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Comment by dmix | Hacker News Reader

Michio Kaku has long been my least favourite of the celebrity talking head scientists. And he has some good competition for that label. His pop-science books tend to read more like coming from a Hollywood screenwriter than a careful and thoughtful scientific mind.

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Kaku is the Deepak Chopra of physics.

Harsh...

I have a copy of Kaku's Quantum Field Theory book on my shelf, but no Chopra (thank god)

Remember when he literally sued to block the launch of the Cassini probe?

For others reading, this appears to be because he believed that in an accident the radio-thermal isotope generator on board Cassini would spread radioactive material all over the place.

...all over the place

A small, but possible chance of Pu-238 spreading over Florida. I just read that 238 (half-life 87 years) emits mostly alpha, which is said to be easily blocked, even by paper. In FL, many go about half naked, so I'm not sure if this matters. I wonder how thoroughly Kaku considered everything.

Seems his concern was based partially on NASA's (small but not null) history of failures. I don't know, but doubt he was being deliberately unreasonable. Maybe his Japanese (distant) ancestry was a factor? Publicity would be a surprising motive. So would general ignorance.

Actually, alpha emitters are very dangerous when ingested, for the same reason they are readily blocked by paper - your body will absorb all the radiation. This is why Polonium 210 is one of the most toxic material known to us.

(Not agreeing with Michio Kaku, by the way.)

> Maybe his Japanese (distant) ancestry was a factor?

Why would it be?

Both atomic bombings, the Daigo Fukuryū Maru, and the Fukushima disaster come to mind. Perhaps a better question is why wouldn't people with a personal connection to Japan be wary of nuclear contamination? Or 'why don't the rest of us?'

Certainly there are some people in/from Japan who are enthusiastic about the future of nuclear energy. But I think it's fair and reasonable to say that cultural trends exist and a randomly chosen person with a personal connection to Japan is more likely to be critical of nuclear energy than a randomly chosen person from the rest of the general population.

Cassini was launched more than a decade before the Fukushima disaster.

As the only nation attacked by nuclear weapons, Japan tends to be anti-nuclear.

Nonsense. Few countries rely more on nuclear energy than Japan. Even Fukushima didn't manage to change that.

However he is not japanese.

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