Backstage with Michio Kaku

The photos here show famed physicist Dr. Michio Kaku on-stage (despite this blog post's headline), signing books following his Monday, March 28, 2011, speech and audience Q&A at The Commonwealth Club in Silicon Valley.

But there was a backstage, too. Before his speech, I had the pleasure of interviewing Dr. Kaku in the green room, where we discussed some of the ideas he explores in his great new bestseller, Physics of the Future: How Science Will Shape Human Destiny and Our Daily Lives by the Year 2100. I had known that he was born in San Jose, but I hadn't known that he had grown up in the South Bay, leaving only upon graduation from high school in 1964. He had some nice remarks about growing up here, back when Silicon Valley looked so different than it does today. He expanded upon some of his remarks during his speech to the sold-out audience at Palo Alto's Cubberley Theatre, as well as in the Q&A session, which I moderated.

I will write up a portion of the interview for my next column in Northside San Francisco. After they publish it, they also post it online, at which point I'll post an only slightly edited transcript of the interview on this blog, as I did with my Premal Shah and P.J. O'Rourke interviews. In the meantime, I will be working on the next issue of The Commonwealth magazine, which is slated to feature Dr. Kaku on the cover.

So it's all-Kaku, all the time around here. And that's not bad.