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Physics of the Impossible: A Scientific Exploration into the World of Phasers, Force Fields, Teleportation, and Time Travel |  | Author: Michio Kaku
Publisher: Anchor
List Price: $15.95
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Rating:  141 reviews
Media: Paperback
Edition: Reprint
Pages: 352
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 7.9 x 5.4 x 1
ISBN: 0307278824
Dewey Decimal Number: 530
EAN: 9780307278821
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| • | Paperback - Physics of the Impossible A Scientific Exploration into the World of Phasers, Force Fields, Teleportation, and Time Travel | | • | Hardcover - Physics of the Impossible: A Scientific Exploration Into the World of Phasers, Force Fields, Teleportation, and Time Travel | | • | Audio CD - Physics of the Impossible: A Scientific Exploration of the World of Phasers, Force Fields, Teleportation, and Time Travel | | • | Hardcover - Physics of the Impossible: A Scientific Exploration into the World of Phasers, Force Fields, Teleportation, and Time Travel | | • | Kindle Edition - Physics of the Impossible: A Scientific Exploration into the World of Phasers, Force Fields, Teleportation, and Time Travel | | • | Hardcover - Physics of the Impossible: A Scientific Exploration into the World of Phasers, Force Fields, Teleportation, and Time Travel | | • | Hardcover - Physics of the Impossible: A Scientific Exploration Into the World of Phasers, Force Fields, Teleportation, and Time Travel | | • | Kindle Edition - Physics of the Impossible | | • | Hardcover - Physics of the Impossible: A Scientific Tour Beyond Science Fiction, Fantasy and Magic |
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Product Description
Teleportation, time machines, force fields, and interstellar space ships—the stuff of science fiction or potentially attainable future technologies? Inspired by the fantastic worlds of Star Trek, Star Wars, and Back to the Future, renowned theoretical physicist and bestselling author Michio Kaku takes an informed, serious, and often surprising look at what our current understanding of the universe's physical laws may permit in the near and distant future.
Entertaining, informative, and imaginative, Physics of the Impossible probes the very limits of human ingenuity and scientific possibility.
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 141
 A fun, mind-bending journey! March 31, 2008
I Love Tacos (Planet E)
94 out of 99 found this review helpful
This is probably Dr. Kaku's best popular work since Hyperspace or Visions. Here is a wide range of scientific possibilities to be explored. Dr. Kaku's gift is to make modern physics comprehensible to those of us without a mathematical background. In this book he uses his gift to explain how the standard model and string field theory (which he is coauthor of) can be applied to contemplation of some of our most wildest scifi dreams. The chapters are short and easily read in short sittings, which lends well to a book that stretches the imagination so dramaticaly. Dr. Kaku is also careful to remain objective in discussing different theoretical approaches which is an admirable feat given some of the topics ventured into in this book. If you enjoy cutting edge science, it doesn't get more cutting edge then this. Thank you Dr. Kaku for yet another wonderful journey.
If only Jules Verne could read this book. April 3, 2008
Robert Busko (North Carolina)
97 out of 103 found this review helpful
Michio Kaku's Physics of the Impossible: A Scientific Exploration into the World of Phasers, force Fields, Teleportation, and time Travel is just the right book at the right time. In fact, Michio Kaku's sytle reminds me just a bit like Carl Sagan in that he tries to make scientifically difficult topic easy to understand. Kaku's mission here is to spread knowledge and that he does very well.
There are other books similar to Physics of the Impossible. Some have been mentioned by other reviewers. I'd like to mention The Science of Star Wars by Jeanne Cavelus and The Physics of Star Trek by Lawrence M. Krauss and Stephen Hawking. Like Physics of the Impossible, both of these works attempt to apply hard scientific facts-of-life to popular ideas in modern fiction. What Kaku does is to organize his ideas into classes of impossibility and here lies an important element of this book.
Michio Kaku is a born communicator which is why he is so often seen on television and why his books are so popular. He is at his best, in my opinion, in Physics of the Impossible. Well written by an author that knows his material and wants to communicate his ideas, the book is sure to please and inform and stimulate the imagination.
I highly recommend Physics of the Impossible.
Peace to all.
Mission: Impossible March 22, 2008
Julie Neal (Sanibel Island, Fla.)
150 out of 179 found this review helpful
I think the biggest reason some people reject evolution is a lack of imagination. It's difficult for humans to picture the vast amount of time it takes for organisms to evolve. To speculate on the many mysteries of science takes a vivid imagination. Fortunately, author Michio Kaku has one. He brings a bright-eyed, gee-whiz sense of wonder to his subject, and his writing makes it contagious.
Kaku's passion is the impossible, and in this book he explores different kinds of impossibilities. Class I ideas -- -- force fields, invisibility, phasers and death stars, teleportation, telepathy, psychokinesis, robots, extraterrestrials and UFOs, starships, antimatter and anti-universes -- could come true within a hundred years. Class II impossibilities, such as travel faster than light, time travel and parallel universes, may be possible in the next millennium. Class III ideas, like perpetual motion machines and precognition, may never be possible, given the underlying science.
As Kaku explores his subjects, he uses references anyone can understand: Star Trek, Back to the Future, The Wizard of Oz, Flash Gordon, Men in Black. The result is an imminently readable physics primer.
I hesitated to use the phrase "physics primer" in that last paragraph, because it might scare off people who would actually find this book fascinating. The truth is, this is nothing like that dry science book you remember from school. It entertains, educates and inspires.
Making Science accessible to the masses April 24, 2008
Gregory Bernard Banks (Atlanta area)
17 out of 17 found this review helpful
I've been a big fan of Dr. Kaku since I first saw him on The Science Channel years ago, but this is the first book of his I've read.
In "The Physics of the Impossible," Michio Kaku explores the very subjects that fuels the imagination of those who love science fiction because of the possibilities it raises. Is Time Travel possible? What about Phasers, Force Fields, Teleportation, and Light Sabers? Could one really build a Death Star?
One of the great things about Dr. Kaku's approach is that he does not talk down to the lay person, but he writes just as he speaks, with a simple eloquence that makes these complex concepts accessible to the non-Physicist mind. And it is always clear just how much passion Dr. Kaku has for his work, and he easily passes that on to his audience through his words.
Another great thing about this book is that it's not only an education on the concepts of such things as String Theory and so much more, it's also an exploration of the history behind moderm Physics, dating back to the days of Isaac Newton and beyond. I learned so much about the triumphs, and even more surprising, the tragedies befalling many of the pioneers of modern science merely because they were people with concepts far ahead of their times.
I have to say that if you are a young physicist in the making, an older person who is simply fascinated in the subject of Science, a Science Fiction writer looking for deeper understanding of these subjects to inspire you in your writing, or just someone wanting to get better insight into the mysteries behind the nature of the universe, then this is definitely the book for you.
- Gregory Bernard Banks, author, reader, reviewer
Impossible is relative May 29, 2008
Herbert L Calhoun (Falls Church, VA USA)
10 out of 10 found this review helpful
As he did in "Visions," "Hyperspace," and "Beyond Einstein," Professor Michio Kaku has again penned a gem. Eminently readable, and as always packed full of related facts, this logically guided but wide-eyed romp across the terrain of the impossible, near-impossible and the far-fetched impossible, contains a veritable boutique of novel and leading-edge ideas.
But that is not all. He also explains the history and the science involved and why they will work in the short, medium, or long term, or not at all.
The book is conveniently divided into three equally impressive sections: Section one deals with what the author calls class I impossibilities. These include technologies that are impossible today, but since they do not violate any of the known laws of physics, could become possible in the short term. Included in this family are teleportation, antimatter engines, certain forms of telepathy, psychokinesis, and invisibility.
Section II deals with Class II Impossibilities. This section deals with technologies that sit at the very edge of what we know: things such as time machines, and time travel, including through wormholes. Finally, Section III deals with Class III or long-term impossibilities. In this group are technologies that DO violate the known laws of physics, and thus would require fundamental shifts in our understanding of physics for them to become possible. Included in this group are precognition and perpetual motion machines.
What is most striking about the guarded speculation and related tales in the book is how relative impossibility really is, and how so many of the technologies thought to be impossible in the past have actually not only become "possible," but exists as useful conveniences today.
Professor Kaku, in addition to being a superb Scientist, is also a good storyteller. This a deliciously fine intellectual feast and quick read. Five Stars.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 141
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