Physics of the Future

How Science Will Shape Human Destiny and Our Daily Lives by the Year 2100

By: Michio Kaku

Narrated by: Feodor Chin

Length: 15 hrs and 39 mins

Publisher's summary

Imagine, if you can, the world in the year 2100.

In Physics of the Future, Michio Kaku - the New York Times best-selling author of Physics of the Impossible - gives us a stunning, provocative, and exhilarating vision of the coming century based on interviews with over 300 of the world’s top scientists who are already inventing the future in their labs.

The result is the most authoritative and scientifically accurate description of the revolutionary developments taking place in medicine, computers, artificial intelligence, nanotechnology, energy production, and astronautics.

In all likelihood, by 2100 we will control computers via tiny brain sensors and, like magicians, move objects around with the power of our minds. Artificial intelligence will be dispersed throughout the environment, and Internet-enabled contact lenses will allow us to access the world's information base or conjure up any image we desire in the blink of an eye.

Meanwhile, cars will drive themselves using GPS, and if room-temperature superconductors are discovered, vehicles will effortlessly fly on a cushion of air, coasting on powerful magnetic fields and ushering in the age of magnetism.

Using molecular medicine, scientists will be able to grow almost every organ of the body and cure genetic diseases. Millions of tiny DNA sensors and nanoparticles patrolling our blood cells will silently scan our bodies for the first sign of illness, while rapid advances in genetic research will enable us to slow down or maybe even reverse the aging process, allowing human life spans to increase dramatically.

In space, radically new ships - needle-sized vessels using laser propulsion - could replace the expensive chemical rockets of today and perhaps visit nearby stars.

Advances in nanotechnology may lead to the fabled space elevator, which would propel humans hundreds of miles above the earth’s atmosphere at the push of a button. But these astonishing revelations are only the tip of the iceberg. Kaku also discusses emotional robots, antimatter rockets, X-ray vision, and the ability to create new life-forms, and he considers the development of the world economy. He addresses the key questions: Who are the winner and losers of the future? Who will have jobs, and which nations will prosper?

All the while, Kaku illuminates the rigorous scientific principles, examining the rate at which certain technologies are likely to mature, how far they can advance, and what their ultimate limitations and hazards are.

Synthesizing a vast amount of information to construct an exciting look at the years leading up to 2100, Physics of the Future is a thrilling, wondrous ride through the next 100 years of breathtaking scientific revolution.

©2011 Michio Kaku (P)2011 Random House

Critic reviews

"Following in the footsteps of Leonardo da Vinci and Jules Verne, Kaku, author of a handful of books about science, looks into the not-so-distant future and envisions what the world will look like. It should be an exciting place, with driverless cars, Internet glasses, universal translators, robot surgeons, the resurrection of extinct life forms, designer children, space tourism, a manned mission to Mars, none of which turn out to be as science-fictiony as they sound. In fact, the most exciting thing about the book is the fact that most of the developments Kaku discusses can be directly extrapolated from existing technologies. Robot surgeons and driverless cars, for example, already exist in rudimentary forms. Kaku, a physics professor and one of the originators of the string field theory (an offshoot of the more general string theory), draws on current research to show how, in a very real sense, our future has already been written. The book's lively, user-friendly style should appeal equally to fans of science fiction and popular science." (Booklist)

Hypercatalogosis

Not quite the Michio we have come to enjoy so much. I think his very organized brain got in the way and produced the Dewey Decimal system of the future. The concepts were great, but organization was annoying.

Michio Kaku, what a great vision!

Even though 5 years have passed since he first published this book, and some things have changed, his vision is still valid, I think! enjoyable read and loved the story with Karen at the end. I hope we advance in genetics very quick to be able to stay young!

Outstanding

This was a great listen. Some clarified ideas as well as many new well thought out ones. I'm always a fan of M.K.

Intriguing, largely dry

A long, dry, speculative look at what the future might look like. The portion on global warming is great! Lots of interesting tidbits in this book.

great read

it was great insight on how the world my be in future for the good or for the bad

How quickly future predictions date

Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?

Yes, there is an interesting picture being painted about the future we are all moving towards to.

Would you be willing to try another book from Michio Kaku? Why or why not?

Yes, I have read other books of his and I think he's a good story teller.

Have you listened to any of Feodor Chin’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

No, this is my first time.

Was Physics of the Future worth the listening time?

Yes, though I would caution people, the book is three years old now and some of the ideas for the future already seem outdated.

Any additional comments?

It's hard to get the future correctly right of course. I think what this book suffers from, as will most other books that predict the future, is what I have called the "TNG Syndrome". Namely, how in TNG everybody had tablets, but they were just books / notebooks in the traditional paper sense.

Odds are good you have a smart phone in your pocket, this is the tablet from TNG and it works quite a bit different then the tablets do in TNG.

Likewise, in the book there are a few technologies that he describes that clearly are rooted in this TNG look of the future. A prime example is how he envisions your self-driving car to figure out a route via GPS (good), and then get traffic information over sensors that are embedded in the road. This is humours to me because if you have Google Maps on your phone, you can already figure out how thick the traffic is. How does Google do it? They use your device and others to measure density and flow of traffic. Likewise, a self-driving car would not have to rely on a central authority to tell them how the road conditions are. It could communicate with the other cars in the vicinity via mesh network, thus get information even if there is no network coverage available for it.

This is just one example, there are a few others in the book. I think the ideas he has aren't wrong, it's just that his implementation of the technologies is often still insular, instead of connected. But it does give some good food for thought.

Fun read. Not excellently written. Not thorough.

If you could sum up Physics of the Future in three words, what would they be?

Fun. Accessible. Cursory.

What was your reaction to the ending? (No spoilers please!)

It was a corny, sappy sum of the previous chapters. Worst part of the book.

What does Feodor Chin bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

Chin manages excitable emphasis on material that might otherwise read a little dry.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

No.

Any additional comments?

This book could have been twice its length and I would have been happier, because then it would have adequately covered some of its material.

physics of the future

Captivating and inspiring. He gives a wonderful vision of tomorrows future and the technologies to come.

really kool

i absolutely loved this. make you think and it makes alot of sense. thnx makkio

Interesting, but repetitive

I like the ideas discussed in the book, however it does get quite repetitive by the middle. I would bet the phrase "in the future" is used almost a hundred times throughout this book. No groundbreaking ideas and most things I already expected but it did give a bit more perspective to future technology.