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

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Customer Reviews:

Vacuous and silly [Posted on 2008-06-26]
Most books that attempt to explain advanced topics in physics to laymen are worthy of the most profound contempt since, at best, they give only the illusion of understanding, which is worse than no understanding at all. Kaku reaches a new low in this genre with his latest effort - a tiresome, rambling, disconnected, childishly written discourse that has all the qualities of a last minute job. The only thing the reader learns is just how well informed Kaku is on current science fiction novels, films and television. To paraphrase him, writing a worse book would be a Class I impossibility.

Again, the lesson is clear. If you want to understand physics, you have to do the work. That means learning some solid mathematics before you start designing warp drives and time machines.

Physics of the Impossible [Posted on 2008-07-08]
Very well written and explains physics in non-mathematical terms and in a most entertaining manner.

Sci-Fi meets Theoretical Physics [Posted on 2008-07-09]
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.

It's not Impossible: It's How Much We Have Still to Learn! [Posted on 2008-07-15]
Ok, I will admit it: I'm no Einstein; not even close. And while I am fascinated about the arcane science of quantum physics, I still get puzzled by concepts such as Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principal and all its implications. Michio Kaku does better than most in trying to explain such weird things to idiots like me (although I haven't checked out Physics for Dummies yet). And when as a physicist he applies what he knows to the various impossibilities he covers in his book, it seems clear that there is far more that we don't know. When he talks in the timeframe of centuries and millennia before we might be able to do some of these physically not impossible things, given how much we don't know, I am left wondering just how much theoretical physics in it's infancy really differs from religion (even magic) in defining epistemology.

I thought this a fun and exciting read given that it gives hope to a lot of us SF nerds that one day everything in Star Trek will come true. I would have liked to see some drawings to help better visualize some of the concepts, but for the most part I could follow his verbal explanations. I did feel that on some things in which Mr. Kaku was not a subject matter expert (mainly some of the paranormal stuff) he did not do justice to the scientific body of research out there on the subject, often resorting to the Amazing Randi and Skeptical Inquirer folks to back up claims of phenomenon disproved. Aside from that, it was a quick and enjoyable read.

Educated guesswork. [Posted on 2008-07-16]
Somewhat interesting for the average reader. However, truly educated guesswork, and not typical of Michio Kaku's ability of explaining difficult subject matter. I was disappointed in his many "Star Trek" examples, and it seems obvious this book was written for some unimportant spur of the moment personal itch. Although Mr. Kaku is a favorite author of mine, I really can't recommend this book.

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