Received a book review by Professor Harald Fritzsch for the above monograph today, which is as follows:
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Gerard ´t Hooft is a theoretical physicist and professor for theoretical physics at the university in Utrecht, Netherlands. Already in his Ph.D.-thesis he made important contributions to particle physics, in particular to the theory of the electroweak interactions. He received the Nobel Prize in 1999 together with his Ph.D advisor and professor at the university in Utrecht Martinus Veltman.
His book “Playing with Planets” is written in a simple language, suitable for the general public. The book deals with speculations for the future, concerning computers, planets, stars, space travel and genes. It is not a science fiction book, but a book, mixing science fiction with scientific facts, which ´t Hooft likes to call “science faction”.
Chapter 1: Countdown
Chapter 2: Take Off
Chapter 3: Inside
´t Hooft remembers that he had built a spaceship with paper, when he was 9 years old. In his imagination he had visited planets in distant star systems. But unlike all science fiction writers ´t Hooft obeyed in his imaginations the laws of nature. Thus his spaceship could not exceed the speed of light. Newtons law of gravity had to be obeyed. Antigravity was considered to be nonsense. A Perpetuum Mobile did not exist. Heisenberg's uncertainty relations had to be taken into account. But the physics in the future will continue to surprise us and will lead to remarkable technological developments.
Space travel started with the travel to the moon by the American astronauts in 1969. The book includes a discussion of rocket engines and of metric units.
To detect very small particles, one needs very large instruments like big accelerators, i.e. the accelerators at CERN near Geneva in Switzerland. According to Heisenberg's uncertainty principle large accelerators are needed to observe the matter at very small distances.
Matter consists of atoms, and they consist of electrons and nuclei. Atomic nuclei are composed of protons and neutrons. Neutrons and protons are not elementary like the electrons, but consist of three quarks. The interactions among the quarks are mediated by gluons and are described by the theory of quantum chromodynamics.
Chapter 4: Computers
Chapter 5: Paper
Chapter 6: Robots
´t Hooft writes about the introduction of the email after 1980 in the physics community. Later the Internet was created by engineers at CERN to coordinate the work of the physicists in several different continents. After the year 2000 the Internet became an important tool not only for the scientists, but for the general public. The information revolution started.
Richard Feynman in a lecture at Caltech in 1959 did foresee, how fast the information revolution might change our daily live. With the help of memory chips the tunnel microscope was constructed. ´t Hooft describes a chip assembly machine, using a comb with teeth of atomic scale. A new field of physics, called nanotechnology, started. Computer chips with a size of a nanometer are being constructed. Quantum computers might be built in the future. The Word Wide Web, which was started at CERN near Geneva, is now used by almost everyone, who has a PC. Despite the progress of the computers paper is more used than ever. But paper is a medium that can be written on only once and then has to be discarded. Paper should be replaced by computer displays.
Robots became smaller in time. They can be used in houses, in factories or in building a tunnel. Tiny robots could become important useful in the medical sciences.
Chapter 7: Victoriamaris
Chapter 8: A Malleable Earth
Chapter 9: Flying Kites
Victoriamaris is the name for an artificial city, floating on water, in the middle of the ocean.
The climate change is discussed. The rise in temperatures on earth is due to the greenhouse gases, especially carbon dioxide. Ice in the Arctic and Antarctic regions melts. One consequence is the rise of the sea level, a big problem for the low-lying Netherlands.
The increase of the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is the main reason for the climate change. Burning coal, oil and gas in the power stations increases the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. But nuclear power stations do not produce greenhouse gases, and ´t Hooft proposes to build new nuclear power stations.
In the future energy might be produced by nuclear fusion, the process, which led to the construction of hydrogen bombs. The prime reason for climate change is the growth of the population on earth. Science should be used to control the growth of the human population on earth.
In chapter 9 ´t Hooft writes about kites, he used to build, when he was a child. He speculates about building power stations with kites.
Chapter 10: The Stars
Chapter 11: The Colonists
Chapter 12: The Cambots
Various methods are described to accelerate space engines, including the one using nuclear fuel. With such techniques one might reach a velocity of the order of one tenth of the speed of light. Colonizing the other planets in our solar system might then be possible. To go to other planetary systems, surrounding other stars, seems however impossible.
Can humans live on the Moon or distant planets like Mars or Mercury? Or could they live in big rotating cylinders, placed in the interstellar space?
Cambots are small robots with a camera, which are exploring the Moon or distant planets. It is described how the cambots on the moon build hotels and small cities.
Chapter 13: The Neumannbots
Chapter 14: The Genes
Chapter 15: Pulling Hard
Some robots might reproduce themselves. They are called neumannbots. They would be able to build up colonies far away from the earth, especially in the Saturn rings. Later they move on and build colonies in the Kuiper belt, a large disc around the sun, and in the Oort cloud, a distant spherical cloud surrounding the sun.
With the help of nanotechnology it was possible to reconstruct the human genome, a complicated DNA sequence. DNA appears to resemble a huge computer program that is filled with all kinds of complicated subroutines. The DNA of animals, extinct since a long time, might be reconstructed, i.e. the DNA of dinosaurs.
Artificial plants might be created and used in the food industry. Other artificial plants might produce electricity directly from sunlight. DNA is nature’s way of transmitting information at the molecular level, in a far more sophisticated manner than today’s computers. Thus DNA itself could be used as computer memory storage.
Fiber is a new material, which has a remarkable strength. But the strongest material would be obtained by rolling up carbon atoms in a fishnet construction – this device is called a nano tube. Nano tubes could be used to create a cable that connects the Earth with a satellite orbiting the Earth. But it must be a geo-stationary orbit, located at a distance of 35 783 km from the surface of the Earth. Along such a cable an elevator could be moved up and down.
Chapter 16: Aliens
Chapter 17: Playing with Planets
Chapter 18: Idiocracy
Are there other civilizations in our universe? In our solar system there is only one civilization, the one here on Earth. The closest planets where living organisms exist are probably at least hundred of light years away. Probably intelligent life forms do not exist anywhere in our galaxy, except here on Earth. But in the universe there are billions of galaxies, and many of them might have a planet with a civilization.
The planets Venus and Mars should be moved – Venus a bit further away from the Sun, and Mars a bit towards the Sun. Then both Venus and Mars might become inhabitable. In the distant future the Sun will grow bigger ad brighter, and the Earth should be a bit further away from the sun. This could be arranged.
Would mega projects with new scientific and technological dimensions be able to put humanity on a higher level? Will there ever be any human colonies on neighbouring planets and moons? Will we be able to change the orbit of the Earth if the Sun bursts in the distant future? Every period generates its dreams. But they must comply with the immutable and beautiful laws of physics.
The book of ´t Hooft is relatively short, about 140 pages. It is written for the general public. I think that the English translation of the book will have the same success as the Dutch version of the book in the Netherlands.
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An interesting piece of work. Unfortunately, it will not see the light of day in the International Journal of Quantum Information, due to its lack of relevance to the scope of our journal.
