Nonfiction Book Reviews

Physics of the Impossible:A Scientific Exploration into the World of Phasers, Force Fields, Teleportation, and Time Travel was written by Michio Kaku, a quantum physicist who co-wrote the string field theory (which I had never heard of before reading the back flap.  Luckily you don’t have to know anything about string field theory before reading, although Kaku does explain it some detail in the conclusion of the book.)

I picked this up on a whim (as I do most of my books) but quickly found myself engrossed in the text.  Kaku categorizes various futuristic ideas such as phasers and force fields into Class I, Class II, and Class III Impossibilities.  Here’s a quick rundown of the categories:

Class I Impossibilities are technologies that are impossible today, but that do not violate the known laws of physics.  They are ideas that might be possible to achieve either in this century or the next.

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, and Kaku says, “If they do turn out to be possible, they would represent a fundamental shift in our understanding of physics.” This is the sort of understatement that scientists like to engage in.

He starts out with the Class I items, and those actually take up a majority of the book.  It was also the most interesting (and understandable) section of the book.  In Class II items, he starts explaining some pretty wild quantum theories that went right over my head.

Luckily, he doesn’t do this the whole way through, or I would have put the book down long before the end.  I have studied science very little, and quantum physics not at all, so the fact that he only lost me a couple of times speaks volumes of his writing style.

The book flows pretty easily from one Class I impossibility to the next, and you feel that by the end, you’ve learned more about where science is at right now than you could have by sitting through 5 years of college lectures.  It’s a book that I found myself discussing with anyone who would sit still long enough (”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?”  Some days I feel sorry for my coworkers…)

Any huge Star Trek or Star Wars fan would thoroughly enjoy this book, since he mentions different episodes/parts of the movies throughout the book.  Although it’s fun to imagine that things like teleporters exist, it’s even more fun - for me - to find out that scientists are actually working on making them into a reality, and X, Y, and Z are the things they are focusing on.

Also, any science geeks would love this book, since it’s easy enough for a regular person to understand, but definitely not dumbed down so much a science nerd couldn’t enjoy it.  Not to mention that his Notes section at the end of the book was quite extensive.

Having said all that, I loved this book, and I am neither a Star Trek, Star Wars, or science geek.  I enjoyed reading it 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 really had 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 in a long time.

Now I’m going to have to hunt out some of the other books he’s written.  Beyond Einstein and Hyperspace both sound interesting…

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