Available:*
Library | Call Number | Status |
|---|---|---|
Searching... Hardwood Creek Library (Forest Lake) | 530 KAK | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... Oakdale Library | 530 KAK | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... Wildwood Library (Mahtomedi) | 530 KAK | Searching... Unknown |
Bound With These Titles
On Order
Summary
Summary
NATIONAL BESTSELLER * Inspired by the fantastic worlds of Star Trek, Star Wars, and Back to the Future, the renowned theoretical physicist and national bestselling author of The God Equation takes an informed, serious, and often surprising look at what our current understanding of the universe's physical laws may permit in the near and distant future.
Teleportation, time machines, force fields, and interstellar space ships--the stuff of science fiction or potentially attainable future technologies? Entertaining, informative, and imaginative, Physics of the Impossible probes the very limits of human ingenuity and scientific possibility.
Author Notes
Michio Kaku was born January 24, 1947 in San Jose California. Kaku attended Cubberley High School in Palo Alto in the early 1960s and played first board on their chess team. At the National Science Fair in Albuquerque, New Mexico, he attracted the attention of physicist Edward Teller, who took Kaku as a protégé, awarding him the Hertz Engineering Scholarship. Kaku graduated summa cum laude from Harvard University with a B.S. degree in 1968 and was first in his physics class. He attended the Berkeley Radiation Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley and received a Ph.D. in 1972 and held a lectureship at Princeton University in 1973. During the Vietnam War, Kaku completed his U.S. Army basic training at Fort Benning, Georgia and his advanced infantry training at Fort Lewis, Washington.
Kaku currently holds the Henry Semat Chair and Professorship in theoretical physics and a joint appointment at City College of New York, and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, where he has lectured for more than 30 years. He is engaged in defining the "Theory of Everything", which seeks to unify the four fundamental forces of the universe: the strong nuclear force, the weak nuclear force, gravity and electromagnetism. He was a visiting professor at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, and New York University. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society. He is listed in Who's Who in Science and Engineering, and American Men and Women of Science. He has published research articles on string theory from 1969 to 2000. In 1974, along with Prof. K. Kikkawa, he wrote the first paper on string field theory, now a major branch of string theory, which summarizes each of the five string theories into a single equation.
In addition to his work on string field theory, he also authored some of the first papers on multi-loop amplitudes in string theory. Kaku is the author of several doctoral textbooks on string theory and quantum field theory and has published 170 articles in journals covering topics such as superstring theory, supergravity, supersymmetry, and hadronic physics. He is also author of the popular science books: Visions, Hyperspace, Einstein's Cosmos, Parallel Worlds, The Future of the Mind, and The Future of Humanity: Terraforming Mars, Interstellar Travel, Immortality, and Our Destiny Beyond.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (5)
Publisher's Weekly Review
In this latest effort to popularize the sciences, City University of New York professor and media star Kaku (Hyperspace) ponders topics that many people regard as impossible, ranging from psychokinesis and telepathy to time travel and teleportation. His Class I impossibilities include force fields, telepathy and antiuniverses, which don't violate the known laws of science and may become realities in the next century. Those in Class II await realization farther in the future and include faster-than-light travel and discovery of parallel universes. Kaku discusses only perpetual motion machines and precognition in Class III, things that aren't possible according to our current understanding of science. He explains how what many consider to be flights of fancy are being made tangible by recent scientific discoveries ranging from rudimentary advances in teleportation to the creation of small quantities of antimatter and transmissions faster than the speed of light. Science and science fiction buffs can easily follow Kaku's explanations as he shows that in the wonderful worlds of science, impossible things are happening every day. (Mar. 11) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Booklist Review
The imagination of science fiction faces up to the laws of physics in this prognostication of future technologies from a high-profile string theorist. Kaku wrote about his specialty in Parallel Worlds (2004); here he covers a gamut of sf gadgets. Interestingly, most things Kaku turns over, such as ray guns, deflector shields, invisibility, and interstellar travel, are theoretically possible, provided one harnesses energy on a titanic scale. But until somebody can arrange atoms at will, and black holes, too, early adopters might have to cool their heels for decades or untold millennia before being able to buy the latest gizmo. Meanwhile, they can revel in Kaku's amble through the technological stars of sf books and movies. Referencing a scene, as when the Death Star of Star Wars blows up a planet, Kaku spells out the mass-energy requirements necessary to replicate the destruction in reality. Excluding only perpetual-motion machines and precognition from the realm of possibility, Kaku entertains techno-dreamers through his clarity about the physics of mind reading and time machines, yielding a high popularity quotient in the process.--Taylor, Gilbert Copyright 2008 Booklist
Choice Review
Of the marvelous devices and techniques available to Captain Kirk or Harry Potter, which ones might someday become reality? How can one know? This book frames the answer in terms of devices that are impossible with today's technologies but appear not to violate any fundamental physical laws and thus might be realized in the future, those that violate well-established fundamental physical laws such as energy conservation and causality, and the intriguing middle cases "that sit at the very edge of our understanding." Renowned physicist Kaku (City Univ. of New York) describes areas of physics that can pique readers' curiosity, but does not provide sound explanations of the physical principles cited, resorting to summary judgments about the possibilities based on current research/theories. In nontechnical language and a casual style, Kaku discusses the physical principles that govern favorite fantasy and science fiction devices. Current research suggests how objects might be made invisible, or transported or "beamed" across distances. The possibility of time travel or "parallel universes" raises fundamental issues about the structure of the universe for which answers are still speculative. Perpetual motion machines and precognition are among the few fictional devices that humankind's current understanding of the universe rule out as physically impossible. Summing Up: Recommended. General readers and lower-division undergraduates. D. Bantz University of Alaska
Kirkus Review
Kaku (Parallel Worlds: A Journey Through Creation, Higher Dimensions, and the Future of the Cosmos, 2004, etc.) provides lucid explanations of gee-whiz wonders from science-fiction books, television and films. He divides 15 chapters into the not-impossible (invisibility, death rays, telepathy, power from antimatter), possibly impossible (time travel, parallel universes) and probably impossible (perpetual-motion machines, precognition). In ten of these chapters, Kaku cheerfully concludes that technical breakthroughs will bring these futuristic marvels into our lives, and he has high hopes for another three. Invisibility, for example, may be just around the corner: Researchers already divert light waves around tiny objects in the laboratory, and converting this into Harry Potter's cloak of invisibility merely requires a few decades to a century of scientific progress. Death rays already exist in the form of huge lasers; the hand-held variety depicted in Men in Black will require ingenious miniaturization possibly achievable by 2100. Kaku has no problem with UFOs, despite concern that physical evidence for their existence remains steady at zero. Time travel turns out to be routine for subatomic particles. Human-sized objects would have to slip through a spatial distortion called a wormhole, a structure so poorly understood that even the supremely optimistic author cannot decide if it's possible. Predicting the future requires the reversal of cause and effect; creating a perpetual-motion machine would mean changing the fundamental laws of the universe. Despite a mighty effort to find loopholes, Kaku reluctantly concludes that these seem unlikely. Readers are likely to trust his conclusions, since he is knowledgeable and authoritative about the latest technical developments in factories and research laboratories around the world, as well as in cutting-edge science. A genuine tour de force, skillfully delivering cogent descriptions of everything from subatomic structure to the laws of the universe. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Library Journal Review
Kaku, a physics professor at CUNY Graduate Center and syndicated radio show host, explains the physics of all those crazy things (invisibility? mind reading?) that might one day come true-just like television. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Excerpts
Excerpts
1: FORCE FIELDS I. When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong. II. The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible. III. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. -ARTHUR C. CLARKE'S THREE LAWS "Shields up!" In countless Star Trek episodes this is the first order that Captain Kirk barks out to the crew, raising the force fields to protect the starship Enterprise against enemy fire. So vital are force fields in Star Trek that the tide of the battle can be measured by how the force field is holding up. Whenever power is drained from the force fields, the Enterprise suffers more and more damaging blows to its hull, until finally surrender is inevitable. So what is a force field? In science fiction it's deceptively simple: a thin, invisible yet impenetrable barrier able to deflect lasers and rockets alike. At first glance a force field looks so easy that its creation as a battlefield shield seems imminent. One expects that any day some enterprising inventor will announce the discovery of a defensive force field. But the truth is far more complicated. In the same way that Edison's lightbulb revolutionized modern civilization, a force field could profoundly affect every aspect of our lives. The military could use force fields to become invulnerable, creating an impenetrable shield against enemy missiles and bullets. Bridges, superhighways, and roads could in theory be built by simply pressing a button. Entire cities could sprout instantly in the desert, with skyscrapers made entirely of force fields. Force fields erected over cities could enable their inhabitants to modify the effects of their weather-high winds, blizzards, tornados-at will. Cities could be built under the oceans within the safe canopy of a force field. Glass, steel, and mortar could be entirely replaced. Yet oddly enough a force field is perhaps one of the most difficult devices to create in the laboratory. In fact, some physicists believe it might actually be impossible, without modifying its properties. Michael Faraday The concept of force fields originates from the work of the great nineteenth-century British scientist Michael Faraday. Faraday was born to working-class parents (his father was a blacksmith) and eked out a meager existence as an apprentice bookbinder in the early 1800s. The young Faraday was fascinated by the enormous breakthroughs in uncovering the mysterious properties of two new forces: electricity and magnetism. Faraday devoured all he could concerning these topics and attended lectures by Professor Humphrey Davy of the Royal Institution in London. One day Professor Davy severely damaged his eyes in a chemical accident and hired Faraday to be his secretary. Faraday slowly began to win the confidence of the scientists at the Royal Institution and was allowed to conduct important experiments of his own, although he was often slighted. Over the years Professor Davy grew increasingly jealous of the brilliance shown by his young assistant, who was a rising star in experimental circles, eventually eclipsing Davy's own fame. After Davy died in 1829 Faraday was free to make a series of stunning breakthroughs that led to the creation of generators that would energize entire cities and change the course of world civilization. The key to Faraday's greatest discoveries was his "force fields." If one places iron filings over a magnet, one finds that the iron filings create a spiderweb-like pattern that fills up all of space. These are Faraday's lines of force, which graphically describe how the force fields of electricity and magnetism permeate space. If one graphs the magneti Excerpted from Physics of the Impossible: A Scientific Exploration into the World of Phasers, Force Fields, Teleportation, and Time Travel by Michio Kaku All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
