October 19, 2003: Theoretical Physics - Dr. Michio Kaku

LISA, gravity waves, and the Theory of EverythingKaku explains that gravity-wave detectors LIGO are now online and that NASA's planned LISA satellites will, within 15 years, listen for the gravity-wave echo of the Big Bang itself, potentially nailing string theory and a cascade of Nobel Prizes.

The Big Freezeall intelligent life is doomed: Citing WMAP data on accelerating expansion driven by dark energy, Kaku tells Art that every intelligent civilization in the universe is ultimately doomed to freeze to death as galaxies recede beyond sight, stars exhaust their fuel, and even black holes evaporate.

Hypernovas, gamma-ray bursters, and BetelgeuseKaku describes hypernovas as the largest explosions in the universe, capable of sterilizing entire galactic neighborhoods, and notes that the unstable red giant Betelgeuse could explode any minute - though far enough away to only outshine the moon, not kill us.

HAARP is monkeying with the only ionosphere we haveKaku rejects the official defense that the sun disturbs the ionosphere far more than HAARP ever could, arguing the sun is predictable while HAARP - now ramping toward a billion watts - pumps energy into a thin atmosphere we barely understand for a Cold War mission that no longer exists.

If the U.S. strikes North Korea first, Seoul is goneOn the day North Korea publicly threatens to display its nuclear deterrent, Kaku lays out the war-game consensus: even with a U.S. first strike, North Korean artillery would flatten Seoul within hours and occupy South Korea before any American counter-invasion could arrive.