I See An Active Michio Kaku Thread, Remember He Doesn't Always Know What He's Saying!

The Allegedly Great Kaku doesn't always know what he's talking about.
Kaku revently was on CBS News being interviewed regarding the Higgs Boson.
Video Interview here:
www.cbsnews.com...

In the above link Kaku is being interviewed about the Higgs.
He says in that video that the Higgs is also called the "God Particle" because it's what created the big bang.
He also says that the higgs is something that joins everything together.

Both statements are completely untrue and it's crazy that someone like Kaku said that.

Some particles have mass while others don't, why is that?
It's believed to be because of the higgs, it gives certain particles mass and scientists want to find out why it doesn't give other particles mass.

That's what the Higgs is.

Kaku is either lying or he doesn't know what he's talking about!!!!

I think everyone should know this, thanks

I think that's what he was saying.

No, it's not technically accurate, but I get what he was meaning- and it sounds like he was trying to make it accessible to the public. Many of the public, I find, don't even know that Egypt recently had a revolution, or that water freezes at 0 degrees Celsius.

reply to post by ModernAcademia

Kaku was a Visitor and Member (1973 and 1990) at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton,[3] and New York University.[4] He currently holds the Henry Semat Chair and Professorship in theoretical physics at the City College of New York.[5] Kaku has had over 70 articles published in physics journals such as Physical Review, covering topics such as superstring theory, supergravity, supersymmetry, and hadronic physics.[6] In 1974, along with Prof. Keiji Kikkawa of Osaka University, he authored the first papers describing string theory in a field form.[7][8] Kaku is the author of several textbooks on string theory and quantum field theory.

Yep, clearly knows nothing about science...

Originally posted by hadriana
I think that's what he was saying.

No, it's not technically accurate, but I get what he was meaning- and it sounds like he was trying to make it accessible to the public. Many of the public, I find, don't even know that Egypt recently had a revolution, or that water freezes at 0 degrees Celsius.

That doesn't make any sense.
If you get what he was meaning, tell me what he was meaning out of curiosity.

It sounds like you said you get what he's saying but then infer that it's ok that he lied because the public is stupid and the topic requires dumb people to pay attention, so lying was an appropriate path.

Plz explain,

Hey leave Michio alone, he's my favourite character on Ancient Aliens!

He's the mouthpiece that dumbs down science for the masses. In my opinion, he's gone from legitimate scholar to 'entertainment' personality, who makes the rounds whenever anything remotely new and scientific need explaining. I don't necessarily think he's lying or ignorant. That said, I'm not a fan.

reply to post by slowisfast


I somewhat agree with this. Yes he is used to dumb down the science maybe even used to feel false info to the public. But he is a very very smart man. His voice is also hypnotic like Morgan Freeman's

reply to post by ModernAcademia


You're not going to get it. Your judgment that a "lie" is always wrong is getting in the way.

Lying is the glue that holds society together.

the thread says that there are definitely aliens in outer space... you dont have to know much to come to this conclusion so he is most definitely RIGHT! you just have to know some mathematics and have some common sense, just thought you should know, thanks

reply to post by ModernAcademia


Until very recently the Higgs Boson, which science indeed has dubbed the God particle, was entirely based on speculation and theories.

I would like to know if you, the OP, are personally and directly involved in the scientific study and research of the Higgs Boson particle?

If not, by what authority do you claim to have more knowledge and expertise than Mr. Kaku?

Are you basing your definition on other still yet to be proven theories?

By all accounts released to the public, the description given by Mr. Kaku sounds accurate to me. And considering that there is still no absolute confirmation that anyone even truly understands how the particle that was found actually functions within our Universe. His guess is as good as any.

I would say he holds more credibility than some anonymous person posting on an internet forum.

Originally posted by MagicWand67
I would like to know if you, the OP, are personally and directly involved in the scientific study and research of the Higgs Boson particle?

If not, by what authority do you claim to have more knowledge and expertise than Mr. Kaku?

It is a logical fallacy to give him credit because of his position in science.

I have not being involved in any direct study of the higgs field.
And neither have you, so you also have no authority to agree with him.

What we do have though is an agreement in the scientific community on what the higgs is and why they are looking for it.

I myself chose not to be a zombie.
Perhaps you decide otherwise and believe what you are fed without an opinion as an individual.

Good Luck

I'm not saying Kaku is infallible, but are you sure you're just not being pedantic? Think of the Kaku quote as a 'dumbed down' version of what you said. See it from his viewpoint, kids and stupid people could be watching the sort of sciency shows he appears on. He wants to make science accessible to everybody, and talking like an MIT quantum psychics professor isn't the way to go about doing that.

kaku is no dummy, but i think his integrity is compromised. i don't implicitly trust what he says but the same goes for almost everyone.

Michio Kaku is a talking head who talks out of his hat about pretty much everything, including subjects he doesn't know anything about -- I saw a clip of him on CBS yammering about the weather and getting a whole lot of it wrong.

Then I came across this:

I don’t remember who pointed me at this transcript of Deepak Chopra interviewing Michio Kaku, but if I remember who it was, I fully intend to hate them.

… pseudoscience "interview" snipped, see source article …

The whole thing is like this. It’s just brimful of gibberish. I mean, I expect Chopra to sound like a character from Star Trek, that’s his shtick, but Kaku claims to be a scientist. He’s on every other show on the Science Channel, and here he is spouting New Age twaddle and grossly misrepresenting good science.

And the whole interview is like this– this segment is just the part that I’m in the best position to evaluate. Between the two of them, though, they manage to say all manner of idiotic things about physics, biology, cosmology, and computing. Among other subjects.

Somebody ought to be ashamed of this. Ideally, Kaku would be, but that’s clearly not possible given that he went on Deepak Chopra’s radio show in the first place. But somebody ought to be ashamed. I’m just not sure who– the Huffington Post? the Science Channel? Tim Berners-Lee for inventing the Web that let me read this gibberish? Guglielmo Marconi for inventing radio?

I don’t really care who, but there better be some shame around here somewhere. Because this is completely ridiculous. (The Physics of the Imbecile: Chopra Interviews Kaku)

"Media darling who doesn't know when to shut up" pretty much sums him up, in my opinion.

reply to post by ModernAcademia


Can you explain to me in simple terms, what this higgs boson thing is all about?

Does it imply god or not?

And what good does it do to find it?

Thanks,

I'm about as far from a physicist as one can get, but it sounded to me like what he said was that one member of a family of boson particles caused the big bang, not necessarily the higgs itself. Of course prof. Kaku doesn't always know what he's talking about; No one knows what they're talking about most of the time, but he's a scientist and scientists (especially theoretical physicists) are in the privileged position of being paid to talk about things they don't understand.
Someone already pointed out that lies are the glue that holds society together, and not only is that true, but lying is an instructional strategy used to convey complex concepts to the minds of individuals not entirely equipped to grasp the minutiae of the truth, like people that depend on the CBS morning news to get updates on bleeding edge scientific discoveries.

Also, there has been in recent years, an effort at least to have science documentaries produced at such a level that they grab the interest of the viewer. They use a common approach, breaking things down to simplistic terms in order to impart an understanding of the topic, given that most topics about the universe and physics are detailed with lengthy boring information, it can be both good and bad. Good in that it might pique the interest of someone who had never really thought about things in ways they can understand, and bad in that as the OP says, it's dumbing down the facts.

Well, if it grabs the interest of people and gives them a reason to look into things further with the intention of expanding their understanding of things, or gives them reason to learn more, or even just opens up an interest to them they never realised they had, then this is all good.

I can't fault Michio. He has passion. That's all that is required to have the ability to get people to listen. If you're passion is not diluted with delusion, and you can hold your head high in a peer reviewed medium, then I say as long as you don't outright lie and if you're helping to get people interested, it's a good thing.

They won't have professor oldfellow discussing at length the difference between the various bosons and why gravity is an elusive force to include, as he'd bore your pants off. He may be 100% accurate in every piece of nomenclature used or reading from books verbatim. But you won't learn a thing.

Originally posted by ModernAcademia

Originally posted by MagicWand67
I would like to know if you, the OP, are personally and directly involved in the scientific study and research of the Higgs Boson particle?

If not, by what authority do you claim to have more knowledge and expertise than Mr. Kaku?

It is a logical fallacy to give him credit because of his position in science.

I have not being involved in any direct study of the higgs field.
And neither have you, so you also have no authority to agree with him.

What we do have though is an agreement in the scientific community on what the higgs is and why they are looking for it.

I myself chose not to be a zombie.
Perhaps you decide otherwise and believe what you are fed without an opinion as an individual.

Good Luck

not to nit pick here, but you completely circumvented the guys question and immediately put it back on his table by then calling him a zombie, because he asked you a question......

Its disingenious to insult someone or at least elude that youre insulting them.........but then not answer their question because they dared to challenge you.....

Seems a little hubris is getting in the way of an honest question.......

are you Involved with it, and by what authority do you have to say that he is not correct.......

Originally posted by ModernAcademia
The Allegedly Great Kaku doesn't always know what he's talking about.
Kaku revently was on CBS News being interviewed regarding the Higgs Boson.
Video Interview here:
www.cbsnews.com...

In the above link Kaku is being interviewed about the Higgs.
He says in that video that the Higgs is also called the "God Particle" because it's what created the big bang.
He also says that the higgs is something that joins everything together.

Both statements are completely untrue and it's crazy that someone like Kaku said that.

Some particles have mass while others don't, why is that?
It's believed to be because of the higgs, it gives certain particles mass and scientists want to find out why it doesn't give other particles mass.

That's what the Higgs is.

Kaku is either lying or he doesn't know what he's talking about!!!!

I think everyone should know this, thanks

edit on 21-3-2013 by ModernAcademia because: (no reason given)

Sorry, but he knows way more about theoretical physics than you do...

As you say, he was talking in CBS news.

The number one rule of public speaking is making your speech understabale for everybody in the audience by choosing word and explanations based on the educational level, age group and so on. Usually the channels make it pretty clear to the scientist how he has to talk.

I am not American, although I believe CBS news has a really large target group watching it - from bluecollar employees who have never finished high-school to people with high academic credentials.

The point is, when he went even a bit into the more scientific part, most of the audience does not get anything.

What if he talked in the level of Wikipedia:

The Higgs boson or Higgs particle is an elementary particle initially theorised in 1964,[6][7] and tentatively confirmed to exist on 14 March 2013.[8] The discovery has been called "monumental"[9][10] because it appears to confirm the existence of the Higgs field,[11][12] which is pivotal to the Standard Model and other theories within particle physics, where it explains why some fundamental particles have mass when the symmetries controlling their interactions should require them to be massless, and—linked to this—why the weak force has a much shorter range than the electromagnetic force.

That is more correct than what he said before, although most people would not understand it. Most people would not even know what a weak force is and most people who know nothing about physics or know it on really elementary level would not understand it. Some would not even know what a particle is.

If he wanted to, he could be able to talk in such a level, that only other physicist understand it, although this is a general public channel not a scientific channel. Even discovery is not scientifically very accurate channel.

The main point of his talk was simply to try to give the main concept and why it is important, nothing more. It was not even meant to be accurate, just simplifying.

Imagine when someone wanted to tell the shape of the earth. Most people would not want to hear about spheres or ellipsoids, simply saying round or like a ball would perfectly explain it for them

Originally posted by winofiend
reply to post by ModernAcademia

 

Can you explain to me in simple terms, what this higgs boson thing is all about?

It is a particle that explains why some particles have mass when they shouldn't. It is foundational, that's why it's important.

Does it imply god or not?

It has absolutely nothing to do with God. The "God Particle" term attached to it is a media misnomer and physicists hate the term.

And what good does it do to find it?

If you're not a theoretical physicist, probably none at this time. Who knows what will come of it in the future, though.