The God Equation

Dr. Michio Kaku was interviewed for The Commonwealth Club by Wired.com’s Kara Platoni. (Kaku photo by Andrea Brizzi; Platoni photo by Rosa Furneaux; photo above by ipicgr.)

successfully combine theories of relativity and quantum mechanics, all forces in the universe will be recognized and tied into one. Physicist Michio Kaku seeks to document this epic journey of uniting theories of space in his new book The God Equation. From the April 16, 2021, online program “Dr. Michio Kaku: The God Equation.” Dr. MICHIO KAKU, Professor of Theoretical Physics, City College of New York; Author, The God Equation: The Quest for a Theory of Everything In conversation with KARA PLATONI, Senior Editor, Science, Wired.com KARA PLATONI: I wanted to introduce people to the big idea of your book. The theory of everything is a quest to unite the two big frameworks that we have for understanding the universe. There’s general relativity, which describes gravity and spacetime; and there’s quantum mechanics, which describes everything else—electromagnetism, strong nuclear force. So the first describes the biggest things in the universe, and the second describes the smallest things in the universe—and your quest is to unite them all under one umbrella.

Why do you think there can be one theory that describes everything? MICHIO KAKU: Well, you know all of biology can be summarized in the language of chemistry; all of chemistry can be summarized in the language of physics. And all the physics can be summarized by these two great theories that don’t talk to each other.

They’re hostile theories. They have different mathematics, different physical [structures], and they don’t combine. So why should God have a left hand and a right hand that don’t talk to each other?

You know, it’s amazing that the great theme of science for the last 2,000 years has been unification. Isaac Newton unified the laws of heaven with the laws of the Earth. Maxwell and Faraday united the laws of electricity with those of magnetism. Einstein with E=mc2 unified matter with energy. That’s the theme of the universe.

So why should this grand theme of unification be spoiled at the most fundamental level? The level at which we have the Big Bang, black holes. And that’s why I think there has to be one unified theory that unites everything into the God equation. PLATONI: So you don’t think nature should be chaotic and messy and “red in tooth and claw,” just all over the place. KAKU: That’s right. In fact, I first heard about this idea when I was eight years old. When I was eight years old, a great scientist

had just died and all the newspapers published a picture of his desk—just his desk—and the caption said, “This is the unfinished manuscript of the greatest scientist of our time.”

I was hooked. I had to know why couldn’t he finish that. He could ask his mother, right? It’s a homework problem. I went to the library; I had to know what was behind this. I found out the man’s name was Albert Einstein, and that book was to be his crowning achievement. He wanted an equation one inch long, perhaps, that would unify all the great forces in the universe. He failed. For 30 years he tried to do that and he failed.

I was hooked. When I was in high school, by the way, I built an atom smasher. I went to my mom and I said, “Can I have permission to build an electron accelerator in the garage?” And my mom said, “Sure, why not?” So I assembled 400 pounds of transformers, steel, 22 miles of copper wire, and I built an atom smasher in the garage.

Of course, every time I turned it on I blew out all the circuit breakers in the house. My poor mom would just shake her head and say, “Why couldn’t I have a son who plays basketball? Maybe if I buy him a baseball. And for God’s sake, why can’t he find a nice Japanese girlfriend? What does he have to build these machines in the garage?” PLATONI: So was this the beginning for you of this quest to find the one-inch theory that describes everything, seeing this photo of Einstein’s desk? KAKU: That’s right. One photograph changed my life. I said to myself, “That’s for me.” This is the greatest challenge. The Holy Grail of science: unify all the laws of the universe into a single framework. And today, we think we have it. It’s not in its final form, but we call it string theory and it’s based on music.

Now, let’s go back to the Greek philosophers 2,000 years ago. Pythagoras thought that the world was not made out of atoms, but made out of music. He saw a lyre string one day. He knows that the longer the string the lower the note. He went to a blacksmith shop and saw a sword; the longer the sword, the lower the note. And he said, “Aha! The mathematics of music, the mathematics of notes and resonances and chords, that is rich enough to explain the vast diversity of the universe. The universe is based on music.” Well, of course, that theory never went anywhere. The Roman Empire fell apart, for a thousand years there was darkness and superstition, but finally now we have a new theory on the block, string theory, which does believe that, yes, Pythagoras was onto something. If I had a super microscope that I could [use to] peer into an electron, the electron would not be a dot at all. It would be a rubber band, and if you twang it it would vibrate at a different frequency. So an electron is one frequency like this, a neutrino would be like this, a quark would be like this, and nothing but different musical notes on the same string. So physics is the harmonies you can write on these vibrating strings. Chemistry is the melodies you can play when these strings bump into each other. The universe is a symphony of strings and the mind of God that Albert Einstein chased after for so many decades. The mind of God is cosmic music resonating through hyperspace; that is the mind of God. PLATONI: Let me make sure that I understand the basic idea of strength theory. So if we use your super microscope idea, we peer into the heart of the atom and we peer into the subatomic particles that make up the atom, and instead of a hard ball, a particle in the middle, what we see is a little vibrating filament, one-dimensional string of energy. KAKU: My God, she’s got it! PLATONI: Okay. And then each of these strings are vibrating at a particular frequency. KAKU: That’s right. PLATONI: And that makes it a certain thing. It determines its mass, its charge— what does it determine? KAKU: For example, we know that we have

musical notes—A, B-flat, C-sharp—and these are just nothing but notes on the same string. The same piano string can give you A, B-flat, C-sharp, so on and so forth.

So from a distance, this rubber band looks like a dot looks, like a point particle. So these particles can be then categorized by its quantum number, its harmonic frequencies, its mass and so on and so forth. Then this zoo of subatomic particles that we have— hundreds of subatomic particles when we smash protons—is nothing but musical notes, musical notes coming from vibrating strings. PLATONI: Okay, so the string, instead of giving us B-flat, it gives us the electron. KAKU: That’s right. PLATONI: Okay. So from these we build up to atoms and then molecules and then to all of the stuff of the universe today—earth, trees, air—all of these things. KAKU: The universe is a symphony, a symphony of these vibrating strings. You see therefore that a very simple paradigm—music —is rich enough, as Pythagoras thought 2,000 years ago, to explain the diversity of nature. Atoms are great, we know that of course atoms do exist. But how many kinds of atoms are there and how many subatomic particles are out there? What is the rhyme or reason? What is the paradigm that unifies all the notes, all the elements, that you can write from atoms and all the subatomic particles?

Again, Pythagoras said the only paradigm rich enough, simple but rich enough, to explain the diversity of matter is music and it’s the music of vibrating strings. PLATONI: So one of these vibrating strings would be the graviton, right? KAKU: Exactly, that’s right. In fact, the lowest octave of the string contains the graviton, a particle of gravity. In fact, if Einstein had never been born, we would have discovered all of General Relativity is nothing but the lowest octave of a vibrating string. There it is, all of Einstein’s theory has nothing but the lowest notes on a vibrating string. This is amazing. PLATONI: The idea is that the graviton is one kind of vibrating string, the way the electron and proton and everything else is a kind of vibrating string, and this is what unites all of the fundamental forces. It all comes down to the same component part, which is the vibrating string. KAKU: That’s right. PLATONI: String theory unites gravity in spacetime with everything else. KAKU: Right. And the Standard Model with the scores of subatomic particles, gravity— they’re nothing but the lowest octave, and the theory predicts higher octaves as well beyond the musical octaves that we see around us. Everything you see around here is a lowest octave of the string. But there are higher octaves.

Two weeks ago at Fermilab outside Chicago—big news! It turns out that the Standard Model of subatomic particles is very clumsy, very ugly, but it works. It does describe the quarks and the neutrinos. Nobody but nobody thinks it’s the final theory. It’s simply too ugly. It’s a theory that “only a mother can love.” And now we suspect that the crack found just two weeks ago, the mu meson, has a magnetic moment different from the theory, meaning that there’s other particles, other resonances perhaps, and that’s why string theorists are very excited. Is this the first clue in 50 years? In 50 years we have seen no deviation from the Standard Model—the “theory of almost everything”—except finally we found a crack, a new particle perhaps will emerge, and we think that could be the next octave of the vibrating string. PLATONI: Explain to people a little bit about what we mean about new particles. The way that chemistry has a periodic table of the elements, the Standard Model of physics has a chart that lists all of the known particles and their properties, right? That’s the Standard Model.

So the idea is, might there be something else we don’t know about that’s out in the universe? Might there be something that would kind of break the standard model and give us new physics, right? KAKU: Right, exactly. You see we physicists believe that at the fundamental level, nature should be simple, elegant, beautiful. But the Standard Model is ugly, clumsy, contrived. It’s sort of like taking an aardvark and a platypus and taping them together with Scotch tape and calling that nature’s finest evolutionary creation, the end product of millions of years of evolution on the planet Earth. [Laughter.]

Even the creators of the Standard Model realize that it’s only a halfway house. But it seems to work at low energies. Now, at high energies, it seems to be breaking down, and you see that’s what’s causing all the excitement. We need a clue. We need a clue that there’s another theory out there that is beautiful, elegant, simple—because beauty is, believe it or not, one of the main drivers of physics. Physics shows that at the fundamental level the laws of nature are simpler than we thought and more beautiful and gorgeous than we thought.

So why should the alternate theory be the ugliest theory known to science? PLATONI: I always liked that idea, that in physics and I think in math, elegance and simplicity is the most beautiful thing that you can have. KAKU: That’s right, but the Standard Model has 36 quarks and antiquarks. Three identical generations of particles and 23 parameters. You can’t think of a theory more ugly than that, but it works at low energies. But at high energies, we think it fails and a new theory is emerging right before our eyes. It could be string theory or—who knows? But this is big news. PLATONI: You don’t talk about this experiment in your book, but you mentioned the idea that looking for a new particle is a little bit like the way that earlier astronomers looked for new planets.

KAKU: Exactly. PLATONI: So the idea was they knew where some planets were but not the others, and they could infer that there must be something else out there, because something was tugging on the orbit of the planets that they knew about, right? So the same thing is going on with the muons that they’re studying at Fermilab. The muon is moving in a way that’s a little bit unexpected. KAKU: That’s right. Well, as Einstein said, “When you see the tail of a lion, you have to assume that there could be a lion at the other end.” This could be the tail of the lion.

And remember there’s now something called dark matter that astronomers have discovered. Dark matter surrounds the galaxy, is invisible, holds the galaxy together. We don’t know what it is. It could be the next octave of the string. I tell young students, people who are listening to this program, for example, that if you ever find out what dark matter is, the first thing you should do is tell me first and we’ll split the Nobel Prize money, because that’s what it’s worth. A new form of matter out there, more plentiful than ordinary matter called dark matter, invisible matter, and we think it could be the next octave up of the strength. PLATONI: So with this whatever it is that’s making the muon move, wobble more than it should, you think maybe that might give us some clues about dark matter. KAKU: Exactly. The muon is a partner of the electron. It weighs about 200 times more than the electron, but otherwise it’s identical to the election.

And we now find out that its magnetic properties differ from the theory. The Standard Model says the magnetic property should be like this, but oh-oh, it’s actually measured to be something different. So that’s a deviation. The first deviation in 50 years, I should point out. For 50 years we’ve been stuck, stuck with the “theory of almost everything,” the Standard Model, because it works. But now we have the first clue that there could be new physics, a new force, perhaps the next octave of the vibrating string. PLATONI: Okay, so we talked a little bit about dark matter. What other physics or cosmology questions does the string theory help us examine? KAKU: Well, children when they hear about the Big Bang, they say “Mommy, Daddy, what is the universe expanding into?” At that point, mommy and daddy say, “Uh, ask your teacher,” right?

Well, Einstein gives us a picture that the universe is a bubble of some sort. We live on the skin of the bubble, and the bubble’s expanding. That’s called the Big Bang Theory. String theory says that if it’s a quantum theory, there’s a certain finite probability that there are other bubbles out there. And when the bubbles collide, that’s the Big Bang. Or the bubble fissions in half—that is what the Big Bang is. This is the multiverse idea. It replaces the single bubble with a bubble bath. a bubble bath of parallel universes.

And then I know the next question that I always get whenever I talk about parallel universes is, “Is Elvis Presley still alive in a parallel universe?” There’s a certain finite probability that there is a universe out there where Elvis Presley is still belting out those hits, hit after hit in another universe. Not in our universe; in our universe, unfortunately, he passed away. PLATONI: Let me make sure I understand that you’re talking about this idea that people call the spacetime bomb. KAKU: Right, exactly. PLATONI: There’s is no real vacuum of space there, no nothing. KAKU: Exactly, that’s right. If I had a superduper microscope, it can see the fabric of space-time. Einstein thought it was curved, but even if you look carefully at the curved space time, it’s bubbly. From a distance, it looks curved like a trampoline net, but up close there’s no bubbles. Each bubble is a potential universe. They pop into existence and pop out of existence so we never see them. It looks like the vacuum. But one day, one of these bubbles actually did not pop back, it just kept on going and going—and that is our universe.

So we think our universe came from a parent universe. We are going to launch a satellite in the future called LISA [Laser Interferometer Space Antenna]. It’s a gravity wave detector in outer space. It’ll give us the first baby pictures of the infant universe as it emerges from the womb of the Big Bang, and maybe just maybe it’ll pick up evidence of an umbilical cord. An umbilical cord connecting our infant universe in the womb to a mother universe. Maybe that’s where our universe came from. One of the predictions of string theory is the multiverse of universes, universes split off baby universes. In fact, that’s what Stephen Hawking called them: baby universes. That’s his nomenclature.

PLATONI: So in this idea, all the bubble universes are independent, they’re separate. What way then could they connect so that one universe could give rise to another? KAKU: Well, we don’t know. But we think that quantum mechanics says that there’s a certain probability that if you have a soap bubble, the soap bubble could fission in half.

Now, let’s take a look at our universe. What is the net electrical charge of our universe? Positive cancels negative—we learned that in high school—therefore the net charge of the universe is zero. What is the net spin of the universe? Well, galaxies point in all directions; they average out to zero. What is the matter energy content of the universe? Gravity has negative energy, ordinary matter has positive energy; they add up to give you zero. In other words our universe is compatible with zero. Zero charge. Zero spin. Zero matter energy. In other words, our universe came from nothing. Our universe was a quantum fluctuation of a parent universe, which also had the quantum numbers of nothing.

Remember the Bible refers to the “mist.” Well, perhaps that’s where our universe came from. It came from nothing. A quantum fluctuation out of the quantum foam. One bubble decided to keep on going, and that became our universe. PLATONI: So all of these little tiny universities popping in and out of existence, ours just takes off. It gets really big, and it lasts almost 14 billion years so far. KAKU: That’s right. In other words, universes are being born even as we talk. Even as we talk, universes somewhere far, far away have been exploding, giving you other Big Bangs throughout the multiverse. Again, this is the dominant picture coming from experimental data. Inflation fits all the experimental data, and inflation says that if the universe was born as a quantum event, it can happen again and again, because there’s a probability that it could happen again and again and again, so we’re naturally led to the multiverse idea by looking at quantum mechanics. PLATONI: When we study the formation of planets and the search for life in space, we have this idea of the Goldilocks zone for our planet. That it’s not too close to its sun and it’s not too far from its sun, so that it can support liquid water and therefore life as we know it.

So we have this idea of the Goldilocks habitable zone for planet. Do we have that idea for universes—that there’s something that would make the perfect conditions for a universe to be stable and to last as long as our universe has? KAKU: Exactly, this is called the anthropic principle. If the nuclear force were a little bit stronger, the sun would have burnt out billions of years ago and we wouldn’t be here. If the nuclear force were weaker, then the sun would never have ignited to begin with and we still wouldn’t be here. If gravity were a bit stronger, the universe would have exploded and freeze to death, and we’d all be frozen in a big freeze. If gravity were a little bit stronger, the universe would have expanded and contracted to a big crunch, and we still wouldn’t be here.

Now, there are many accidents. The universe is just right to make intelligent beings. What does that mean? Well, maybe there are other universes out there where the nuclear force is too weak, is too strong. Stars never ignite or they burn out, and therefore there’s no life on these universes.

In other words: Congratulations, we hit the jackpot. We happen to be on a planet that is just right from the sun, and a planet that’s just right to have stars that ignite, and gravity that doesn’t freeze us to death. PLATONI: That’s one of the very mindbending ideas in string theory. Let me ask you about another one that I have always found very hard to understand. String theory only works if there are 10 or 11 dimensions. KAKU: That’s right. PLATONI: And now we’re used to three spatial dimensions plus time. What are these other six and where are these other six? KAKU: Well, they are four fundamental forces and [when you] to write the equations for these four and put them together, they don’t fit. When you start to go to a higher dimension, then the forces begin to fit mathematically together. When you go to 10 dimensions [or] 11, there’s enough room. This is improved to fit all the fundamental forces together. So we don’t like it. We would prefer to be in a three-dimensional universe, but the math says no, no. In lower dimensions string theories are inconsistent, they have what are called anomalies. In other words, 2 plus 2 equals 5; you can prove in some of these other universes. Now, of course 2 plus 2 equals 4. So we want a universe which is mathematically consistent. The only mathematically consistent universes are in 10 and 11 dimensions. Why? Well, I don’t know; it’s just the math. That’s where the math takes us, okay? Now, some people think that’s too fantastic. I mean who can believe in hyperspace? This is something out of Star Trek. Well, get used to it. That’s the way the theories seem to go.

I get we need proof. That’s where LISA comes in measuring the instant of the Big Bang. That’s where dark matter experiments come in trying to find dark matter in the laboratory as a higher ocular string. And then the Fermilab experiment of two weeks ago. There are measurements we can make to prove or disprove this theory. This theory is testable. It is reproducible, and it is falsifiable. That qualifies for it to be a science, even though at the present time we have no direct proof.

Dakota is an enrolled member of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and a Native American Studies instructor at the United Tribes Technical College, a Native American owned and operated college. He has his M.A in History from North Dakota State University and B.A. in Theology from the University of Mary. Dakota runs The First Scout blog which focuses on Lakota issues and traditional moon counts. Previously Dakota was an interpreter at the State Heritage Center and Museum in Bismarck. He is both Yanktonai and Húŋkphapȟa Lakȟóta, and was raised in Fort Yates on the Standing Rock Sioux Indian Reservation.

Please note that our itinerary involves some time driving from city to city, as well as, a fair amount of walking around the sites including some stairs and uneven terrain. Most days have an early-morning start and include a full day’s schedule of activities. Participants must be in good health and able to keep up with an active group. Drive times average is between 3-4 hours per day, sometimes over winding roads. The longest day of driving is 7 hours total with stops for touring along the way. Temperatures in the region average in the 55-65’s (°F) during the day, and 35-45’s (°F) in the evenings. This program will be covering topics that include violence, and that may be difficult for children. Therefore, we do not recommend this program for people under 16.

Independent arrivals into Bismarck. and to the Radisson Hotel Bismarck. Meet at 3:00 with our group to depart for an afternoon visit to the North Dakota Heritage Center and State Museum. Our discussion leader Dakota Wind Goodhouse will guides us through the museum. End the afternoon meeting with Danielle Ta’Sheena Finn, a citizen of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and an acclaimed activist and artist. Enjoy a welcome reception and dinner with fellow travelers.

Today begins with a visit to Fort Abraham Lincoln State Park. The reconstructed ‘On-ASlant Indian Village’ provides an excellent introduction to the earth-lodges of the Mandan Indians who occupied this site. Continue driving along Highway 1806, the Standing Rock National Native American Scenic Byway, an 86-mile route that climbs up and down the Missouri River, past buffalo herds and eagle’s nests. History comes alive on this journey where the great Lakota spiritual leader Sitting Bull lived and died.

Enter the Standing Rock Reservation, home to the Lakota and Dakota people. Meet with Rev. John Floberg, who is deeply committed to the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) protests. With the endorsement of the national Episcopal Church, Floberg provided supplies to campers and hosted protestors in his church. Continue on to nearby Fort Yates, the main town of Standing Rock and enjoy a locally cooked lunch at the Community Center. After lunch, visit the original burial site of Sitting Bull who was assassinated on the western part of the reservation.

Monday, September 27

Depart the hotel and drive to Knife River Indian Villages National Historic Site, a National Parks Service site, which preserves the historic and archaeological remnants of bands of Hidatsa, Northern Plains Indians. This area was once a major trading and agricultural area. Continue on to the Double Ditch Indian Village, a large earth-lodge community inhabited by the Mandan Indians for nearly 300 years, and once a center of trade between the Mandans, their nomadic neighbors, and later, Euro-American traders.

End the afternoon meeting with Emma Doll, a Native American who set up the Five Nations Arts Organization, a resource to artists and collectors of Native American art in the region. Also meeting the group will be Cheryl Kary, co-founder of the Sacred Pipe Resource Center (SPRC) which was founded by a group of residents of the Bismarck-Mandan area who are committed to the mission of maintaining a home-away-from-home for off-reservation Native Americans living in the area.

End the afternoon visiting the Standing Rock Tribal Council Offices which were designed following authentic Native American architectural elements. Drive about three hours to our Keystone hotel, tucked deep in the Black Hills. Dinner at our hotel.

Wednesday, September 29

This morning meet with Sequoia Crosswhite, a member of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe. He is an accomplished musician, grass dancer and historian, as well as an enrolled member of the Cheyenne River Sioux tribe and a descendant of Chief War Eagle and Chief Swift Cloud.

Drive just over an hour to the inspiring Thunder Valley Community Center. A Lakota run grass roots center with goals to “create models of change that will overpower intergenerational poverty and build momentum towards regional equity.”

Head towards the town of Pine Ridge stop-

ping at the site of the Massacre of Wounded Knee in 1890. The “battle” was actually a massacre where hundreds of unarmed Lakota women, children, and men, were shot and killed by U.S. troops.

Stop in at the Oglala Tribe Justice Center which houses courtrooms, a short term correctional holding facility, offices for law enforcement and justice officials. Funded by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the facility is the first of its kind to blend traditional tribal justice concepts with a technologically advanced design.

End the afternoon meeting with artist Joe Pulliam Buffalo Dreamer whose work is in the permanent collection of the National Museum of the American Indian. Pulliam has dedicated his art to preserving Lakota culture.

Thursday, September 30

Accompanied by Sequoia Crosswhite spend the morning visiting the Badlands National Park and stopping at the Wind Cave National Park, an important spot in the Emergence Story.

Continue to Denver making a stop in Boulder to meet with the Native American Rights Fund (NARF). NARF has provided legal assistance to Indian tribes, organizations, and individuals who might otherwise have gone without adequate representation involving tribal sovereignty, treaty rights and natural resource protection. Continue to Denver and checkin to our hotel. Enjoy dinner on your own.

Friday, October 1

Depart the hotel and meet with Darius Smith director of the Denver Anti-Discrimination Office where he investigates, conducts administrative hearings and mediates civil rights discrimination complaints. Darius also serves as the American Indian Liaison to the Denver American Indian Commission that advocates for social and cultural awareness to promote economic and political equality.

After lunch, drive through spectacular landscapes stopping at the Great Sand Dunes National Park, home to the highest sand dunes in North America. The mountains, forests, and dunes in the park are sacred to the Apache, Navajo, Ute, and Pueblo Indians. Drive on to Del Norte and the Windsor Hotel, one of Colorado’s oldest hotels.

Saturday, October 2

This morning drive about two hours to Chimney Rock, an intimate, off-the-beaten path archaeological site located at the southern edge of the San Juan Mountains. The site was home to the ancestors of the modern Pueblo Indians. Enjoy lunch nearby before driving to Durango and the Native American Center (NAC). The center provides academic, cultural, social, and transitional support for undergraduate Native American students.

Continue on to Ignacio and the Sky Ute Casino Resort, located on the Southern Ute Reservation. The oldest continuous residents of Colorado are the Ute Indians. End the afternoon with a discussion focusing on the social and economic impact of Indian gaming. Gaming has had a significant positive economic impact on the Native American community, yet is not without its detractors. We’ll hear from tribal experts on the economic and political realities.

Sunday, October 3

This morning visit the Southern Ute Cultural Center and meet with Linda Baker, director of the Southern Ute Cultural Center. Owned and operated by the Southern Ute Indian Tribe to preserve and promote Ute culture. Here we will also meet with Edward Box III, Culture Director of the Preservation Department.

Meet with the staff at the Southern Ute Drum, the tribe’s biweekly community newspaper. Enjoy a farewell dinner this evening.

Monday, October 4

Independently transfer to the Durango–La Plata County Airport for flights home.

Based on minimum of 15 travelers Maximum 24 travelers, not including staff.

• Accommodations and meals as per itinerary • All sightseeing in an air-conditioned coach • Bottled water on the bus • All entrances and events as listed • Discussion Leader to accompany the group • Pre-departure materials and reading list • The services of a professional tour manager to accompany the group • Gratuities

• Airfare to Bismarck and back from

Ignacio/Durango • Alcoholic beverages except for wine and beer at welcome and farewell events • Excess luggage charges • Trip Insurance • Items of a purely personal nature

___ I plan to share accommodations with ________________________ OR ___ I wish to have single accommodations. OR ___ I’d like to know about possible roommates. Bed Type (not guaranteed): ___ one bed ___ two twins. I am a ___ smoker ___ nonsmoker.

___ I am a current member of The Commonwealth Club. ___ Please use the credit card information below to sign me up or renew my membership. ___ I will visit commonwealthclub.org/membership to sign up for a membership.

Here is my deposit of $ __________ ($1,000 per person) for ____ place(s). ____ Enclosed is my check (make payable to Distant Horizons). OR ____ Charge my deposit to my ____ Visa ____ MasterCard ____ American Express

___ I / We have read the Terms and Conditions for this program and agree to them.

The Commonwealth Club (CWC) has contracted with Distant Horizons (DH) to organize this tour.

Reservations: A $1,000 per person deposit, along with a completed and signed Reservation Form, will reserve a place for participants on this program. The balance of the trip is due 90 days prior to departure and must be paid by check.

Cancellation and Refund Policy: Notification of cancellation must be received in writing. At the time we receive your written cancellation, the following penalties will apply:

•61+ days prior to departure: deposit is refundable •61-30 days to departure: 50% of fare •29-1 days prior to departure: 100% fare

The tour can also be cancelled due to low enrollment. Neither CWC nor DH accepts liability for cancellation penalties related to domestic or international airline tickets purchased in conjunction with the tour.

Trip Cancellation and Interruption Insurance: We strongly advise that all travelers purchase trip cancellation and interruption insurance as coverage against a covered unforeseen emergency that may force you to cancel or leave trip while it is in progress. A brochure describing coverage will be sent to you upon receipt of your reservation. COVID-19: We understand that travelers have concerns about booking travel based on the current COVID-19 pandemic. Should U.S. health authorities deem it unsafe to travel to and from the destinations in the brochure, we will not run the trip at the scheduled time. As noted above, trip deposits are fully refundable until 60 days prior to departure.

Medical Information: Participation in this program requires that you be in good health. It is essential that persons with any medical problems and related dietary restrictions report them well before departure.

Itinerary Changes & Trip Delay: This itinerary is based on information available at the time of printing (March 2021) and is subject to change. We reserve the right to change a program’s dates, staff, itineraries, or accommodations as conditions warrant. If a trip must be delayed, or the itinerary changed, due to bad weather, road conditions, transportation delays, airline schedules, government intervention, sickness or other contingency for which CWC or DH or its agents cannot make provision, the cost of delays or changes is not included. The minimum group size of this departure is 15 paying participants, should the number of participants fall below this number, a small group surcharge and/or revised staffing will apply. suppliers of services connected with this program (“other providers”), and the other providers are solely responsible and liable for providing their respective services. CWC and DH shall not be held liable for (A) any damage to, or loss of, property or injury to, or death of, persons occasioned directly or indirectly by an act or omission of any other provider, including but not limited to any defect in any aircraft, or vehicle operated or provided by such other provider, and (B) any loss or damage due to delay, cancellation, or disruption in any manner caused by the laws, regulations, acts or failures to act, demands, orders, or interpositions of any government or any subdivision or agent thereof, or by acts of God, strikes, fire, flood, war, rebellion, terrorism, insurrection, sickness, quarantine, epidemics, theft, or any other cause(s) beyond their control. The participant waives any claim against CWC/DH for any such loss, damage, injury, or death. By registering for the trip, the participant certifies that he/she does not have any mental, physical, or other condition or disability that would create a hazard for him/herself or other participants. CWC/DH shall not be liable for any air carrier’s cancellation penalty incurred by the purchase of a nonrefundable ticket to or from the departure city. Baggage and personal effects are at all times the sole responsibility of the traveler. Reasonable changes in the itinerary may be made where deemed advisable for the comfort and well-being of the passengers. The Commonwealth Club (CST# 209688940). Distant Horizons, (CST #2046776-40)