Physics of the Impossible

Physics of the Impossible by Michio Kaku

Category: Science Grade: B

I'd like to speak to the inner nerd in each of you. If you don't have an inner nerd, go do something else -- you won't like this book. If you think you might, ask yourself some of these questions. When you first saw Star Trek, did you get interested when Kirk said "Shields up!" or "Beam me up, Scotty."? When you watched Star Wars (the good ones), did you jump up and down when Yoda levitated the cruiser in the swamp? When a Jedi Knight turned on his light saber, did you say "I want one of those!". If you answered yes to any of these questions, you should give this book a shot.

Kaku is a serious scientist. He's in the theoretical physics department at City University of New York where he's searched for years for the "theory of everything", the grand unifying theory that, with one set of equations, would tie all the forces of nature together. On the side, he writes popular science books. This could be one of the more difficult genres to write. You have to oversimplify things a tremendous amount to interest the lay reader while not squeezing the reality out of your descriptions (or embarrassing yourself among your peers).

Kaku starts from the premise, proven true over and over again, that "impossible" is not an absolute description. Things we take for granted -- air travel, global communication and others -- were, at one time, thought impossible by reputable scientists. Here, he looks at lots of things that are science fiction staples -- force fields, invisibility, teleportation, starships, time travel and others -- and tries to describe how they might be accomplished at some point in the future. He carefully analyzes each subject and tries to slot that subject as one of his three classes of "impossible" -- 1) doesn't violate the laws of physics and might be doable in the next century, 2) doesn't violate the laws of physics and might be doable in the distant future and 3) violates the laws of physics. The results are sometimes surprising and always interesting.

As he gets farther in to the class 3 impossibilities, I have to admit that he frequently lost me. No matter how many times I read a lay explanation of quantum physics, it still doesn't make sense to me.

Anyway, if you're bored by this point of the review, the book will put you to sleep. If your interest has been tweaked, give it a shot.

He uses quotes at the beginning of each chapter and he had me at chapter one when he used my favorite quote - Arthur C. Clarke's Three Laws. I'll only give you the third here since it sums up why cutting edge science can be so interesting -- "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."!