favorite too."

I ended up taking offense to this statement. Back when I was an undergraduate I was studying physics under some of the most brilliant people I have had the pleasure of meeting. I attended symposiums, and read papers from people who were actually making sizable and important contributions to the world of physics, but most of these people the general public will never hear of. Yet Kaku can go on the discovery channel, make some outlandish claims about the year 2100 (With our current understanding of physics there will never be personal flying cars! It isn't energy efficient) and people hop on Tumblr and say "Greatest Physicist of my time." It just irks me and I can't really explain. Its like someone calling Dan Brown the best writer of all time, or Lady GaGa the best musician of all time.

Now don't get me wrong, I don't dislike Kaku personally. I rather enjoyed his Discovery series called Time, but the culture around him.

It is sort of the same problem with Neil deGrasse Tyson, who is a museum curator, not a scientist, but when you ask people to name a scientist his is usually the first name to come up. Carl Sagan has fame but most people consider him more a popularizer, even though he probably contributed more to science than Kaku.

So my question is, am I justified in my dislike of this sort of false profit worship, or am I just being unreasonable?

Nuclear Batteries on Spacecraft:

So I was reading up on Kaku and read that he was publicly apposed to the Cassini-Huygens probe because of its nuclear battery.

I can understand being hesitant to launch a craft with a nuclear battery in case of a launch accident. I can understand not wanting them in LEO where they will eventually come back down to earth, more often than not in an uncontrolled manner. But due to the inverse square law of light intensity, deep space exploration almost requires nuclear power over solar.

So what is the orbiter crowd's opinion on nuclear powered spacecraft?

Pioneer One:

So I don't know if you guys know about this but there is this internet TV show called Pioneer One. Which can be torrented free here.

The basic primes is that the Soviets launched a one way manned mission to Mars in the lat 1980s, and that the offspring of a male and female sent on the trip has returned to earth after growing up on Mars. The story is pretty cool and the science is fairly sound, for scifi anyways. It opens with the return craft, later revealed to be a Soyuz, crashing through the atmosphere. A nuclear battery on board spread radiation over a small area of Canada which is what made me think of this show with the rest of this.

Anyway I recommend that those of you who haven't seen it check it out.

I wonder if it is even possible to fill a Soyuz like craft with enough consumables to last for even the shortest of return trajectories from mars.

 

[Coolhand]

I think the world needs a Kaku, or a Sagan, there will always be a niche in that market, and if its not kaku its someone else but there's only so many people who can occupy that position at once.

If people consider him 'the best' thats not because its something that kaku has achieved, but from their point of view he may be, because he condenses information into effective soundbytes and addresses them in a way they can understand.

 

[RisingFury]

I don't know if Neil deGrasse Tyson is still engaged in research, but I know a while back he was an active researcher.

I agree with the "greatest physicist of our time" statement. And I'm not sure anyone currently alive is worthy of the title.

I don't like Kaku because he sticks his nose everywhere, even in areas he has no experience in. It really annoyed me seeing him on CNN talking about the oil spill...

I do like Tyson though. I could listen to the guy talking for hours!

 

[Jarvitä]

Comparing Kaku with Sagan? Really? The comparison strikes me as similar to comparing a hippie tripping on LSD to a Greek philosopher. They may sound similarly to a person uneducated on the subjects they're discussing, but the similarity ends there.

Also, Kaku is an environmentalist UFO nut. I think there was even a video of him talking about the "moon landing conspiracy" a while back.

 

[Belisarius]

If by "UFO nut", you mean that because he says that 5% of UFO reports are unexplained, he's crazy, that's definitely stretching the definition of nut. Look at this video from 1.30 onwards:

When asked if these UFO sightings have extraterrestrial origin, he says "I wouldn't go that far... There's no smoking gun". He says no more than that: 1 in 20 UFO sightings are at present unexplained.

As for him saying there was an Apollo conspiracy... I think that you haven't got any evidence of that, video or otherwise.

He's a legit physicist, with papers on string theory from 1969 onwards. He's a great explainer of science issues on TV, though not a very good writer, as Sagan was. My son loves his science shows, and there's no doubt that Kaku stimulates interest in science in the young, and popularises it among the general population.

As far as I know, physics is not a competitive sport, with places for 1st, 2nd etc. It's a discipline, in which scientists debate, present arguments, hypotheses and evidence. Of course people can have their opinions as to who does the most valuable work, but it's absurd to even argue about "who's the greatest".

 

[Krikkit]

Comparing Kaku with Sagan? Really?

I did not mean to compare the two. Sagan is possibly the greatest scientific orater of all time.

But people do not consider Sagan a great physicist. And rightfully so, while he was a genuine scientist most of his theories were successfully refuted in his own lifetime. But scientific contribution is not why people like sagan. They like him for being the popularizer.

The reason I mentioned him is that I wished people would consider Kaku the same way. Not as an actual great scientist, but as a great speaker, a man of the people. Trust me, most physicist placed in front of a microphone would mumble on for a bit, say something only 1/10000th of the population would understand, and then walk away.

Science needs articulate voices like Kaku and Tyson, but I also feel that it should be understood that they are speakers for the community, not the community. Sort of like the White House Press Secretary, people understand that he speaks for the President and the Cabinet, but he is not commanding the message behind it.

He's a legit physicist, with papers on string theory from 1969 onwards.

This is possibly why I have a prejudiced against Kaku.

Other than being a hokey futurist, he is a string theorist.

Even though I have just the most rudimentary of understandings of string theory I have never liked the field.

All physics prior to string theory, including relativity and quantum theory, was an attempt to apply a quantitative model to the physical world. String theory has been an attempt to remodel the physical world to match a quantitative model.

I can only image what would have resulted if all the great minds who have been chasing string theory for the past fifty years had put their intellectual effort into solving more practical problems such as fusion, or even nuclear space craft propulsion.

Of course what people choose to spend their time on is their own prerogative.

 

[RisingFury]

As far as I know, physics is not a competitive sport, with places for 1st, 2nd etc.

It's easy to point at Copernicus, Newton, Einstein, Schrödinger... and claim they were the greatest minds of their generations. Their scientific breakthroughs are huge, but fundamental.

To put it another way... "I've heard of Edison, but have no clue who invented the fluorescent light bulb."
(First prototype of the low pressure Hg light bulb: Peter Hewitt)

 

[Quick_Nick]

I like Kaku. I like his shows but he is also much more intelligent than Discovery/Science channel presents him. (he HAS to dumb things down, and you can tell that he does it)

 

[Belisarius]

It's easy to point at Copernicus, Newton, Einstein, Schrödinger... and claim they were the greatest minds of their generations. Their scientific breakthroughs are huge, but fundamental.

And there's no way of knowing now what will be considered the greatest breakthrough in physics in the near future. It may be that the string- and M-brane theorists are correct, in which case Kaku might be counted among the great names of which you speak.

What I really mean by the league table remark is this: unlike sports, where today I can say without any doubt who is the league champion and who is number 2, in science there is no way for contemporaries to know which are the greatest scientific achievements. It's simply not for us to say who is the greatest physicist of our generation - that's something that will only become clear in the future.