Physics of the Impossible

Physics of the Impossible: A Scientific Exploration Into the World of Phasers, Force Fields, Teleportation, and Time Travel is a 2008 book by physicist Michio Kaku, who has a Ph.D. in theoretical physics, He is a professor of theoretical physics at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, is a cofounder of string field theory.

Contents

Each chapter clearly states the technology mentioned and how it might become a reality, although chapters become somewhat more general towards the end of the book due to lack of research. Some of the technologies mentioned are explained as per a slightly altered form, which remains as true to the original concept as possible while remaining practical. Kaku concludes his book with a short epilogue detailing the newest frontiers in physics and how there is still much more to be learned about physics and our universe.

Preface

In the preface of the book, Kaku writes that 150 years ago technological advances, that we take for granted today, were declared impossible. William Thomson Kelvin (1824 – 1907) , a mathematical physicist and inventor of the Kelvin scalesaid publicly that “heavier than air” machines were impossible. “He thoughtX-rays were a hoax, and that radio had no future.” Ernest Rutherford (1871 – 1937), a famous physicist who experimentally described the atom, thought the atom bomb was impossible and he compared it to moonshine. Televisions, computers, and the internet would seem incredibly fanstastic to the people of the turn of the 20th century. Black holes were considered science fiction and even Einstein showed that black holes could not exist. 19th century science had determined that it was impossible for the earth to be billions of years old. Even in the 1920’s and 1930’s Robert Goddard was scoffed at because it was believed that rockets would never be able to go into space. Such advances were considered impossible because science and society had not reached the understanding that we have today; the basic laws of physics and science were not understood as they are understood today. Kaku states that “as a physicist he learned that the impossible is often a relative term.” So, he asks the questions – isn’t it possible to think that we might build space ships that can travel distances of light years, or think that we might teleport ourselves from one place to the other?

Kaku writes that since scientists understand the basic laws of physics today they are able to percieve or imagine a basic outline of future technologies that might work. Kaku writes: "Physicist today understand the basic laws [of physics] extending over a staggering forty three orders of magnitude, from the interior of the proton out to the expanding universe." He goes on to say that physicists can discern between future technologies that are merely improbable and those technologies that are truly impossible. He uses a system of Class I, Class II, and Class III to classify these science-fictional future technologies that are believed to be impossible today:

• Class I Impossibilities “technologies that are impossible today, but that do not violate the known laws of physics. So they might be possible in this century or the next, in modified form.”
• Class II Impossibilities “technologies that sit at the very edge of our understanding of the physical world. They might be realized on a scale of millennia to millions of years in the future"
• Class III Impossibilities “technologies that violate the known laws of physics. Surprisingly, there are very few such impossible technologies. If they do turn out to be possible, they would represent a fundamental shift in our understanding of physics”

Press coverage

Kaku was interviewed about The Physics of the Impossible for "Paper Cuts", a section of the New York Times online. According to the article's authors, Kaku spoke to them about "three theoretical technologies that fall within the realm of possibility."

External links

• Kaku's personal website