The God Equation by Michio Kaku
Narrative non-fiction
What is the meaning of life?
Is there meaning?
If you’ve ever read or watched The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, you know the answer is “forty-two,” which leaves us with a follow up: What is the right question? “The god equation” attempts to provide the groundwork so that the physicists of tomorrow can ask the right question.
I’m fascinated by astrophysics, for the mathematics involved, for the cosmic connection to the great tesseract, for the question-and-answer conversation between theory and experiment spanning decades, centuries. Old friends, they are, theory and experimentation, as friendly as physics and philosophy.
During my college years, I studied philosophy and saw first-hand how little the big questions of meaning and existence have changed over time. From Socrates and Plato, Kierkegaard, Descartes, Nietzsche, Mill, Kant, Hobbs, and Hume, to Emerson and Thoreau, all of these great thinkers and more attempted to answer the question, What is the meaning of life? Though none came up with a satisfactory answer, according to the world’s physicists.
But the most persistent question plaguing today’s physicists was from a man who’s been dead for more than 800 years: Saint Thomas Aquinas.
Things move because they are pushed—that is, something sets them into motion. But what is the First Mover or First Cause that set the universe into motion?
For Aquinas, the answer to the cosmological proof was God (Importantly, he was a devout Catholic who set out to prove God’s existence, so, you know, bias.).
But I have a major problem with this: the cosmological proof assumes there must have been a first mover.
Why?
We know that our universe has a finite start: The Big Bang.
And the multiverse theory allows for a finite universe within an infinite multiverse.
However, you can’t test a negative theory. You can’t prove God doesn’t exist the same way you can’t prove unicorns don’t exist; you simply can’t check everywhere all at once, so God and the unicorns may just be hiding.
Sneaky buggers.
So the cosmological proof is not only untestable, it is undecidable . . . at least by today’s scientific standards.
Like Socrates said, All I know is that I know nothing.
Here are a few tidbits pulled from the pages of The God Equation and my corresponding brain bullshit.
[T[he reality we see all around us is only the tiniest sliver of the complete electromagnetic spectrum.
Just knowing that more than 95 percent of our known universe is made up of invisible dark energy and dark matter is enough for me to know with absolute certainty that humans will likely never understand the universe, or the universe within the multiverse, or even reality itself.
I live content in the knowledge that I don’t actually experience reality. I see what I am able to see within the limits of my human sensory perception, and even the human with the most expansive senses (certainly not me) can’t see beyond their very human limits.
And the advanced race of humans who do understand reality to its fullest limits are likely to be the unemotional, non-individuated aliens from Matt Haig’s novel, The Humans. Not exactly great at parties.
*
[T]he enormous power of shattering earthquakes, thundering volcanoes, and slow, grinding continental drift all originate from the nuclear force.
When most people hear “nuclear force,” images of Chernobyl run through the mind. The great meltdowns of the largest nuclear power plants on the planet are certainly a cause for concern unless you are, in fact, cancer (in which case, I have a bone to pick). But the nuclear force is so much more beautiful and powerful than many take the time to realize.
The nuclear force is an innate part of planet Earth, and the fears about the force, broadly, are pernicious little things that slow research in thermonuclear energy and lead many to believe that trashy green(washed) energy solutions, like chemical-filled solar panels and non-recyclable wind turbines are the future. Obviously, this is not the stance I take.
*
To a physicist, infinity is just a sign that the equations aren’t working, that they don’t understand what is happening.
Infinity isn’t a solution: Is your mind fucking blown?
Growing up, infinity with its lazy, sideways symbol ∞, was always explained as a number—at least, that’s how my rudimentary brain thought of it. I understood infinity to be calculable to some degree while realizing that even supercomputers would never be able to reach this highest of the high numbers in our lifetime. And I made concessions in mind that scientists and mathematicians would discover new numbers as those supercomputers calculated into the heavens.
To realize that, from a physics perspective, infinity isn’t a solution but a clue that the problem hasn’t been solved was wild.
*
Previously, physicists considered symmetry to be an aesthetically pleasing but nonessential aspect of any theory. Now . . . physicists were beginning to understand that symmetry was an essential and inescapable feature of the universe at a fundamental level.
Symmetry exists in all of nature. Most of us are familiar with the Fibonacci sequence, even if you don’t know the name for it. Beyond Fibonacci, I grew up knowing Newton’s third law of motion: every action has an equal but opposite reaction. These two scientific nuggets alone show symmetry, but they don’t show the requirement of symmetry for understanding.
It is with this understanding of the requirement for symmetry that I believe—and you’ll not sway me otherwise without a massive scientific breakthrough—the universe-within-the-multiverse is the most logical construction of the Universe.
*
The [uncertainty principle] meant that you could not accurately predict the future. You could only predict the odds that certain things will happen.
This is such an important tidbit for the science- and speculative-fiction authors of the world. No, one cannot predict the future. However, one may predict the odds of certain outcomes, and some outcomes will naturally have greater odds.
Tarot readers and fortune tellers have understood outcomes odds since the mid-15th century, but it took Heisenberg writing it down in 1927 to get this concept into scientific cannon.
So there’s that.
*
The night sky is black because the universe has a finite age.
I’m a mom to an almost-six-year-old daughter, and she has actually asked why the sky is blue during the day, why it’s black at night. When asked about the night sky, I believe my response was something like: It’s black because it’s without light or heat. Technically correct, I suppose, but if she’d asked why it was without light, I would have floundered.
Now, I can tell her that the blackness is only possible because the universe is finite. Otherwise, we’d be living in Olber’s paradox, and the night sky would be bright white.
*
It is too simple and easy to have some guru come down from the mountaintop, bearing the meaning of the universe. The meaning of life is something that we have to struggle to understand and appreciate. Having it given to us defeats the whole purpose of meaning. If the meaning of life were available for free, then it would lose its meaning. Everything that has meaning is the result of struggle and sacrifice, and is worth fighting for.
I leave this for your ponderance.
If you find yourself staring into the night sky in wonder, read The God Equation. If you heard of string theory that one time and are string-curious, read it.
If you watch The Big Bang Theory and just want a general crash-course or refresher on concepts you hear about, read this book.
And if you’re fascinated by the intersection of physics, philosophy, and spirituality, read this book.
It’s part of my personal collection, and I’ll refer to it again and again.
If you’ve read this book and saved similar quotes for reflection, I’d love to hear your takes. Similarly, I’d love for you to share other quotes from the book I didn’t offer here with your musings.
Your book pal,
Fal ♥
P.S. If you’re struggling to clarify your writing goals, work through your barriers and setbacks, and get back on the storytelling path, book a Storytelling Deep Dive, and let’s get you sorted and on your way.