Michio Kaku: We’re Born Scientists But Switch to Investment Banking (and More Culture Around the Web)

Physics of the Future: How Sci­ence Will Shape Human Des­tiny and Our Dai­ly Lives by the Year 2100 — That’s the new book by the­o­ret­i­cal physi­cist, best-sell­ing author, and unabashed pop­u­lar­iz­er of sci­ence Michio Kaku. And, here’s one pre­dic­tion he makes. The U.S. won’t play as promi­nent a role in sci­ence dur­ing the years ahead. The rea­son why he explains in The Wall Street Jour­nal.

Fifty per­cent of Ph.D. physi­cists are for­eign-born, and they’re here com­pli­ments of the H1‑B visa. There’s a brain drain into the Unit­ed States; that’s why we’re still No. 1. But it can’t last for­ev­er.

And indeed while Chi­na and India start to lure their best tal­ent home, the best Amer­i­can stu­dents are leav­ing the hard sci­ences for lucra­tive careers, such as invest­ment bank­ing. Kaku goes on to say:

I have noth­ing against invest­ment bank­ing, but it’s like mas­sag­ing mon­ey rather than cre­at­ing mon­ey. If you’re in physics, you cre­ate inven­tions, you cre­ate lasers, you cre­ate tran­sis­tors, com­put­ers, GPS. [If you’re an invest­ment banker, on the oth­er hand] you don’t cre­ate any­thing new. You sim­ply mas­sage oth­er peo­ple’s mon­ey and take a cut.

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