Kaku: Physics of the Impossible
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(New page: {{BNR-table|scienticity=4|readability=5|hermeneutics=4|charisma=5|recommendation=5}} Michio Kaku, ''Physics of the Impossible : A Scientific Exploration into the World of Phasers, Force Fi...)
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Michio Kaku, Physics of the Impossible : A Scientific Exploration into the World of Phasers, Force Fields, Teleportation, and Time Travel. New York : Doubleday, 2008. xxi + 329 pages; includes bibliographic references and index.
A great read! The author is a big-time physicist, one of the ones that is always on the Discovery or Science channel programs. He takes these difficult physics concepts and shows how they do, or do not, allow all sorts of "impossible" sci-fi things.
He separates the impossibles into 3 categories: ones we can't do yet but don't violate our current known physics, ones that are at the edge of what we currently understand, and ones that violate the known laws of physics. I thought it was incredible that precognition and perpetual motion machines are the only things in that last category. Based on current trends, Kaku feels that teleportation, AI, and invisibility may be within our capacity in just decades.
This book gives a great overview of wide variety of concepts. I learned about parallel universes, nanobots, space elevators, rail guns, AI, dark energy and gravity waves. Really fascinating stuff, especially if you like sci-fi books/movies/tv, as Kaku demonstrates many concepts through their sci-fi source.
-- Notes by MKI
