Michio Kaku: The Greatest Destroyer of Scientists is Junior High School | AI Podcast Clips
00:00:00.000 | - Is there an aspect of human existence
00:00:04.160 | that is meaningful only because we're mortal?
00:00:06.560 | - Well, every waking moment,
00:00:11.000 | we don't think about it this way,
00:00:12.780 | but every waking moment, actually,
00:00:15.260 | we are aware of our death and our mortality.
00:00:19.140 | Think about it for a moment.
00:00:20.200 | When you go to college,
00:00:22.240 | you realize that you are in a period of time
00:00:24.780 | where soon you will reach middle age and have a career.
00:00:29.240 | And after that, you'll retire, and then you'll die.
00:00:32.760 | And so even as a youth, even as a child,
00:00:36.200 | without even thinking about it,
00:00:38.480 | you are aware of your own death
00:00:40.760 | 'cause it sets limits to your lifespan.
00:00:43.560 | I gotta graduate from high school.
00:00:45.120 | I gotta graduate from college.
00:00:46.760 | Why?
00:00:47.760 | Because you're gonna die.
00:00:49.240 | Because unless you graduate from high school,
00:00:51.800 | unless you graduate from college,
00:00:53.560 | you're not gonna enter old age with enough money
00:00:56.160 | to retire and then die.
00:00:58.360 | And so, yeah, people think about it unconsciously
00:01:01.560 | because it affects every aspect of your being.
00:01:05.820 | The fact that you go to high school, college,
00:01:08.160 | get married, have kids, there's a clock,
00:01:11.160 | a clock ticking even without your permission.
00:01:14.400 | - It gives a sense of urgency.
00:01:17.160 | Do you yourself, I mean,
00:01:19.960 | there's so much excitement and passion
00:01:21.920 | in the way you talk about physics
00:01:23.460 | and the way you talk about technology in the future.
00:01:26.880 | Do you yourself meditate on your own mortality?
00:01:30.320 | Do you think about this clock that's ticking?
00:01:33.500 | - Well, I try not to
00:01:34.680 | because it then begins to affect your behavior.
00:01:38.500 | You begin to alter your behavior
00:01:40.840 | to match your expectation of when you're gonna die.
00:01:45.200 | So let's talk about youth
00:01:46.780 | and then let's talk about death, okay?
00:01:49.960 | When I interview scientists on radio,
00:01:53.720 | I often ask them, what made the difference?
00:01:56.880 | How old were you?
00:01:58.320 | What changed your life?
00:02:00.800 | And they always say more or less the same thing.
00:02:02.960 | No, these are Nobel Prize winners,
00:02:04.520 | directors of major laboratories,
00:02:05.960 | very distinguished scientists.
00:02:07.700 | They always say, when I was 10.
00:02:10.760 | When I was 10, something happened.
00:02:14.380 | It was a visit to the planetarium.
00:02:16.640 | It was a telescope.
00:02:18.320 | For Steven Weinberg, winner of the Nobel Prize,
00:02:20.820 | it was the chemistry kit.
00:02:22.760 | For Heinz Pagels, it was a visit to the planetarium.
00:02:26.160 | For Isidore Rabi, it was a book about the planets.
00:02:29.800 | For Albert Einstein, it was a compass.
00:02:33.040 | Something happened which gives them this existential shock.
00:02:37.760 | 'Cause you see, before the age of 10,
00:02:39.360 | everything is mommy and daddy, mommy and dad.
00:02:41.400 | That's your universe, mommy and daddy.
00:02:43.920 | Around the age of 10, you begin to wonder,
00:02:46.400 | what's beyond mommy and daddy?
00:02:49.560 | And that's when you have this epiphany.
00:02:52.480 | When you realize, oh my God, there's a universe out there.
00:02:57.480 | A universe of discovery.
00:02:59.280 | And that sensation stays with you for the rest of your life.
00:03:04.280 | You still remember that shock
00:03:06.760 | that you felt gazing at the universe.
00:03:09.720 | And then you hit the greatest destroyer
00:03:13.280 | of scientists known to science.
00:03:16.440 | The greatest destroyer of scientists known to science
00:03:21.360 | is junior high school.
00:03:22.800 | When you hit junior high school, folks, it's all over.
00:03:27.760 | It's all over.
00:03:29.640 | Because in junior high school, people say, hey, stupid.
00:03:33.520 | I mean, you like that nerdy stuff
00:03:36.520 | and your friends shun you.
00:03:38.720 | All of a sudden, people think you're a weirdo.
00:03:41.480 | And science is made boring.
00:03:44.120 | You know, Richard Feynman, the Nobel Prize winner,
00:03:46.360 | when he was a child,
00:03:47.920 | his father would take him into the forest.
00:03:50.440 | And the father would teach him everything about birds.
00:03:54.000 | Why they're shaped the way they are.
00:03:55.880 | Their wings, the coloration, the shape of their beak.
00:03:59.440 | Everything about birds.
00:04:02.000 | So one day a bully comes up
00:04:03.360 | to the future Nobel Prize winner and says,
00:04:05.920 | hey, dick, what's the name of that bird over there?
00:04:09.320 | Well, he didn't know.
00:04:11.960 | He knew everything about that bird except its name.
00:04:16.960 | So he said, I don't know.
00:04:19.880 | And then the bully said, what's the matter, dick?
00:04:22.000 | You stupid or something?
00:04:24.000 | And then in that instant, he got it.
00:04:27.680 | He got it.
00:04:29.040 | He realized that for most people,
00:04:30.960 | science is giving names to birds.
00:04:33.920 | That's what science is.
00:04:36.400 | You know, lots of names of obscure things.
00:04:38.720 | Hey, people say, you're smart.
00:04:40.640 | You're smart.
00:04:41.720 | You know all the names of the dinosaurs.
00:04:43.560 | You know all the names of the plants.
00:04:45.480 | No, that's not science at all.
00:04:48.800 | Science is about principles, concepts, physical pictures.
00:04:53.800 | That's what science is all about.
00:04:57.480 | My favorite quote from Einstein is that,
00:05:00.440 | "Unless you can explain the theory to a child,
00:05:03.600 | "the theory is probably worthless."
00:05:06.720 | Meaning that all great theories are not big words.
00:05:11.640 | All great theories are simple concepts,
00:05:14.640 | principles, basic physical pictures.
00:05:19.360 | Relativity is all about clocks, meter sticks,
00:05:23.440 | rocket ships, and locomotives.
00:05:26.080 | Newton's laws of gravity are all about balls
00:05:28.960 | and spinning wheels and things like that.
00:05:32.120 | That's what physics and science is all about,
00:05:34.720 | not memorizing things.
00:05:36.400 | And that stays with you for the rest of your life.
00:05:39.800 | So even in old age, I've noticed that these scientists,
00:05:43.560 | when they sit back, they still remember.
00:05:46.960 | They still remember that flush,
00:05:49.440 | that flush of excitement they felt
00:05:51.960 | with that first telescope,
00:05:53.840 | that first moment when they encountered the universe.
00:05:57.560 | That keeps them going.
00:05:59.000 | That keeps them going.
00:06:00.080 | [ Silence ]
00:06:06.080 | [ Silence ]
00:06:12.080 | [ Silence ]
00:06:18.080 | you