Why Kaku is anxious about aliens

Theoretical physicist Michio Kaku thinks humanity is on the brink of two massive scientific discoveries, said Andrew Anthony in The Guardian (U.K.). A professor at New York’s

City College and a well-known popularizer of science, Kaku says his field is close to identifying a universal “theory of everything” that completes Einstein’s and Newton’s work. “The universe in some sense is like a chess game, and for 2,000 years we’ve been trying to figure out how the pawns move,” says Kaku, 74. “We’re beginning to understand how the queen moves and how you get a checkmate. The destiny of science is to become like grandmasters.” The other coming discovery? Aliens. “Soon we’ll have the James Webb Space Telescope up in orbit and we’ll have thousands of planets to look at. I think the chances are quite high that we make contact with an alien civilization.” Should that happen, some of Kaku’s colleagues believe, humanity should say hello. “I think that’s a terrible idea. We all know what happened to Montezuma when he met Cortés in Mexico.” For those who don’t: The Aztec emperor welcomed the Spanish conquistador into his palace, only to be taken captive and then killed. “Personally, I think that aliens out there would be friendly, but we can’t gamble on it.”