A good book for fans of Stephen Hawking’s “A Brief History of Time,” POTI takes several concepts from the world of science fiction and speculates on the possibility of their eventual existence in real life. He explores the technology of force fields, invisibility, phasers, light speed, multiple/parallel dimensions, etc., all through the eyes of a physicist, and then, using the logic and tools of a physicist (while keeping in mind the layman audience) classifies each of these "impossibilties" into one of three categories:
Class 1--something that may be possible within a hundred years.
Class 2--something that may be possible within a thousand or a million years.
And Class 3--a technology or phenomenon that is not possible within the known laws of physics.

This is an intriguing approach to what can be a difficult subject. The writing is very readable and conversational and makes a pretty good introduction to physics (might be a great gift for a student?). That said, a lot of this still sailed over my head. Perhaps I do not possess the abstract thinking necessary to understand things like moving electrons through time and space, or what exactly a particle accelerator does--but in taking a rational, scientific approach to some of the technologies featured in some of my favorite movies and TV shows, he does make me appreciate science for what it is: our best tool for understanding the world in which we live.