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Physics of the impossible a scientific exploration into the world of phasers, force fields, teleportation, and time travel

A fascinating exploration of the science of the impossible--from death rays and force fields to invisibility cloaks--revealing to what extent such technologies might be achievable decades or millennia into the future. One hundred years ago, scientists would have said that lasers, televisions, and th...

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Main Author: Kaku, Michio.
Corporate Authors: Books on Tape, Inc.
Other Authors: Chin, Feodor.
Format: Audiobooks eAudiobook Downloads eAudiobook
Language: English
Published: New York : Books on Tape, 2008.
Subjects:
Physics.
Science.
Mathematical physics.
Physics in literature.
Human-machine systems.
Downloadable audio books.
Online Access: Go to Downloadable Audiobook Here
Summary: A fascinating exploration of the science of the impossible--from death rays and force fields to invisibility cloaks--revealing to what extent such technologies might be achievable decades or millennia into the future. One hundred years ago, scientists would have said that lasers, televisions, and the atomic bomb were beyond the realm of physical possibility. In Physics of the impossible, the renowned physicist Michio Kaku explores to what extent the technologies and devices of science fiction that are deemed equally impossible today might well become commonplace in the future. From teleportation to telekinesis, Kaku uses the world of science fiction to explore the fundamentals--and the limits--of the laws of physics as we know them today. He ranks the impossible technologies by categories--Class I, II, and III, depending on when they might be achieved, within the next century, millennia, or perhaps never. In a compelling and thought-provoking narrative, he explains: How the science of optics and electromagnetism may one day enable us to bend light around an object, like a stream flowing around a boulder, making the object invisible to observers "downstream"; How ramjet rockets, laser sails, antimatter engines, and nanorockets may one day take us to the nearby stars; How telepathy and psychokinesis, once considered pseudoscience, may one day be possible using advances in MRI, computers, superconductivity, and nanotechnology; Why a time machine is apparently consistent with the known laws of quantum physics, although it would take an unbelievably advanced civilization to actually build one. Kaku uses his discussion of each technology as a jumping-off point to explain the science behind it. An extraordinary scientific adventure, Physics of the impossible takes listeners on an unforgettable, mesmerizing journey into the world of science that both enlightens and entertains.
Item Description: Downloadable audio file.
Title from: Title details screen.
Unabridged.
Duration: 11:50:12.
Playing Time: 11:50:12
Format: Requires OverDrive Media Console (file size: 170101 KB).
Mode of access: World Wide Web.
ISBN: 9781415946855
141594685X
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)

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