Understanding Of The Physical World By Michio Kaku

Introduction of Author
Michio Kaku is a famous American theoretical physicists at the CUNY and Graduate Center and City College of New York. He had also made multiple appearances on television, radio and film. (one of the founders of string theory) He is also a futurist and populariser of science.

Brief Summary

Michio Kaku utilises the discussion of hypothetical technologies to acquaint readers with topics of fundamental physics. He examined three class of impossibilities. Class I impossibility deals with “technologies that are impossible today, but that do not violate the known laws of physics”; class II impossibility considers “technologies that sit at the very edge of our understanding of the physical world”; while class III impossibility

He quotes several interesting science fictions on time travel, then went on to discuss thoughts of famous physicists.

He explores several types of time machine, namely the wormholes, a spinning universe, and an infinitely long, rotating cylinder. He cites cosmologist, Stephen Hawking, about his initial scepticism of time travel and later firm stand that “time travel may be possible, but it is not practical”. According to DailyMail (2010), Hawking explains more in detail of the limitations in travelling through wormholes. Firstly, “real-life time tunnels are just billion-trillion-trillionths of a centimetre across”. Also, just like how feedback can destroy the sound system, radiation in wormholes can end up in a loop so strong that it destroys the wormhole. Hence, even though petit wormholes do exist, and can be enlarged someday, it cannot sustain long enough to be used as a time

Freeman Dyson, English-born American theoretical physicist and mathematician, argues Godel’s incompleteness theorem suggests physics is inexhaustible, and hence a TOE cannot be concluded. On the other hand, Lee Smolin, American theoretical physicist, constantly argues that nature is like an onion, layers are infinite and hence there will never be a theory which can explain everything. However, the possibility of finding a TOE to unify all current concepts continues to excite many scientists. Hawking remains hopeful that there is chance for us to find TOE which will ultimately answer all our questions, including the century old question of time