"We should all be concerned about the future because we will have to spend the rest of our lives there��Charles F. Kettering (1876-1958), an engineer, industrial pioneer, inventor and passionate advocate of progress

Michio Kaku was just a child when Einstein died and he knew next to nothing about this great scientist that his teachers kept talking about. What stuck in his mind however, was a picture that all the newspapers published after his death: it was an image of his desk with the caption �unfinished manuscript of the greatest work of the greatest scientist of the era. All young Michio thought at the time was that if a scientist was so great, it was strange that he wasn’t able to finish what he had started.

He searched in libraries for books on what this unfinished business was all about but found nothing. It was many years later, by which time his own interest in physics was deeply entrenched and he was onto more advanced books on the subject, that Dr Kaku found out what Einstein was working on. The ‘theory of everything.�Einstein wanted a theory that could explain the four fundamental forces that govern the universe: gravity, electromagnetism, and the two nuclear forces (weak and strong). He was looking for a single equation like E=MC2 that would explain everything from the Big Bang and exploding stars to atoms and molecules. A new theory of space and time.

The trail leading to the unified field theory, in fact, is littered with the wreckage of failed expeditions and dreams. And yet Dr Kaku, along with all the string theorists, believe that the answer lies in string theory, or M- theory as it started to be called.

We were fortunate in getting the opportunity to meet Dr Michio Kaku on his brief visit to Oman last month. One of the most well known names in theoretical physics, the extremely articulate Dr Kaku talked to us on a variety of topics ranging from the world scenario in 2020 when chips cost a penny to the all time favourite debate �is there anyone out there. Our cover story traces some of the most interesting theories of life in the future.

Mohana Prabhakar
Managing editor