Michio Kaku Makes Physics Readable

Michio Kaku, who was born of Japanese parents in 1947, is a brilliant scientist, a professor of Theoretical Physics at the City College of New York and a fine writer. I really enjoyed reading his latest book, “The Future of the Mind,” which just came out this year.

I certainly admit that I don’t understand a lot about complex physics, but, as was said in the USA Today, “Kaku has the rare ability to take complicated scientific theories and turn them into readable tales about what our lives will be like in the future.”

Besides his newest book, Kaku has written two other New York Times Best Sellers: Physics of the Impossible (2008) and Physics of the Future (2011). He has also made frequent appearances on radio, television, and film, and writes a number of online blogs and articles.

Unlike many scientists, Kaku is a pantheist who believes in God. As one of his unnamed admirers puts it very well, “He finds the universe beautiful and wondrous in its symmetry and natural order. For example, he has called the Grand Canyon a Cathedral and marveled at the patience and time it took for water to carve it.”

More generally, he says that “Our universe has been made intentionally compatible with human life.” For example, as he says about nuclear force,” If it were just a bit stronger, the sun would have burned out billions of years ago, too soon to allow DNA [deoxyribonucleic acid] to get off the ground.” On the other hand, he says, “If the nuclear force were a bit weaker, then the sun would never have ignited to begin with, and we still would not be here.”

Similarly, as he says about gravity, “If it were stronger, the universe would have collapsed into a Big Crunch billions of years ago, and we would all be roasted to death.” But, “If it were a bit weaker, then the universe would have expanded so fast it would have reached the Big Freeze, so we would all have frozen to death.”

Kaku is an advocate and supporter of string theory, and believes that our universe is only one of many “multiverses.” As a violinist I especially like this quote by him on the subject. “The way a string-theory string vibrates may confer the properties of various fundamental particles, just as the way a violin's string vibrates confers the resonant frequencies we recognize as different musical notes.”

Also comparing science and music, he said, Our “fine-tuning extends to every atom of the body. Physics says we are made of stardust, that the atoms we see all around us were forged in the heart of a star. We are literally children of the stars.”

For Kaku, religion and science need not be incompatible. As he puts it, “They can be in harmony, but only if rational people on both sides engage in honest debate.” It’s no surprise that Kaku is a great admirer of Einstein’s faith. As he puts it, “One of the most important revelations in Einstein’s early childhood took place when he read his first books on science. He immediately realized that most of what he had been taught about religion could not possibly be true. Throughout his career, however, he clung to the belief that a mysterious, divine Order existed in the universe.”

We’re fortunate to have a leading scientist who communicates so effectively. I do recommend that even if you aren’t a scientist, you should give “The Future of the Mind” a try.

Life On Earth After Death

This is from Linda Jo's columns of March 2013

I just finished reading a fascinating book, “Dying to be Me,” by Anita Moorjani. Anita is from India and was raised in the Hindu faith. Her parents moved to Hong Kong when she was just two, however, and she had a very broad upbringing, spending part of her schooling in a Catholic school and then later in the British Island School. Thus through her childhood she became a part of the worlds of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Catholicism, India, China and England.

When Anita was 43, married and living in Hong Kong, she became extremely ill with cancer of the lymphatic system. Because her best friend and her husband’s brother-in-law had both died of cancer despite all of the modern “cures,” she refused to undergo chemotherapy and radiation.

During those years of acute suffering she even went back to India for six months of yoga regimen. Finally, however, after four years, she grew worse and was rushed to a large, well-equipped hospital in Hong Kong, where the doctor described her tumors as numerous growths the size of lemons throughout her lymphatic system. At that point she weighed less than 90 pounds.

On Feb. 2, 2002, she actually died for many hours in what some call a Near Death Experience. For her, as apparently for others, this short-but-intense experience was amazingly exhilarating. As she put it, “Love, joy, ecstasy, and awe poured into me, through me, and engulfed me. I was swallowed up and enveloped in more love than I ever knew existed.”

Whereas she had always felt like an outsider there in Hong Kong and had always tried to please other people rather than simply being herself, her world changed radically for the better. For the first time, she felt her own worth as well as feeling a deep love for everyone else.

At that point she had an extremely difficult decision to make, for she could either stay in that perfect world where she felt no pain and felt as though she was no longer in her physical body, or she could come back to this world. She consciously, though somewhat reluctantly, decided to return because of her love for her husband and family.

In an amazingly short time upon her return, she recovered completely, without the surgery her doctors said she would need.

In this new world, she no longer worries about worldly matters, such as money, work or household and domestic issues, yet she says she doesn’t advocate “positive thinking.” One should rather let negative as well as positive thoughts pass through one’s mind without judgment.

Do not “carry any emotional baggage from one instant to the next,” she says, but rather “try to see each moment as a clean slate.”

I found this book quite inspiring as I read it, but I must admit that after I finished it and thought about my own experience with cancer 13 years ago, I realized that if I were to have any sign of cancer again, I would rush back to my wonderful Battle Creek cancer specialist, Dr. Stephen Smiley, and follow precisely whatever advice he gave me.

I would nevertheless recommend “Dying to Be Me,” as an inspiring book, and I would also recommend an excellent hour-long interview with Anita by Renate McNay, at www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jFN9XQeEn4.

Frederick Douglass, A Truly Great American

The noble, brilliant, caring 19th century black American, Frederick Douglass, had the saddest childhood I’ve ever heard of. Throughout his childhood poor Douglass had no parental love or guidance. He never even knew for sure who his father was, and he was separated from his mother when he was just an infant. 

Instead of being raised by his parents, he had to serve as a slave to various cruel white men who beat him frequently and absolutely forbid him to learn to read. He realized the importance of becoming a reader at a young age, however, saying,  “Once you learn to read, you will be forever free.”

Douglass not only taught himself to read, but he secretly went on to teach it to a number of other young slaves as well.

Eventually Douglass fell in love with a free black woman, Anna Murray, and after several attempts, he was finally able to escape to the north. Soon after, they married, and they had five children and a long happy life together.

Douglass eventually became free, was a fine speaker and writer and gave his whole life to helping blacks in any way he could. As he put it in his abolitionist newspaper, “The North Star,”  "Right is of no Sex - Truth is of no Color - God is the Father of us all, and we are all brethren."

In 1845 Douglass traveled alone to Ireland and England for two years and gave a number of speeches there, mainly in churches and chapels. He was deeply impressed with how much less prejudice he found in both countries. 

As he put it, “I breathe, and lo! the chattel [slave] becomes a man. I gaze around in vain for one who will question my equal humanity, claim me as his slave, or offer me an insult. I employ a cab—I am seated beside white people—I reach the hotel—I enter the same door—I am shown into the same parlour—I dine at the same table—and no one is offended... I find myself regarded and treated at every turn with the kindness and deference paid to white people. When I go to church, I am met by no upturned nose and scornful lip to tell me, 'We don't allow niggers in here!'"

It’s truly amazing that, despite the cruelty he had suffered as a child and the prejudice he suffered as an adult, Douglass truly cared about helping blacks and whites alike.I love his quote on the subject: “I would unite with anybody to do right and with nobody to do wrong.”

Douglass was also a powerful writer, especially in his three autobiographies, “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave”, written in 1845, when he was just 27; “My Bondage and My Freedom,” written in 1855, and finally “Life and Times of Frederick Douglass,” written in 1881 and revised in 1892. He also wrote a novel called, “The Heroic Slave,” in 1852. Though he was more known as an autobiographer, his novel was very popular, and was considered the first piece of fictional literature by an African American.

Besides his speeches and books, Douglass served as an advisor to five presidents: Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, Rutherford B. Hayes, James Garfield and Benjamin Harrison. In addition, he was appointed secretary of the commission of Santo Domingo by President Grant and as minister to Haiti by President Harrison.

Douglass is truly an inspiration for us all, and I surely recommend his inspiring books.

Words and Music Have Made My Life a Symphony

My two passions have always been words and music, and I’m convinced that they, along with family and friends of course, are two of the main reasons that I love life.

Words were my profession, for I was an English professor for well over 30 years, and now, after my retirement, I’ve been writing for the Battle Creek Enquirer for 15 years. 

My boss in those early days had me do little local stories at first, but then he soon let me do articles--sometimes two and even three per week--about all sorts of people and subjects.

Finally I got asked to do columns each week, and that’s been best of all. I can write about any subject I choose, I can work from home on my own schedule, and I can include my own opinions each time.

I sometimes think I will run out of subjects for my columns, but inevitably through reading or talking with people, I seem to get new ideas to pursue.

I’ve just been reading a book called “Loud and Clear,” by Anne Quindlen, a writer I truly admire. She was an extremely successful journalist and columnist for over 20 years and is now just as successful as a novelist. I have enjoyed a number of her books, both nonfiction and fiction.

In “Loud and Clear” Quindlen includes many of her columns as well as short autobiographical pieces. 

In one of them she says that she always urges young people to write, for they get to know themselves better. “Their written words are their personal histories, as they have been mine.”

Then there is music, which has always been as much a true passion for me as words. 

Playing the violin has always been fun, for my mother and I played together on piano and violin by ear for our Sunday school class, for friends in nursing homes, for my grandmother and just for enjoyment at home. 

Of course I had to practice as a girl--and for all of the more than 60 years I played in various orchestras at school and in local orchestras in Ohio and Michigan.

These days I don’t practice much anymore, however, for I retired from the Battle Creek Symphony almost four years ago. Instead, I play with the Olde Tyme Music group about six times a month, I play every Sunday at my church, and I play for various parties, weddings, funerals, and other events.

I certainly don’t claim to be a great violinist, but I can play most any tune I know without music, and that is a huge benefit. I can go to people’s tables or even their beds if they can’t get up, and I can play their favorite songs just for them.

These days I still teach both English and music for the Institute for Learning in Retirement in Battle Creek. I’ve taught 28 different classes already over the past 12 years or so and have plans for still more in the near future. 

I especially enjoyed teaching a class on violin music this year, for I could feel justified in playing requests on my violin during class.

I don’t know if I really believe in Heaven,  but if I do get to go there, I sure hope I’ll still get to read and write and play my violin.

In Memoriam, Barbara McKale

Sometimes people go to funerals and memorial services out of a feeling of obligation, but that was certainly not the mood of the family and many friends at the service of Barbara L. McKale last week.

Many people said to me before and after the service that Barb was one of the warmest, kindest people they had ever known, and they were extremely sad, mourning her sudden death just before her 77th birthday.

Her long-time minister, Rev. Jon Haug, from the St. Peter Lutheran Church recalled many positive and touching moments with Barb and asked how many people had chuckled at her humorous statements. Most every hand was raised instantly.

After graduating Magna Cum Laude with a major in Spanish from Albion College in 1959 and then getting a Master’s Degree from the University of Wisconsin in 1960, Barb married David McKale at the Trinity Lutheran Church in Lansing. Their marriage lasted for almost 54 years, and, according to Dave, it was full of joy and deep satisfaction.

Barb taught Spanish for 35 years here in Battle Creek and even took groups of students to both Spain and Mexico to work on their language skills.

Dan Hornaday, one of her thousands of students, said what many of them seemed to feel: “Barb McKale was my favorite teacher of all time. A fine lady who made an impact on all of her students.”

I got to know Barb only over the past decade, for she took a number of my classes in the Kellogg Community College’s “Institute for Learning in Retirement.” She fit right in, for my classes have all been about literature and music, and she truly loved both fields. 

When I saw Barb this last spring, she was excited to hear that I was going to teach a class on George Gershwin, saying that he was one of her favorite composers and she wouldn’t miss my class for anything. Well, most unfortunately she died just a couple of weeks before the class began.

Over the years I often played melodies on my violin for my class, and she liked my playing and suggested to her husband that I be asked to play for her memorial service.

Her husband proposed four pieces, all of which seemed to be just what she would have wanted, for they were “Summertime” and “Someone to Watch Over Me” by Gershwin, “Spanish Eyes,” which was appropriate for a Spanish teacher, and a favorite hymn, “Amazing Grace.”

A touching and most appropriate anonymous poem was included in the program for her service:

God saw she was getting tired

And a cure was not to be

So he put His loving arms around her

And whispered “Come with Me.”

She suffered much in silence

Her spirit did not bend

She faced her mental pain

With courage until the very end.

With tear filled eyes we watched

Her suffer and fade away

Although we loved her deeply

We could not let her stay.

A golden heart stopped beating,

Hard working hands put to rest.

God broke our heart to prove to us,

He only takes the very best.

I close with a beautiful quote by Dave: "Barb, my soul mate, had a zest for life and also many attributes one of which was courage. Though she knew her situation, she never once complained and always had that infectious smile for all that came to visit her as well as for those who took care of her. I am truly blessed to have spent almost 14 years with this beautiful and gracious lady."

Robert Gupta, Compassionate Violinist

I have a new violin playing hero about whom I’m delighted to write a column. His name is Robert Vijay Gupta, and he was born in this country though his parents both came here from India.

They wanted their son to become a lawyer or a doctor or successful businessman, and Robert did get a premedical college degree from Marist College at age 17. 

He had amazing musical talent, however, evidenced by his having been accepted at Juilliard’s pre-college program when he was just six years old.  It’s therefore no surprise that he finally made music his career.

By age 11, Robert made his solo debut in Tel Aviv with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of Maestro Zubin Mehta, and, by age 19, he had not only completed a Master’s Degree in Music from Yale University but was accepted as the youngest player in the outstanding Los Angeles Philharmonic Symphony.

Since joining that orchestra, Robert has also performed as a soloist with many symphonies, including the New York Philharmonic, the Japan Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Bombay Symphony Orchestra, as well as performing frequently with various chamber music groups.

All of this is extremely impressive, of course, but what is even more wonderful--and probably unique--is that besides his professional career, Robert works with such people as Nathaniel Ayers, who is, as Robert himself put it, “a homeless, paranoid schizophrenic man.”

Both Robert and Nathaniel had studied at Juilliard, but whereas Robert was extremely successful, Nathaniel wasn’t able to continue his studies there because of his mental illness.

After Nathaniel left, he literally lived on the streets of Los Angeles for 30 years, playing both violin and cello as best he could, though sometimes he was so poor that his instruments had only one or two strings.

Robert met him and began giving him violin lessons in 2008, and, as he put it, “Time after time, the music would bring him back from the very brink of a schizophrenic episode. Nathaniel showed me that music was medicine, that music was sanity.” 

In this context, Robert also said, “It is really gut-wrenchingly terrifying to see someone so talented in the midst of such suffering.”

Though he was the one giving the lessons, Robert even claimed that Nathaniel was “certainly one of my most effective teachers.”

The story of Robert helping Ayers was featured in several articles by Los Angeles Times columnist Steve Lopez, and on a Sixty Minutes piece about Nathaniel. Lopez also wrote a book about Nathaniel called “The Soloist.”  

Some of you will remember that Lopez came here to Battle Creek in 2010 to talk about his book, which was the town’s official book of the year. 

You may even remember that I got to play my violin at  the library, at Lakeview Middle School Auditorium and at Kellogg Community College just before his speeches.

As though all of his help with Nathaniel weren’t enough, since 2012,  Robert has sponsored a free concert series called “The Street Sympathy” for the homeless, veterans and mentally ill on Skid Row in Los Angeles. He has also played concerts at the Twin Towers Jail in that city.

If you would like to meet Robert, hear him talking about his projects and playing wonderful violin solos, go to his two inspiring TED talks on line at

http://www.ted.com/talks/robert_gupta and

http://www.ted.com/talks/robert_gupta_between_music_and_medicine

Onyleen Zapata, Miss Potawatomi 2014

Onyleen Zapata, also known as "Ony," is a truly amazing and active young Native American girl of just 14 who, together with her family, lives just north of Athens, near the Potawatomi Reservation.

At age 13, Onyleen was honored with the title of "Miss Potawatomi," as chosen from the 9 bands of Potawatomis throughout Canada and the United States. Miss Potawatomi is chosen annually at the Gathering of the Potawatomi Nations, hosted by a different band each year. This year, the Gun Lake Tribe will be hosting the event.

Onyleen told me she has had a dream about winning this contest ever since 2009, when she was just 8 years old, and it inspired her for the next five years to prepare for this contest last August. 

In her competition with an older Native from New Mexico, both were asked to introduce themselves in their native language, explain their specialty dance, tell what their regalia signified and also say if they had any participation in its making.

If any part of their regalia or beadwork, feathers, etc. falls off during their dance, that contestant would be automatically disqualified. (This also applies when dancing in a Pow Wow contest.)

Onyleen was wearing her fancy dance outfit when I went to her home, and I was extremely impressed, especially by a fancy crown with pictures and words on it which she was awarded for the contest. She is very pleased that she will get to keep the crown even after she will be succeeded by the next Miss Potawatomi in August.

Speaking of her replacement, Onyleen's younger sister, O'felia, has been inspired by her sister's exciting success and plans to enter the next contest this coming August.

The girls’ parents and grandparents have been very active in Native events for many years. 

Her grandpa, Terry A. Chivis, has been singing with a drum for over 35 years, and her dad, Arthur, is the lead singer for the family’s Southern Straight Singers. Even her younger brother Owyn, who is just 11, sometimes leads at the drum, and the rest of the family either dances or sings.

Onyleen's mother, Mon-ee, has a job with the tribe as a cultural associate and has top seniority within the tribe. 

Though her dad grew up in Marshall and says there was some prejudice back when he was in school, everyone in the family seems to have a positive attitude and certainly tries not to allow themselves to be affected by anything negative.

The three Zapata children go to Athens Public School and though there are about 300 students there, only a dozen are Native Americans. They are all three very active students, for both sisters play the clarinet in the school band, and all three are also involved in a number of sports, including football, softball, basketball, volleyball, and track.

Because Onyleen seems much older that 14, I felt comfortable asking her about her future. She said she hopes to go to Michigan State, but she doesn't know what her major will be. After that she has thought about going into the Army, or she might do professional photography.

Whatever Onyleen finally takes up after college, I feel sure that she will be successful and happy with life, and I also feel sure that you'll be hearing more about her in the future.

My Musical Memories

Did you know that as a baby you could remember music experienced when you were still in your mother’s womb?

I feel sure that in my mother’s womb I heard more music than most babies, for my mother was a terrific piano player who loved to play by ear and played all of the time. I can still remember her going to the piano even for five minutes when our dad wasn’t home yet from work and dinner was cooking. She wasn’t practicing but rather just playing by ear for simple joy.

I must have loved hearing her play, probably even from her womb, for I started trying to play the piano with my small hands when I was just three years old.

Though my mother was impressed with my love for the piano by ear, she decided that I should learn to play properly. That plan was an especially good one, for that was where I was encouraged, because of my good ear, to play violin as well as piano.

There’s a very interesting book by Daniel J. Levitin called “This Is Your Brain on Music,” where he explains that we all heard and sometimes even remembered all sorts of interesting sounds while still in the womb, including, of course, our mother’s heartbeat and various voices.

But perhaps one of the most significant sounds, he says, was music, for it had an influence in our taste for music after we were born--and sometimes for our whole lives.

Levitin explains in his book that Professor Alexandra Lamont of Keele University in England studied this subject intensely and developed an experiment of having a group of mothers play a single piece of music for their unborn babies over their last three months before birth.

After the babies were born, the mothers were not allowed to play or sing that piece at all until their babies were one year old.

At that point, Professor Lamont played the very music the babies heard in the womb along with one other piece. She set up two loudspeakers, one on each side of the baby, and alternated the two tunes, one familiar and one not familiar.

The babies was placed between those speakers, and they would invariably turn their faces toward the speaker playing the familiar music from before they were born.

Professor Lamont had another control group of babies who had not heard a particular piece of music in the womb. Those babies showed no preference for one piece of music over another.

For me, the best aspect of my hearing music constantly by my mother from even before I was born is that I have always been passionate about music--especially playing by ear. I have been playing, mostly on violin but also on piano, for virtually my whole life, and I surely hope to keep playing for many more years to come.

I’m of course tremendously thankful to my mother for her musical influence, but I’m also grateful that at nearly 75, my fingers, hands, arms and shoulders don’t suffer from any arthritis or other problems from which other music friends have suffered.

I finally retired from the Battle Creek Symphony after 31 years, but these days I play more than ever with the Olde Tyme Music group six or more times each month, at my church each Sunday, and for many other events as well.

My sweetheart Andrew and I will be marrying on my 100th birthday, and I definitely plan to play my violin for the event.

A Remarkable Man Tells of a Remarkable Girl

Dr. Oliver Sacks’s popular book, “The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales,” is full of accounts of fascinating patients with highly unusual mental, psychological and physical problems, I could have chosen a fascinating subject for my column from most any one of 24 patients described in the book.

I was particularly fascinated, however, by a 19-year-old girl named Rebecca, for she was mentally very handicapped, and yet she was also both intelligent and insightful.

As he explained, Rebecca couldn’t find her way around the block; she couldn’t open a door with a key; she often put on her clothes inside out or backwards; she had a partial cleft palate which affected her speech; she couldn’t count change, and she could never learn to read or write.

When Rebecca was given IQ tests, she averaged just 60, which is, of course, considered a very retarded score. Even the very experienced, understanding Dr. Sacks, when he first met her in his office, described her as, “clumsy, uncouth, all-of-a-fumble---I saw her merely or wholly, as a casualty, a broken creature, whose neurological impairments I could pick out and dissect with precision.”

The second time he saw her, however, it was outdoors, before his office opened. She was sitting on a bench and smiled warmly, enjoying what he described as “not just a simple but a sacred view of nature.”

He had also just learned that she was active in the family’s Jewish Synagogue. As Dr. Sacks explained, “She loved going to the synagogue, where she too was loved (and seen as a child of God, a sort of innocent, a holy fool), and she fully understood the liturgy, the chants, the prayers, rites and symbols of which the Orthodox service consists.”

Rebecca’s parents had both died by the time she was three, and she had been raised by her grandmother. When Sacks next met her, a half-year after their first meeting, her grandmother had died suddenly, and her grief was deep. He had gone to see her as soon as he heard the news, and she was, as he put it, “frozen with grief.” When she was able to speak, however, she said touchingly,  “Grannie’s all right. She’s gone to her long home.” And she said, “It is winter. I feel dead. But I know the spring will come again.”

After her grandmother’s death, Rebecca was put into various workshops and classes, but she quickly insisted that she did not want to go to any of them. “I’m like a sort of living carpet,” she insisted. “I come apart, I unravel, unless there’s a design.”

Dr. Sacks understood what she meant right away and enrolled her, instead, in a special theatre group which she loved from the first moment.

As he put it, “She became a complete person, poised, fluent, with style, in each role. And now if one sees Rebecca on stage, . . .  one would never even guess that she was mentally defective.”

Music and drama, accord to Dr. Sacks, have the power to organize “when abstract or schematic forms of organization fail.”

I especially liked his comment about his approach to all of the people in the book: ”I’m equally drawn to the scientific and the romantic and continually see both in the human condition.”

Dr. Sacks’ books are about such interesting people and are so well written that it’s hard for a columnist like me not to keep mining. I would urge you to read his books, but I hope you’ll read my columns about him as well.