Physics of the Impossible: A Scientific Exploration into the World of Phasers, Force Fields, Teleportation, and Time Travel

Michio Kaku is known as a popularizer of science and is quite good at it. One thing that I liked is thegeneral absence of mathematical equations. The equations are important, of course, and if you wantto learn more you have to get into them. But they are for the reasoning process of proof and are notnecessary for understanding the implications of the results of the process.Kaku focuses on the interesting questions with a deep knowledge of science fiction, which he will beteaching online at CUNY during the coronavirus. These films include Independence Day, ET, Star Wars,Star Trek, Back to the Future, 2001 and its author Arthur C. Clarke, and the novels of H.G. Wells suchas War of the Worlds, The Invisible Man, and Time Machine.In Star Wars we have things like the light sabres, the Death Star, the image of Princess Leia, hyperspace,and Kaku explains what those concepts would mean in real life. There's the question of time travel whichhas always fascinated mankind. The end of intelligent life on earth will come eventually-as the sun expandswill we be able to go to other planets or stars? There's the question of extraterrestrial life and UFOs.Also telepathy or mind reading, multiverses, and teleportation. There's a fascinating story about a guywho was in the Philippines hundreds of years ago when Spain got there, and all of a sudden ended upin Mexico City! Catholics also have the phenomenon of bilocation in saints such as Padre Pio, andthe faith in the Eucharist.Kaku has three levels of what are considered "impossible" according to the current understanding ofthe laws of physics. He also relies often on a schema of three levels of civilization based on the abilityof life to appropriate the energy of the planet, the star, or the whole universe. The hypothetical Level3 groups should be able to accomplish a lot that is currently impossible. We aren't even able to usemuch of the energy from earth yet. Kaku has an optimistic way of speculating thousands of yearsinto the future, based on the current rates of scientific progress.This book also provides a nice review of the history of physics, with topics like black holes, antimatter,and dark matter. Of course you have Newton with gravity etc., Einstein with general and special relativity,and quantum and string theory. Among the names are Bohr, Heisenberg, Schrodinger, Feynman, Hawking.The current interest is in string theory. Kaku teaches how these ideas all relate to each other betterthan most I have seen. I also liked the broad intellectual scope. Democritus was right about atoms, but it took over two millennia to demonstrate it!

You know how people always ask, "If you could sit down and have dinner with anyone, alive or dead, who would you pick and why?" Yeah, yeah, everybody picks Lincoln or Jesus.Me? I'd pick Michio Kaku. This guy is phenomenal! I'd love to sit down across the table from him, ply him whatever libations he prefers and then let him verbally go to town while I sit there and listen to him and occasionally interject asking questions.For this man to be able to not only explain previous futuristic predictions made by his predecessors with ease and an astutely keen perception of where they were correct and incorrect, but to also be able to go into such great detail about what's to come, based upon where we are now and where we've come from, it's actually something marvel over as you roll around what he's written in your brain and let it sink in.If you have ANY interest in physics or even just in the progress of mankind -- past, present and future -- this book will not disappoint.

It's a good overview of how technology could be used for some of the features seen in science fiction. Entertaining, and I enjoy his writing style.It isn't able to hold my attention for more than about one chapter at a time, though. If you're looking for a book for a long plane flight, this could fill up an hour or so, but you should have something else as well. This isn't meant to be a criticism, just a usage note for people looking for a book they can read for several hours in one shot.

So how long do we have to wait for Star Trek like teleporters, Back to the Future hover boards or giant Death Star like planet destroying lasers? How about Terminator type intelligent robots, reproducing nano-bots and trips to other star systems? Will we ever be able to go back in time or slip into an alternate universe? Michio Kaku combines popular science fiction and current theoretical physics to speculate on how, if and when we can expect to see these kinds of fantastic technologies. This book is a ton of fun. It's fascinating to read how future scientists might construct a working force field or a feasible starship. The author answers a few questions that I've long wondered about, for instance, how does one store anti-matter if it's annihilated the moment it comes into contact with matter.This is exactly the kind of book that got me back into reading several years ago, a pop science book on the future of technology. It's an easy read with no mind numbing formulas or diagram, written for the total layman. I have read literally dozens of popular science books in the last decade and this is one of the better ones. The big problem with these kinds of books is that physics hasn't had a major new breakthrough since well before I was born and these books can get rather repetitive Sure there have been lots of minor advancements but the main problem of physics, the elusive Grand Unifying Theory remains unsolved.One portion of the book that troubled me was a discussion on string theory as the most likely solution to the unification of relativity and the special model. Read `The Trouble with Physics' by Lee Smolin to see how shaky the foundation of string theory really is. Michio writes, `one major criticism of string theory is that it is untestable'. Actually the much bigger problem is that it's unfalsifiable which puts it dangerously close to pseudoscience. Another criticism he mentions is that by putting string theory at such a high priority in physics other avenues of thinking are squeezed out. To this Michio just smiles accepting this as a natural occurrence in research but I would argue that this kind of attitude may be one of the reasons physics has been practically paralyzed for decades.The author writes that, "The coming years of physics could be the most exciting of all, as we explore the universe with a new generation of particle accelerators, space based gravity detectors and new technologies" My suspicion is that the coming years of physics will generally be exciting only particle physicists and astronomers not the general public. Books like `The Physics of Impossible' are enjoyable to read but if you peruse one every couple of years you can probably keep up with advancements in the latest massive science experiments and particle discoveries.

I wasn't really sure what to expect when I bought this book. On the one hand I was hoping that it wouldn't be too complicated to understand, but I was also concerned that it might veer into the kind of sensationalist, populist theorising that subjects like time travel and starships tend to attract.Both of these concerns were unfounded. Although each chapter is based around an element of science fiction (invisibility, force fields, etc.) it's taken as the basis for discussing a wide variety of developments in modern day physics. As a result you don't just come out of the book with an understanding of the plausibility of science fiction, but with a broad knowledge of many other aspects of physics as well. Overall, this principle works really well: draw people in with a fantastical topic, pique their interest and then use the opportunity to explain something (e.g. room temperature superconductors) that many people might never have read about in isolation.The only negative for me was the style of writing. It's not difficult to understand, but there are a few sloppy, badly structured sections that will probably annoy some readers. I don't think this is enough to take anything away from the book as a whole, though, so I think it's definitely worthy of five stars.

An excellent read. I only understood about 25% on my first read but I go back to it every now and again and gradually absorb a little more. If possible future technological advances is your bag then I highly recommend this book.

I'm only a couple of chapters in, this is right up my street. Michio Kaku explains things so deftly, going into great detail where necessary. I have no scientific training whatsoever, though I do take a deep interest in science and tech, but am finding it a very easy and enjoyable read.

This is the first time that I've bought a Michio Kaku book, although I've enjoyed the TV programmes that he has created over the last few years. When I heard him being interviewed about this new book, I knew immediately that it would be right up my street, and I have not been dissappointed.Kaku is a real physicist, and it's nice to see that he's also well versed in popular culture. He takes examples of technologies from popular fantasy and science fiction (like Star Trek, Harry Potter and Back to the Future) and analyzes the physics, categorizing each thing into three levels of impossibility. He covers faster than light travel, death rays, invisibility, time travel, and many other things that SciFi writers have come to rely on.A very entertaining book, and really a must for anyone that enjoys reading about physics.

Prof. Michio Kaku is a familiar face to anyone who watches the Discovery Science Channel. Famous for his mixture of clever analogies and witty observations, he excels at making the more difficult concepts of modern Physics seem both entertaining and accessible. In 'Physics of the Impossible' he brings these considerable skills to bear in exploring a range of concepts which might seem more at home amid the writings of Isaac Asimov or Arthur C. Clarke than in any science text book. What he reveals is that many ideas, scoffed at as pure fancy by previous generations, are now considered to be far closer to reality than one might think.Kaku' s writing style is lively and engaging, if a little repetitive, and he takes great pains to arm the non-expert reader (myself included) with just enough technical vocabulary to navigate the strange world of quarks and neutrinos, positions and super-strings. However, I must confess, despite his best efforts, I often struggled to get my head around some of the more exotic and mind-bending theories he uses to put his points across. His selection of topics is clearly designed to appeal to those familiar with the mainstays of science fiction; teleportation, hyperspace, wormholes and time-travel, to name but a few. He intelligently groups these subjects into three categories of ascending ' impossibility', denoting how far modern science is from making them reality. In an equally smart manner, he frequently cross references potential solutions to these problems, thus showing that no technology or theory exits as an island. If one lesson can be learned from this well-worked and highly readable book it is this; in the twisted realm of theoretical physics, even impossibility is relative.