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Name: Physics of the Impossible
Rating: 4.5 (119 reviews)
Author: Michio Kaku

Michio Kaku

A Scientific Exploration of the World of Phasers, Force Fields, Teleportation and Time Travel

4.5 (119 ratings)

25 mins

Topics

Physics Space Natural Sciences

Table of Contents

Physics of the Impossible
Summary of 11 key ideas

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What’s in it for me? Prepare for science fiction to become reality.

Many of today’s technologies were once only the fantastical inventions of science fiction. Did you know that nineteenth-century science fiction author Jules Verne already fantasized about devices like fax machines, a worldwide communications network and rocket ships to the moon? We take these technologies for granted today, but Verne’s contemporaries, even the most prominent physicists, laughed them off, convinced that they were impossible.

Even if you’re watching science fiction movies that aren’t all that old, you may find that some of the technologies depicted would be considered crude today, like oversized computers with lots of blinking light bulbs. While we don’t travel through other galaxies wearing catsuits quite yet, in some regards, today’s science already has surpassed yesterday’s fiction.

And what about technologies that seem impossible today? Which of them will be realized in the future and how? That’s what you’ll learn about if you read on.

In these blinks, you’ll find out

why, soon, you won’t have to be a psychic to read your lover’s mind;
whether you should start saving money for a handheld laser gun; and
what it takes to travel faster than light.

There’s real science behind the ideas of force fields and invisibility cloaks.

Remember the force fields used in Star Trek? Formidable energy barriers that protected starships from rockets and enemy fire? The stuff of fantasy, right? Actually, force fields are known to classical physics.

As we know, many objects can exert an influence over other objects in their vicinity without direct contact with them. For instance, a magnet attracts or repels things that lie within a certain field around it. In the nineteenth century, a British scientist named Michael Faraday came up with the concept of force fields, invisible areas or lines of force that envelop a magnet. Later, the concept expanded to include other forces, such as the earth’s gravitational field.

Sure, these aren’t the force fields we know from science fiction, but they could help us create them. It might even be possible to develop force fields that deflect rockets.

Here’s how: When gas is exposed to extreme heat it becomes plasma, an electrically charged mass that’s neither solid, liquid nor gas. This plasma could then be molded by magnetic and electrical fields to form an invisible sheet or plasma window. This force field could then be reinforced with a lattice of carbon nanotubes: nanoscopic cylinders made of thin, rolled-up sheets of carbon. Carbon nanotubes are stronger than steel and could deflect rockets.

But what if you wanted instead to deflect someone’s attention, say, with an invisibility cloak? This, too, isn’t impossible!

Our ability to see depends on the light that objects reflect. The more light that passes through a material rather than being reflected by it – such as what happens with a gas or liquid – the less visible the material. But there’s another way that things can become invisible: in 2006, scientists at Duke University developed composite materials known as metamaterials that contain small particles which deflect as opposed to reflect light waves. Any objects enveloped in such material are virtually invisible.

Phasers and death stars might come to exist outside the world of Star Wars.

From the Greek mathematician Archimedes to the Star Wars movies, we’ve been enthralled by the idea of using lasers or rays of light as weapons. But how realistic is it to think we’ll someday fire handheld phaser guns or harness the planet-destroying force of George Lucas’s Death Star?

With advances in nanotechnology, a handheld laser gun could become possible in the not-too-distant future. In fact, the military already uses lasers in their missile defense systems.

In theory, teleportation is a real possibility, but it’ll take ages before we can teleport humans.

Remember the last time you were stuck in a traffic jam, daydreaming about “beaming” yourself to your destination? This idea of teleportation involves transferring matter, energy or information from one location to another without actually moving it through physical space, and it’s not as outlandish an idea as you may have thought.

According to quantum theory, teleportation occurs spontaneously all the time. That is, electrons are constantly taking “quantum jumps,” meaning they can suddenly vanish and reappear elsewhere within the atom, or even appear in many different locations simultaneously. That is to say, it’s theoretically possible that one day you could get to where you need to – a meeting, a party or Mars – instantaneously.

Mind-reading and moving objects with your mind might become possible.

Who wouldn’t want to read minds? For over a century, scientists have been investigating the claims of psychics and looking into the technological possibilities that could enable mind-reading and other kinds of extrasensory perception (ESP), including psychokinesis, that is, the ability to move objects with the mind.

While there’s no solid evidence that people can read minds, technology is making leaps and bounds in reading brain activity. However, since the electrical signals emitted from the brain are so weak, they aren’t readable and, even if we could attach an antenna to them, we have no way to unscramble the signals.

Science is still struggling to develop truly smart robots or computers.

From Rosie in The Jetsons to the Terminator, we have been fascinated by the idea of robots and artificial intelligence for generations. But while modern computers can perform mind-boggling calculations in the blink of an eye, there are some very basic things they can’t do.

Like speaking a language, for example. Whereas machines can be programmed to combine symbols and form grammatically correct sentences, they can’t comprehend the meaning behind words, and many theorists claim they never will. So far, computer scientists have failed to program common sense into machines and pattern recognition remains poor in computers.

We haven’t found extraterrestrial life yet, but scientists are looking.

Are we the only intelligent beings in the universe? We’ve asked this question for centuries, but are we any closer to finding an answer?

Scientists are certainly making steps toward finding other intelligent life-forms: our telescopes are getting better and our capacity to interpret what they show us is improving, too. So much so that a new extrasolar planet is discovered twice a month. Also, as we continue to send out satellites, the likelihood of finding signs of life elsewhere in the universe increases.

Space technology is advancing, but there are still huge challenges ahead.

In a few billion years, the sun will swell and engulf the Earth. If humanity is to survive, we’d better figure out a way to leave the solar system. So how could we do this?

It starts with finding the right fuel source to send a starship across the universe. It’s no easy feat, but science is already exploring different options.

Einstein stated that the speed of light is the limit of human travel – but he may be wrong.

Einstein theorized that the speed of light was the ultimate speed in the universe but physicists have discovered two possible loopholes in his thinking.

The first is warping space. If you imagine space as a piece of paper, and you want to get from one end of the page to the other, then warping space is like folding the piece of paper so the two ends meet. Einstein’s equations state that the warping of space-time can be calculated, given a certain amount of mass or energy. But, if you start calculating with negative mass or negative energy, you can come up with results that are faster than light, and thus contradict Einstein.

Time travel may be a challenge and it leads to paradoxes, but it doesn’t violate the laws of physics.

The notion of time travel has made for captivating science fiction. And although eminent physicist Stephen Hawking has contested the possibility of time travel since we haven’t yet encountered a time traveler, there isn’t anything about the idea that violates the laws of physics or quantum theory.

In fact, humans have already traveled into the future, albeit in a very minor way.

For centuries, the perpetual motion machine has been the stuff of dreams for inventors.

What did both Leonardo Da Vinci and Nikola Tesla consider the holy grail of invention? The perpetual motion machine – a device that can produce more energy than it consumes.

As our population expands, satisfying our energy needs is becoming a crucial subject for many of today’s scientists, but we could combat our problems with a perpetual motion machine.

Physics might be close to finding groundbreaking answers.

Einstein spent the latter part of his life chasing one ultimate goal: a theory of everything. That is, one unifying theory that could explain all the fundamental forces of the universe, including gravity, electromagnetism, and weak and strong nuclear force. This theory would encompass all physical laws and enable us to explain the origins of the universe. But he was not successful.

Today, however, thanks to the continued exploration of space and to quantum physics, we are closer than ever before to developing a theory of everything.

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What is Physics of the Impossible about?

Just how unrealistic is the technology we see in sci-fi novels and television shows? In Physics of the Impossible (2008), renowned physicist Michio Kaku takes a mind-bending look into how far away we really are from such fantastical notions as starships traveling faster than the speed of light or teleporting to different planets.

Best quote from Physics of the Impossible

If at first an idea does not sound absurd, then there is no hope for it. - Albert Einstein

—Michio Kaku

Who should read Physics of the Impossible?

Anyone interested in the future of technology
Sci-fi fans curious about the science behind their favorite TV series and movies
Anyone interested in astrophysics

About the Author

Acclaimed physicist Michio Kaku holds the Henry Semat Chair in Theoretical Physics at the City University of New York. He has presented the popular BBC series Time and Visions of the Future, and is the best-selling author of Hyperspace and Parallel Worlds.

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