Michio Kaku

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, Michio Kaku, a renowned physicist and cofounder of string field theory, explores to what extent the technologies and devices of science fiction that are deemed equally impossible today might well become commonplace in the future. In a compelling, thought-provoking, and entertaining narrative, he explains how the science of optics and electromagnetism may one day enable us to bend light around an object; how ramjet rockets, laser sails, antimatter engines, and nanorockets may one day take us to the nearby stars; how telepathy and psychokinesis may one day be possible; and why a time machine is apparently consistent with the known laws of quantum physics. 

Imagine a universe where the 2000 and 2004 Presidential elections turned out differently! In his latest well-researched book on leading-edge physics for a popular audience, Kaku addresses serious theoretical possibilities of the existence of parallel and/or multiple universes, some of which, he speculates, may be found literally just beyond the tip of our noses. First Kaku outlines the historical background of cosmology and the latest evidence gathered from satellite data on the age of the universe, much of which theorists are only beginning to understand. He gives glimpses into key concepts in physics and the legendary scientists behind these big ideas, from Newton, Einstein, and Hawking to Big Bang theorist George Gamow and the entertaining Richard Feynman. In a second section, he explores the idea that parallel universes may be floating unseen just a millimeter away. Using M-Theory, a derivative of string theory, Kaku discusses how parallel universes might be created and might interact with our own, and how new universes bud and bloom off of one another, potentially offering humans the ability to escape into other realms as our own universe dies.