Michio Kaku’s Civilizations of the Cosmos
“What does it mean for a civilization to be a million years old? We have had radio telescopes and spaceships for a few decades; our technical civilization is a few hundred years old … an advanced civilization millions of years old is as much beyond us as we are beyond a bushbaby or a macaque.”
Carl Sagan
Michio Kaku, professor of theoretical physics at City University of New York, in the current issue of Cosmos writes that Sagan’s question is no longer just a matter of idle speculation.
Soon, humanity may face an existential shock as we discover Earth-sized twins of our planet orbiting nearby solar systems. This may usher in a new era in our relationship with the universe, so that we will never see the night sky in the same way. Realizing that scientists may eventually compile an encyclopedia identifying the precise coordinates of perhaps hundreds of Earth-like planets, gazing at the night sky, we will forever after wonder if someone is gazing back at us.
Kaku takes up where some/one of the world’s pioneer astronomers left off with a definition of civilizations in the universe that mimics the work of Read More