Physics of the Impossible: A Scientific Exploration into the World of Phasers, Force Fields, Teleportation, and Time Travel
by Michio Kaku
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Book Summary Information
Author: Michio KakuEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 2008-03-11
ISBN: 0385520697
Number of pages: 329
Publisher: Doubleday
Book Reviews of Physics of the Impossible: A Scientific Exploration into the World of Phasers, Force Fields, Teleportation, and Time Travel
Book Review: The Most Fun You Can Have with Physics If You Aren't a Physicist!
Summary: 5 Stars
"Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God; because many false prophets have gone out into the world." -- 1 John 4:1
If books about physics had been this entertaining when I was a child, I'm sure I would have become a theoretical physicist. Professor Michio Kaku begins with ancient beliefs about gods, moves on to science fiction, proceeds through theories proven false, and examines some of the most interesting questions and devices raised by science fiction stories to describe when, if ever, we might see such results. In all but a few cases, he sees hope.
Talk about a ray of sunshine . . . this is a profoundly optimistic book that looks realistically at our geometrically increasing rate of learning how to measure and solve problems about the fundamental characteristics of the universe such as matter, energy, time, gravity, and the universe's origins. I loved it!
If I had a choice between reading this kind of book and even the best science fiction, I would pick this one. Why? Because it helps point the way toward the important questions and the value of answering them. I miss this in most science writing.
Most science writing, by contrast, is either trying to prove too much about current theories or is of little interest to people outside the particular field.
Professor Kaku puts various concepts into one of three bins:
1. Likely to be accomplished or understood in the next 100 years.
2. Likely to be accomplished or understood only after millions of years.
3. Apparently impossible, no matter how much we learn.
Interestingly, he puts a lot of items in the first category including:
Force Fields
Invisibility
Energy Beam Weapons (Phasers and Death Stars)
Teleportation
Telepathy
Psychokinesis
Intelligent Robots
Extraterrestrials and UFOs
Starships
Antimatter and Anti-universes
In those discussions, you'll learn about fascinating experiments where the seemingly "impossible" has already been done and promises the potential for even more remarkable accomplishments in the future.
More challenging problems await us for learning to travel faster than light, traveling through time, and exploring parallel universes.
Perpetual motion machines and precognition (which most people believe in) are ruled out.
As I read the book, I was fascinated to realize how much different it would have read if written 50, 40, 30, 20, or even 10 years ago. It made me wonder how such a book will read in 10, 20, 30, 40, and 50 years in the future.
Imagine a more limitless future!
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