"Physics of the Impossible" by Michio Kaku
Physics of the Impossible: A Scientific Exploration into the World of Phasers, Force Fields, Teleportation, and Time Travel by Michio Kaku is the first book that I’m reviewing here that I had previously reviewed on my old site. I am hoping to eventually rewrite and repost all of my book reviews, which considering how many I had over there, will be quite the feat. 
In a nutshell, Physics of the Impossible attempts to look at the world of science fiction and fantasy (a la Star Wars, Star Trek, Wizard of Oz, and even some Harry Potter) and assess how close we are to making the technology in those movies a reality.
Sometimes, I think we as a nation have watched one too many episodes of Stargate, and we get impatient waiting for our own gates to other worlds, or wondering why we don’t start beaming people around. Hollywood has made these ideas so commonplace in the movies and TV shows that we tend to mix up reality with fiction and begin to wonder why it’s taking so long to get these technological advances into our daily lives.
In Physics, Michio Kaku takes these futuristic concepts and tackles them one by one. He explains very clearly how far along we are in producing (for example) invisibility cloaks, what the problems are facing the scientists trying to produce these cloaks, and what the possible strategies are for overcoming these obstacles.
The real beauty of the book lies in how Kaku divides the ideas into three groups: Class I, Class II, and Class III Impossibilities. Those classifications break down as follows:
Class I Impossibilities are technologies that are currently impossible for us to achieve, but that we are tackling and trying to bring to fruition. None of these ideas violate the known laws of physics and could possibly be achieved either in this century or the next. The majority of the book is dedicated to exploring these ideas, and it was also my favorite part of the book.
Class II Impossibilities are technologies are so advanced, either they’re completely impossible, or if they are achievable, it won’t happen for a millennia, or even a million years.
Class III Impossibilities are technologies that violate the known laws of physics, and are therefore impossible. There are surprisingly only two ideas in this category: Perpetual motion machines (basically, getting something for nothing) and precognition (being able to predict the future).
Kaku is a quantum physicist who co-wrote the string field theory, one of the leading candidates for the Theory of Everything. In other words, he isn’t a Star Trek fanboy who decided that he was qualified to write a book about technological advances and so sat down and typed this out. No, Kaku is a world famous scientist who really knows what he’s talking about, which makes this book all the more fascinating and worthwhile to me to read.
He tackles a wide variety of ideas, from phasers and force fields to teleportation and death stars. This is a dream come true for any science geek, which I suppose would include me considering how much I enjoyed the book (although I was never really into either Star Wars or Star Trek. Apparently, I’ve got to get my geek on.)
My only critique was in the Class II Impossibilities section, where Kaku went over my head more than a couple of times. I am not a quantum physicist, nor do I play one on TV, so for me, that section was a bit difficult to get through. However, the fact that he only lost me a few times says a lot about his writing style, because if I can understand (most of) what he’s saying, anyone can. The last time I took a science class was my sophomore year in high school. I’m not exactly a science whiz. (Although I would like to play one of those on TV.)
In the Class I impossibility section, though, the book flowed from one idea to the next, and I felt that by the end, I’d learned more about where science is at right now than I would have if I sat through two years of college classes. It was one of those books that I found myself wanting to talk about with anyone who was unfortunate enough to stand next to me for more than, say, 2.7 seconds. (“Did you know that they are working on an invisibility cloak and have already been able to make minuscule items invisible in the red light spectrum?” Yes, I’m one of those people.)
I enjoyed Physics of the Impossible because I love hearing about the latest and greatest that humanity has come up with, and I simply love to learn. I felt like I had really learned something when I finished this book, instead of just wasting the last 5 hours of my life.
I give Physics of the Impossible 4.5 out of 5 stars. There was a bit too much over-my-head information to rate it higher than that, but it was still one of the most interesting books I’ve read about science.
Now that I’ve revisited Physics, this is a good reminder to me to check out some of Kaku’s other books, like Parallel Worlds and Hyperspace. Watch for those reviews in the next couple of months.
Cool! While this is probably not what you expect to hear from the dogblogger, I’d read some Kaku before. Now I have to go look for this one, too! Thanks for the tip.
I read this book some time ago and found it to be a lot of fun. As you say, some of the stuff went over my head, but it was still fun trying to sort it all out.