Physics of the Impossible in Mathematics&Philosophy&Astronomy

Nov 03, 2013 Lenka Příplatová rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: nonfiction, sci-fi, physics, contemporary, science

It's not a bad book and I believe that many people will find it interesting, funny, and full of new information. I guess I have anticipated something more. Like... new, original ideas about the future maybe?

Dr. Kaku takes various ideas form science fiction and tries to explain, whether they (or something similar to them) are rather possible, possible in the distant future, or not possible at all (for it would contradicts the laws of physics). It has to be said that he does it well: he explains It's not a bad book and I believe that many people will find it interesting, funny, and full of new information. I guess I have anticipated something more. Like... new, original ideas about the future maybe?

Dr. Kaku takes various ideas form science fiction and tries to explain, whether they (or something similar to them) are rather possible, possible in the distant future, or not possible at all (for it would contradicts the laws of physics). It has to be said that he does it well: he explains all that complicated stuff in very clear and direct way so that pretty much everyone could understand the basic underlying principles. Ok, sometimes the visions are a bit far fetched (While I can theoretically imagine a very very developed civilization that might be able to manipulate a dying black hole, I am quite positive the said civilization would not be able to use it as a Death Star to destroy (with a pulse of gamma radiation) a problematic planet or a wandering asteroid in a collision trajectory with the Earth. No, sorry, Dr. Kaku, I don't buy that.), in overall, I think the physics and the explanations are sound, no mumbo-jumbo stuff is to be encountered in the text, and the erudition of the author is well apparent.

So, why am I not giving the book the high five? Firstly, it was somewhat too easy. I am not a physicist, I am just a biologist with an interest in other scientific fields, and yet I have learned almost nothing new. Secondly, the book aged way to quickly... it's some eight years after it was published, and yet in some parts the physics (Higgs boson already discovered, problems with gravitational waves...) and the technology (pilot-less cars - like the Google car) is already far beyond the author's speculation... perhaps he could focus a bit more on something really over the horizon. And most importantly, there was like nothing original. No new ideas, no Kaku's very own speculations. I was looking forward to some 'wow moments' about future technologies and possible development of science, but most of the ideas were taken from science-fiction works (and mostly well-known ones) and the rest of them from already in-process-of-development technologies and theories. Sure, I have learned a few new ideas about time travels, and some funny facts from the lives of physicists (I didn't know that and why Ludwig Boltzmann committed suicide, for example), but otherwise, I was rather unimpressed.

Whom would I recommend the book to? Primarily, to anyone with an interest in physics and predictions about the future, but who's only getting to know with the field, or who wants to read/listen to some thematically connected light stuff only recreationally. If you have none to minimal knowledge of the modern physics, the book is perfect for you. If you have some knowledge of physics but are completely ignorant of the science-ficton, you might be actually thrilled by the number of apparently impossible and yet perhaps very possible technologies sci-fi authors of all times were able to come up with. If you have a substantial knowledge of both physics and science-fiction, and perhaps also the history of physics, you might find a few fresh points of view on the already known phenomena, and perhaps an interesting hints about some stuff on the borderline between physics and life sciences, but otherwise, unless you want to relax and turn your brain off over the book, you'll be probably a bit bored. ...more

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