- Hardcover: 352 pages
- Publisher: Allen Lane; First Edition edition (3 April 2008)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0713999926
- ISBN-13: 978-0713999921
- Product Dimensions: 24 x 15.2 x 3.6 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (29 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 240,325 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
Physics of the Impossible
and over one million other books are available for Amazon Kindle .
Learn more
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||
 Trade In this Item for up to £0.45
Get an extra £5 when you trade in books worth £10 or more until June 30, 2012. Trade in Physics of the Impossible: A Scientific Exploration of the World of Phasers, Force Fields, Teleportation and Time Travel for an Amazon.co.uk gift card of up to £0.45, which you can then spend on millions of items across the site. Trade-in values may vary (terms apply). Find more products eligible for trade-in.
|
Product details |
More About the Author
Product Description
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
First Sentence
"Shields up!" Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
"Shields up!" Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
20 of 21 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Agree with all the comments above, and I very much enjoyed the book. My one issue was the surprising number of errors that I really would have expected to be caught by someone before it got to a printing press. Some examples - "transatlantic flights from LA to NY", "kiwi - the flightless Australian bird". The trivial errors in easily checked facts made me wonder a little about the stuff that I couldn't verify.
34 of 37 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Got this book and finished it the day after it arrived. Captivating stuff ! As a high level introduction to the current state of a variety of scientific areas it's fantastic.
Kaku tends to spend a little more time on the areas close to him, but everthing gets good coverage. As a springboard to understand current progress it allows the reader to go off and find more information on the particular subject areas that interest them.
I read it in the same week as Ray Kurzweil's 'The Singularity is Near' and it's interesting to see both the overlap, and how things have moved on in 5 years.
All in all a great book for the layman and those with a scientific background. Oh, and a great price for a hardback book right now :)
Kaku tends to spend a little more time on the areas close to him, but everthing gets good coverage. As a springboard to understand current progress it allows the reader to go off and find more information on the particular subject areas that interest them.
I read it in the same week as Ray Kurzweil's 'The Singularity is Near' and it's interesting to see both the overlap, and how things have moved on in 5 years.
All in all a great book for the layman and those with a scientific background. Oh, and a great price for a hardback book right now :)
15 of 16 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
The premise of this book is fabulous. Take all the things which we've read about and seen in science fiction books, TV shows and films, and examine how possible, or impossible they are.
So we have phasers, death stars, time travel, warp engines, telepathy and many many more. Yes, it's a geek heaven, but hopefully the book is accessible enough to attrect a wider audience. It certainly deserves it.
Kaku's approach is to look at the fictional invention, explain why it is impossible as it stands, but then go on to see how real physics could create something similar in the future. He classes inventions into type 1,2 and 3 impossibilities, possible in some form within the next century, possible in the distant future, and impossible given the laws of physics as they are currently understood. This is a framework which gives the author the opportunity to potter around on some of the more exciting playing fields of modern physics.
The most surprising thing about the book is the number of things he tags as type 1 impossibilities (starships, forcefields and teleportation amongst them) and the very small number of type three (perpetual motion, precognition).
The strength of the book is simply its source material. The whacky world of theoretical physics is one that should have interest to many beyond a purely scientific audience, especially when described in the largely layperson's terms used here.
My one slight niggle is that while Kaku is relatively easy to read, he isn't the most inspiring author in the world. His material is the inspiring part, and he puts it across well, but in the end I found the structure of the book rather repetitive.
Minor quibble though. Rcommended.
So we have phasers, death stars, time travel, warp engines, telepathy and many many more. Yes, it's a geek heaven, but hopefully the book is accessible enough to attrect a wider audience. It certainly deserves it.
Kaku's approach is to look at the fictional invention, explain why it is impossible as it stands, but then go on to see how real physics could create something similar in the future. He classes inventions into type 1,2 and 3 impossibilities, possible in some form within the next century, possible in the distant future, and impossible given the laws of physics as they are currently understood. This is a framework which gives the author the opportunity to potter around on some of the more exciting playing fields of modern physics.
The most surprising thing about the book is the number of things he tags as type 1 impossibilities (starships, forcefields and teleportation amongst them) and the very small number of type three (perpetual motion, precognition).
The strength of the book is simply its source material. The whacky world of theoretical physics is one that should have interest to many beyond a purely scientific audience, especially when described in the largely layperson's terms used here.
My one slight niggle is that while Kaku is relatively easy to read, he isn't the most inspiring author in the world. His material is the inspiring part, and he puts it across well, but in the end I found the structure of the book rather repetitive.
Minor quibble though. Rcommended.
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Most Recent Customer Reviews
Fantastic!
As a amateur physicist, I would highly recommend this book to anyone who is fascinated by the subject, but is not too advanced. Read more
Published 3 months ago by qwerty
Back to the future for geeks and novices alike
I didn't like Physics at school. It's 15 years since I took my GCSE and what I basically remember is a few classes on momentum and velocity, a circuit board that made a mini... Read more
Published 3 months ago by R. A. Davison
Captivating
Captivating indeed. Good level of details, not too much, not too little. Each subject is well introduced with simple words. Read more
Published 6 months ago by Eric le rouge
Good, but not quite excellent
Have seen Michio Kaku on several science shows, and always find him an excellent watch.
When I saw this, I snapped it up - very interesting subject matter, and great to... Read more
When I saw this, I snapped it up - very interesting subject matter, and great to... Read more
Published 7 months ago by Steven Brown
Great content
I wasn't really sure what to expect when I bought this book. On the one hand I was hoping that it wouldn't be too complicated to understand, but I was also concerned that it might... Read more
Published 12 months ago by Mr. S. A. Brown
Amazing read
This book has been an absolute joy to read, it gets you thinking and is absolutely amazing. Some of the things that Michio Kaku explains are mind blowing. Read more
Published 14 months ago by Mrs. J. Katallozi
Physics of the Impossible
This book makes very good reading not over technical I have always been very
interested in any thing of a scientific nature.
interested in any thing of a scientific nature.
Published 14 months ago by pixal1
Read, for the good of your imagination.
If you like Science Fiction, science itself or are just curious as to what the future holds for our species, I cannot recommend this book enough. Read more
Published 16 months ago by S. Westfield
Impossibly Fascinating
A fascinating and rivetting insight into what may be in the future, opens the mind to new vistas.
Published 23 months ago by Mr. Richard Chandless
Looking to the Future!
This is a wonderful book full of great predictions for the future of technology. How would you like an invisibilty cloak? Experimental cloaks are already being tested. Read more
Published on 3 May 2010 by Mr. N. C. Gravette
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
|
|
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
