Michio Kaku: An Atom Smasher in the Garage | Big Think

Michio Kaku: An Atom Smasher in the Garage
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Thanks to a myopic Congress, the U.S. now lags behind Europe in particle physics research. If only our politicians were as enterprising as the young Michio Kaku, who tried to build a homemade supercollider.
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MICHIO KAKU:
Dr. Michio Kaku is the co-founder of string field theory, and is one of the most widely recognized scientists in the world today. He has written 4 New York Times Best Sellers, is the science correspondent for CBS This Morning and has hosted numerous science specials for BBC-TV, the Discovery/Science Channel. His radio show broadcasts to 100 radio stations every week. Dr. Kaku holds the Henry Semat Chair and Professorship in theoretical physics at the City College of New York (CUNY), where he has taught for over 25 years. He has also been a visiting professor at the Institute for Advanced Study as well as New York University (NYU).
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TRANSCRIPT:
Question: How could the existence of hyperspace be definitively proven?
Michio Kaku: The idea of hyperspace. The idea of higher dimensions, unseen universes beyond length, width, and height, is not just idle dinner table conversation. We're not spending over $10 billion building the Large Hadron Collider, an atom smasher outside Geneva, Switzerland. Now, when I was a kid, I have my first taste of atom smashing because when I was a kid, I decided to do a Science Fair project. First of all, I was working with anti-matter in high school, photographing brilliant tracks of anti-matter inside my magnetic field that I built. Then one day, I wanted to create my own beam of anti-matter. Not just photograph it, but actually manipulate it.
So, I went to my mom one day and I said, "Mom, can I have permission to build a 2.3 million volt atom smasher betatronic accelerator in my garage?" And she kind of stared at me and said, "An atom smasher in the garage? I mean, sure. Why not? And don't forget to take out the garbage." So, I took out the garbage and I went to Westinghouse and I got 400 pounds of transformer steel, 22 miles of copper wire, and we wound a 6 kilowatt, 10,000 gauss magnetic field on the high school football field. I put 22 pounds of copper wire on the goal post, gave the wire to my mother. My mother ran to the 50-yard line, gave the wire to my father and he ran to the goal post, and we wound 22 miles of copper wire on the high school football field. Finally, it was ready. It was my proudest achievement, this 400 pound, 6 kw, 10,000 gauss magnetic field in a 2.3 million volt electronic accelerator.
I closed my eyes, I plugged my ears, I plugged in the wall socket into the garage circuit, and I heard this pop, pop, pop sound as I blew out every single circuit breaker in the house. Wow! My poor mom. She had come back from a hard day's work to see all the lights flicker and die. And then she would say, "Where's the fuses?"
Well, I imagine that my mother would say to herself, "Why couldn't I have a son who plays basketball? Maybe if I buy him a baseball, and for God's sake, why can't he find a nice Japanese girlfriend? Why does he build these machines in the garage?" Well that machine was an atom smasher. And now the biggest atom smasher of all time is being built outside Geneva, Switzerland. It is 17 miles in circumference. You need a car to actually go around this gigantic device. And it will help recreate a piece of creation.
Well, some people ask the question, why are the European countries building the Large Hadron Collider? Are we losing the edge? What about an American machine. Well, hey. Let's be frank about it. We had our chance and we blew it. Back in the 1990's, President Ronald Reagan and others had a vision. Why not create the largest colossal atom smasher outside the city of Dallas. Well everything was all set, funding was initiated, but in 1993 the machine was cancelled. A machine, a supercollider many times bigger then the Hadron Collider outside Geneva, Switzerland.
Well, what happened? Many things happened, but on the last day of hearings in Congress, one Congressman asked a physicist, "Are we going to find God with your machine? If so, I will vote for it." Well, the poor physicist didn't know what to say. So, he collected his thoughts and said, "We will find the Higgs Boson." Well, you could almost hear all the jaws hit the floor of the United States Congress. $11 billion for another goddamned sub-atomic particle. Well, the role was taken a few days later and the machine was cancelled...
Read the full transcript at bigthink.com/v...

[@bigthink]

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[@sammbo250]

That was back in the good old days when kids could buy steel and wires in excessive amounts without getting told off.

[@christopherleubner6633]

Back in the good old days when oeople were not suspicious and curiosity was not punished. I literally built one in 1995 from junk yard bits.

[@cantseeme140]

he took them from junkyard.

[@muhammadabubakr720]

Here in my garage, just built this new atom smasher. But do you know what I like more than these materialistic things? Knawwlage

[@waltz9230]

Yeah... that would’ve been funny like 2 years ago. Oh wait.

[@eurekal1903]

@Mr. Fraudiye : you just made yourself nuisance

[@jackjiggeryjustice270]

@@waltz9230 nice to know u watch these kinda videos, Duke

[@Klarpimier]

In fact I’m a lot more proud of these four lead shielded chambers that I built to house four twelve megawatt nuclear reactors I’m about to build…

[@TheDFIANT]

Imagine having a kid as smart as Michio Kaku when he was child. As a parent I would be proud but also intellectually intimidated. Kid: "Dad. Can I bend bend the space time continuum in my room?" Dad: "Umm, sure, whatever." ...5 minutes later a black hole forms.

[@truantz91]

congressmen: "will you find god?" Michio kaku: "I believe your looking right at him sir"

[@line1line]

First of all: That's why I like Europe more than America. and secondly: We shouldn't think of it as "America being behind in the fields of particle physics" but more as "the world has lost it's chance for a newer bigger collider" because when you think about it, the knowledge you actually gain will benefit all of the humans, and not "just the Americans" or "just the Europeans". This thinking that everything is competition might be useful in economics, but in science it's just slowing down or preventing progress. Like, europeans kind of got that, I think. The grounds that belong to the CERN don't belong to any of the states in europe, they are kinda "out of boundaries".

[@denhamcolm]

Wrong! your way off, here's the actual list: Rank Country IQ 1 Hong Kong Hong Kong 108 1 Singapore Singapore 108 2 South Korea South Korea 106 3 Japan Japan 105 3 China China 105 4 Taiwan Taiwan 104 5 Italy Italy 102 6 Iceland Iceland 101 6 Mongolia Mongolia 101 6 Switzerland Switzerland 101 7 Austria Austria 100 7 Luxembourg Luxembourg 100 7 Netherlands Netherlands 100 7 Norway Norway 100 7 United Kingdom United Kingdom 100 8 Belgium Belgium 99 8 Canada Canada 99 8 Estonia Estonia 99 8 Finland Finland 99 8 Germany Germany 99 8 Poland Poland 99 8 Sweden Sweden 99 9 Andorra Andorra 98 9 Australia Australia 98 9 Czech Republic Czech Republic 98 9 Denmark Denmark 98 9 France France 98 9 Hungary Hungary 98 9 Latvia Latvia 98 9 Spain Spain 98 9 United States USA 98 10 Belarus Belarus 97 10 Malta Malta 97 10 Russia Russia 97 10 Ukraine Ukraine 97

[@mrbicyclekick]

line1line It seems like there weren’t any discoveries that changed anything. It just showed that our predictions are right. A bigger one needs to be built.

[@d6ud9e]

" I cant think of anything more stupid than giving us 2 billion dollars to dig a hole and to fill if again" hahaha this guys is great

[@xPyromaniac16x]

"I can't think of anything more stupid, than giving us $2 billion to dig a hole and to fill it up again, but hey, that's the government."

[@ExopMan]

He has this story memorized lol

[@trent5807]

He wrote almost the exact same story at the start of "Hyperspace".

[@Daddy1138-]

he’s one of the smartest humans alive I’m sure he has a good memory lol

[@Cannsanity]

"They spent one billion dollars to dig a hole, just to spend one billion dollars to bury it" Yep that sounds like our government.

[@MarvRoberts]

I own a parallel pocket universe. It's ever expanding and has a threshold which is quantumly entangled with the entrance of a Police Call Box.

[@mridulbaro2743]

😂😂😂😂😂very deep imagination

[@smarties22222]

The guy should have said: "Yeah, sure no prob bruh" and then they would have gotten the money.

[@tonyman1106]

+Kristóf Szentpétery i would have Jump and said " but if we find the higgs boson we can built a giant death laser that kill terrorist".

[@ernestt13]

i like how he made an atom smasher but didnt realized that the power consumption would destroy the electrical system of the house. lol

[@caveman36]

Physicist not electrical engineer

[@Jinouga502]

Builds atom smasher in garage. Parents die of cancer 20 years later.

[@bigdx5059]

They should have said the God particle

[@christopherleubner6633]

The irony is that I built a similar one from junk yard parts for a science fair, too. The device was made of similar guts, but used 2 large neodymium magnets for the primary confinement field, used the guts of an old electrical transformer pretty much as is except with a gap in the center of the E core to fit the accelerator tube. It was made of a circular florescent lamp tube with a black and white TV tube electron gun attached and enough glass to finish the ring. The acelleration field was from 2 quadrapole antenna elements shaped like butterfly wings glued on the tube. The beam exit window was made of mica glued on the tube glass with a vacuum tight epoxy called torr-seal. I'm not entirely sure how much MeV it was, but it worked enough to charge acrylic blocks enough to spark inside. It wasn't assembled in the garage, though, was assembled in a shed at my Grandmother's house The power draw for the electromagnet was a bit high, but not enough to pop the 220V 30A breaker. You could see the beam form a very dim blue ring inside and a glow when the kicker magnet was fired. Can totally relate to the why can't you be normal stuff. Sadly, the machine was not admissible to the science fair because it was "too dangerous and emitted radiation" once they found out it was a real particle accellerstor and not some demo simulator. Also, not enough to get Harvard admission.

[@qjdianenfjaiwk]

How big was this? Also i would like more info. Been looking into this stuff myself

[@christopherleubner6633]

@qjdianenfjaiwk it was am 8 inch diameter florescent tube as the acceleration ring. The static magnets came from a broken NMR machine from a science madness store called American Science and Surplus. The transformer was a large power transformer and required a bit of work to bring it home and rearrange the E core assembly to fit the tube inside. The primary winding of it worked well to make the strong field needed. Tuning it was tricky as it wanted very well filtered DC as AC ripple would cause the beam to dance inside the tube. The vacuum source was a refrigeration vacuum pump and a diffusion pump to get it down far enough to get a stable beam. The whole device would fit on a pallet except for the vacuum pumps. ❤️

[@Cardgames4children]

When Kaku was a kid in 3rd grade, I bet he had a secret laboratory behind his bookcase in his bedroom

[@downsidebrian]

Let's get Momma Kaku in charge of science funding. She seems to be the right person for the job.

[@Momo-bb2fn]

3:45 “will we find god with your machine?”

[@lionhartx99]

He saids big words to his mom in a sequence and all she got to say was ..."ye just remember to take the trash out" xD

[@chrismanuel1181]

As an electrician I don’t believe his story about building an atom smasher. 1. He ran 22 miles of copper wire around a football field? He’s obviously never pulled wire. There’s no way you’re wrapping 22 miles of wire around a football field. You would have to splice the wire so many times it wouldn’t be worth the attempt. This would take a crew of electricians to get this done. 2. He blew every circuit in the house? Why would it not just trip the one circuit he plugged it into? 3. He has a football field in his backyard???

[@Jammin88812]

You are the only person I can find with the same questions as me. It doesn't sound feasible

[@rajatdas5500]

@@Jammin88812 He is lying

[@Jammin88812]

@@rajatdas5500 Are you claiming the commenter is lying or Michio Kaku is lying?

[@dragooner4]

1. builds atom smasher in garage 2. Win science fair 3. Gets scholarship to harvard. 4. gives dreams to teenagers.

[@Joao2Pedro]

To be honest, every advancement in space tecnology during the Cold War was because the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. where competing to see who could dominate space faster and use that domain to destroy the other. And the tecnology that allowed both to persue the space program, was develepod by Germany to be used as a Ballistic Rocket (remember the V2?). Most inovations we use during peace time, where developed during war time.

[@rododendronmagdalski7883]

Yee i remember when i was kid and builded Atom Smashers with my friends n shit.

[@jakecolaco6461]

Werd got so many of those things laying around dont know to do with them

[@bigchungus7807]

Yeah, he's full of 🐎💩

[@thereynolds2725]

So, the single garage circuit being overloaded somehow tripped every circuit breaker in the house, and his mother went to find fuses... this physicist doesn't have a clue about electric circuits.

[@sadrien]

So lucky your parents let you build an attempted atom smasher... except that you should know the fuses would break...

[@theq4602]

He knew. But he didn't tell so they would let him.

[@faizulanuar2474]

Guess thats why he plugged his ears..

[@jakecolaco6461]

Dam atom smasher go through fuses like water

[@simonlinser8286]

Man now i understand why this guy is where he is... it all makes sense now.

[@ten-dimension9390]

When they said "Higgs Boson" they knew at that moment that they were ******

[@carbon-structure]

My first taste of atom smashing was watching the Australian movie "Young Einstein". We are worlds apart 😂 incredible stuff Mr Kaku!

[@ceaser21i]

What is infuriating is that the US had a second chance to build the LHC in the mid 2000's I think on the east coast. It was either there, or in Geneva. but congress decided it would cost too much, that furthering human knowledge is not worth it, and a philosophical debate where theists were crying out against building the LHC because they believed the HIggs Boson disproves the existence of God. Even though it doesnt.

[@dusan19377]

"Well, that's the government." xD He's right... :D

[@Daltien98]

I cannot like this enough times to fully represent how amazing this guy is!

[@drank8]

I like what he said at the end about genesis.

[@mikegLXIVMM]

I've thought of building a small cyclotron using large permanent magnets instead of electromagnets for the magnetic field.

[@christopherleubner6633]

That works for the base or static field, but you do need an electromagnet for the gradient field that confines the beam as it is accelerated. You can use the guts of a large dry style E core power transformer for this and it works rather well.

[@mikegLXIVMM]

@@christopherleubner6633 Thanks for the tip! 😀

[@ColonelWinky]

@Rotpig The Higgs boson is a hypothetical massive elementary particle that is predicted to exist by the Standard Model (SM) of particle physics. The Higgs boson plays a crucial role in the Higgs mechanism responsible for breaking the electroweak symmetry of the Standard Model . If shown to exist, it would help explain why other elementary particles have mass. It is the only elementary particle predicted by the Standard Model that has not yet been observed in particle physics experiments.

[@Gfuckingmaniak]

Michio Kaku, it`s very easy to talk in hindsight. If you get asked a question like that so frankly, how can you be so sure you`ll give such an articulate -and for the politicians- correct answer?

[@SuperMotaba]

4:22 my favourite bit comedic GOLD

[@huesam3244]

Movie theater popcorn was probably cheaper then his particle accelerator

[@qqqqqqqq1407]

The Higgs boson is a hypothetical elementary particle predicted by the Standard Model (SM) of particle physics. It belongs to a class of subatomic particles known as bosons, characterized by an integer value of their spin quantum number. The Higgs field is a quantum field with a non-zero value that fills all of space, and explains why fundamental particles such as quarks and electrons have mass. The Higgs boson is an excitation of the Higgs field above its ground state.

[@lukezatic3976]

imagine building a particle accelerator as your school science fair project

[@christopherleubner6633]

I tried, but they were afraid that it would make too much radiation. The saddest part was that they thought it was going to be a model, but it was a real one. Rather low power, but a real cyclotron.

[@Waterdust2000]

'murica? I think that's the best explanation for this story.

[@emilianosantos1]

Michio probably had the best parents in the world :)

[@4.0.4]

That gives you an idea of how big the hole was.

[@thomasmendoza4950]

This guys life sound like a regular show episode

[@gomonkeyfly]

lol he's like haha how do you like that now, congressmen?

[@queuesnake704]

4:09 "11 billion dollars for another goddamn subatomic particle." LOL

[@ParaglidingManiac]

This was filmed in 2011. Less than a month ago scientists finally did find the Higgs Boson particle. Why do people still doubt on whether invest or not? Can't we learn on our own mistakes?

[@998SBayliss]

Blew out every circuit in the house? Why not just the one you plugged it into?

[@suzesiviter6083]

Because obviously he built a circuit that transcends Normal physical laws; reminds me of that Nirvana song "Smells like teen BS"

[@VirtualMark2]

Americas defense budget: $600bn. Nasa's budget: $50bn. They've had to pull out of the joint mission to Mars with us, i think that sucks. Politicians should get their priorities straight, we're all on this planet together and science is the best chance we've got to survive!

[@clarkb5137]

i crossed the street with this man once. Ill never forgot that

[@FlyWithCheese]

This particle, which in respect creates the Higgs field, explains why things have mass - it's one of the most important things in modern physics.

[@TheCowtickler]

He's my favorite.

[@lemonsodumb]

i like what you did there.

[@TheClark501]

Dr. Michio kaku never once said europeans were stupid. He just ment America had it's chance at making a bigger one. and we blew it. What he said was never ment to offend europeans. In fact He is the number one fan of Albert EInstien who is european and was very intelligent.

[@hxhdfjifzirstc894]

I was watching a different video, when I happened to remember this story of Michio nearly blowing out the power in his entire neighborhood, as a kid LOL. I had to come find a retelling of it.

[@Chad-Giga.]

Every home has no more than 200 amps and usually more like 100 amps, how did he power this so called particle accelerator?!

[@TilekMamutov]

I think now I understand why Dr. Kaku is quite often using religion-inspired jargon such as "God particle" and "heavens".

[@JM697796]

Yeah its sad but he needs to appeal to the masses of religious people, but it is the best solution at this time, we have to wait for stupid religion to die out (hopefully) one day. I admire Dr. Kaku very much for his way of dealing with these situations and of course all he has done for science.

[@DingoHammer]

The quarter million on office plants was just one example and not, taken alone, the reason the project was cancelled. It has been too long ago and I don't remember all the details, just that there were lots of abuses. I wish that they had built the SCSC but, they didn't, and that is why.

[@FrankLightheart]

Does anyone else get the feeling that this touched a little bit of a sore spot for Kaku?

[@BlueCosmology]

Why does Kaku make up these complete lies and why do people give them publicity?

[@dudearinos]

proof that Michio Kaku is an alien, he both plugs his ears and plugs in the plug at the same time 0_0

[@Alkis05]

This is particularly funny, because the Higgs Boson would eventually be called "the god particle".

[@RayDon1]

And I thought it was painful at the lego robotics nationals at legoland when I tried to untangle about two feet of copper wire that I had brought to play with electromagnets in the hotel room.

[@Sal3600]

its 5:14 am should i go to bed or keep watching this guys videos.

[@hectorfernandez4532]

And it's crazy that only the 144 thousand lightworkers have seen this

[@UniDocs_Mahapushpa_Cyavana]

Why did they fill the hole! It would make a brilliant water feature.

[@corygunn3]

We love you michio kaku, I look up to you as a young (18 year old) Hopefully future theoretical physicist

[@Mutterschwein]

So...how's it going? Become a physicist yet?

[@danielochoa517]

Can an atom smasher really create a black hole in the process of separating atoms?

[@squiddie96]

Kaku might be smart guys, just maybe.

[@allknowledge7146]

He just followed instructions for building it. He didn't invent the damn thing.

[@holyinquisition8854]

@@allknowledge7146 isn't like everyone can do that..

[@spinycrayfish]

"But hey, that's the government..." Classic

[@gladiorthis]

um well im close to michio kaku. but not completely their yet so yeah i can completely imagine that

[@tjmbv8680]

To be fair we sacrificed the American particle accelerator to get funding to build the ISS.

[@jasondads9509]

This guy is great

[@KatGunz]

If I was this guy's father, I would be so proud of how he turned out! :P

[@BUDA20]

This remind me this episode "Star Trek Voyager s03e23 Distant Origin", and the movie "Contact"

[@Joreus]

Maybe they pushed the project to find a sleek reason to create, like you said, miles and miles of underground tunnels, only to cancel the project later on to make it seem as though it was all about the collider from the start :)

[@ghulamshabbir6223]

Hahahaha......the popping of the fuse was awesome.......I laughed like anything.....

[@nonadam]

Michio Kaku: Me scientist. You money. Me find God in Machine. All happy.

[@erik3259]

My Cyberpunk playing ass thought he said Adam Smasher instead of Atom Smasher

[@eaglestdogg]

@7183Ryan no the lhc isnt making big bangs its replicating what it looked like, also isnt part of the big crunch the universe restarting anyway in another big bang (its been awhile since ive read up on my end-of-the-universe theories)

[@okayillgonow]

If Prof. Kaku wants to build another accelerator, he can build one the size of a palm yet produces 1 GeV. Source: "Beams to Order from Table-Top Accelerators", Berkeley Lab

[@wadabalabadi]

Don't blame the politicians or the scientists, the problem was the lack of effective scientific lobbying. To get things done in politics, you need a trusted group of individuals able to market and defend the projet in regular human jargon to convince people with power to spend the money, otherwise the money will get spent elsewhere. Whatever that scientist would have answered, if there was a louder effective voice from a trusted organized scientific lobby it would have easily outweighed it.

[@toniquix]

He's just a troll with nothing but time in his hands

[@queuesnake704]

4:40. This sounds like a job for Winston Zeddemore. Personally, I would have shrugged my shoulders and gone "... ...sure. Why not? We'll also find one of the elementary particles responsible for the creation of the universe... we may not find God, per se, but we can sure find traces of his/her/its handiwork."

[@oblark]

he sounded bitter at the end; not that anyone could blame him.

[@wadewilson6766]

@Warkiam Then use the first option or use paddles. (Yes,he does have one weakness that is paddles,I did some heavy research)

[@beatlessteve1010]

"There by the grace of God go I.." thanks for sharing your dream..well I didn't build an atom smasher but I did leave some old carp bait in my tackle box in the garage and by spring time the whole house stank to " High Hell" as my mom put it!

[@BenDover-qo6qc]

@Hoshimaru57 or are you talking about the last part how that physicist responded to the congressmen ? I agree with that.

[@ChuckleKing]

The electron was "just a particle" when it was first discovered too. All well, they found it anyway.

[@joshwood44]

@TheChristChris but one year of military spending is one fourth of the money wasted on healthcare for people in the ER when they could go to a clinic and only cost the government a fifth of what the ER costs. It's all relative.

[@sachoslks]

I cant belive the atom smasher story... it make me feels bad for me.

[@111theone1able]

physics is worth way more than that

[@WebVManReturns]

This story is too epic to be true.

[@hxhdfjifzirstc894]

This is just how things were, before the Department of Education was created and turned students into idiots.

[@sweetness583]

I agree.

[@ToT0MoD]

he covers his ears and then he plugged in the power? thats a real achievement right there.

[@xuser48]

He PLUGGED his ears.

[@21delusions]

The Genesis Machine? *cough cough* Star Trek: the Wrath of Khan *cough cough*

[@MrGeocidal]

17 miles in circumference? That's no bigger than the Large Electron-Positron Collider was.

[@thereynolds2725]

Yes, but big, in this context, means the amount of energy it can supply to the particles.

[@SkywalkerG1o]

God damn subatomic particle! :D

[@Philivix]

awesome, i watch this while live streaming from Geneva for Higgs Boson Announcement July 4, 2012

[@mkivy]

Congratulations sir!