Physics of the Impossible

Being out of one’s comfort zone for a book is not always a bad thing, especially if you want to learn and broaden your knowledge base, so was the case with the Physics of the Impossible by Michio Kaku.  Kaku is a renowned physicist whose exploration of all scientific phenomena in this book intrigued me throughout.  Kaku presented a historical perspective on scientific phenomena and then gave a current and futuristic viewpoint, ie what could happen.  Imagine having magnetic highways where energy didn’t need to be expended, just having really strong magnets on the bottom of your car to transport you on the superhighway or how we could be like Harry Potter and be invisible when wearing the special cloak?  Phasers, forcefields, teleportation and time traveling and what the future of each of these scientific innovations could at some point be possible.  Kaku has a special eye on media, references books, and movies that played a significant role in our society over the past 80 years.  He is able to connect scientific stories like Michael J. Fox’s time traveling in Back to the Future, the use of light rays from Star Wars, H.G. Wells drama War of the Worlds in ending of the world, and finally Dan Brown’s Angels and Demons and the future of antimatter.  Kaku did his homework and more.  Rather than writing a fictional novel, Kaku discusses fictitious stories and applies the likelihood of those things happening in our lifetime or beyond.  His work is well researched and gives excellent citations into the backgrounds that create his hypothesis.  The book is segmented into three categories of “impossibilities” building upon the earlier theories.  My favorite section was on time traveling.  He spends a good deal on Stephen Hawkin, a theoretical physicist.  My favorite point from Hawkins is if time travel happened in the future, why haven’t we seen any time travelers in our society today?  Have you been in NYC lately, maybe that’s some of the people I see on the 14^th street corner??  Kaku pushes our brains and imagination to think through the possible.  I really enjoyed this National Bestseller.  A different kind of read.  One in which I learned about some topics I don’t normally think about.  Thanks Joe, good book!