Visions

Where are you reading this essay right now? At home? On the way to work in the bus next to people with newspapers and all other kinds of printed stuff? Could you imagine reading these lines from a little computer screen that can be found everywhere: on the table at home, on the windows of the bus? You simply switch it on and choose from the menu ". Of course, you can imagine this since we are now all used to the Internet, which is the precursor of what Michio Kaku calls `ubiquitous computing': a time when all computers are connected to each other and hundreds of them will help a single person to fulfill everyday duties. Sounds pretty good! But hold on for a moment. It makes one a bit scared to read in Kaku's book how the computer revolution could shape our lives already by the year 2020. Sometimes it sound like it is no longer for us to decide but for a machine that controls how we behave. We might lose some important things: like diversity and individuality in our lives. Is it not much more interesting to see what newspaper or book your neighbour reads in the subway than just having passengers staring at a computer screen?

This is only a tiny fraction from a bunch of forecasts about human life in the 21st century and, most importantly, they are not pure science fiction. Many of the technologies and scientific achievements proposed by Michio Kaku are already proving themselves at least in the laboratory. We should be aware of his thoughtful speculations which are definitely more than simple speculation. For ten years Kaku worked on Visions which is based on interviews with close to 150 scientists working on the foundations of the next century. The excitement and the power of their scientific discoveries clearly came out while reading the book and it is essential to show them to the general public. It is essential because in relationship between science, at the core, and the public, on the outside, all sides must be informed.

Kaku uses three scientific revolutions starting out in the twentieth century to make his predictions. The most fundamental of those is the quantum revolution which opened the door to the two others: the computer revolution and the biomolecular revolution. According to Kaku, they would both be unthinkable without the transistor, the laser, X-ray crystallography and the theory of chemical bonds. In particular, modern medicine would not have reached its present status without the help of modern imaging techniques, like positron emission tomography or nuclear magnetic resonance. This is not unlike the past where finding a vaccine for polio would have been impossible without the use of electron microscopes.

Kaku does a good job of showing the links between the three revolutions and upholds the role played by physics not only in the present century but also in the

one to come. According to Kaku, we now have the extraordinary chance to make the transition from "passive observers to active choreographers of nature." He even risks classifying this exciting development into three categories: breakthroughs that will be made before the year 2020, those that will evolve between 2020 and 2050 and those that will come up by 2100. Going past 2050 is perhaps the biggest mistake Kaku makes, there are predications, however, that are easier made.

The future of the computer might be the easiest to forecast since even in everyday life we have encountered its formidable ability to grow over the last decade. The driving

force behind the PC explosion in the 1980s was mass production of microchips, hence focus on the development aspect of research. Since then semiconductor technology has improved dramatically and it is still improving, thereby making silicon devices cheaper and cheaper. The next qualitative step was taken by connecting computers to each other via glass fibers. This has greatly driven the power of the Internet and it is this self-organizing unit which will guide us towards the future. Invisible microprocessors will be everywhere, all connected to each other via the Internet and controlled by our voices,

gestures or just body heat. For example, they will act as sophisticated medical analyzers that transmit a vast amount of data directly to a doctor who, in the first stage, might be

nothing more than a well-trained neural network.

For all these purposes computers will have to be extremely fast and extremely small. But eventually the process of making electronic circuits