Book: Physics of the Impossible

After about a month of working on it, I finally finished Michio Kaku's Physics of the Impossible. It was an interesting book and well-written, and I'm a little bit sad that it took me so long to finish. Compared to many of the physics books geared towards a general audience that I've tried to read, this one was remarkably fun and easy to read. (Last week Steamboat Willie was having trouble sleeping, so I gave her one of my previous attempts at a readable physics book. After a few weeks of laying awake for 2 or 3 hours a night, she read 2 pages and not only slept through the night, but overslept the next morning. This book was much more interesting than that!)

Unfortunately, it was still a physics book for me. As much as I really am interested in physics, when I'm reading about it my attention span is even shorter than normal (which is hard to achieve). If I'm in a quiet room by myself, I can read for hours. If I'm anywhere else, I tend to get distracted by just about anything going on, which is why it took me so darn long to finish the book.

The basis of Physics of the Impossible is an explanation of the real physics of things that we've always considered science fiction, from interspace travel to telling the future. He divides the book into 3 sections, based on the probability of the event actually happening. One of my favorite parts of the book is that he is completely unabashed about the fact that many physicists got into the profession because they wanted to know about how Star Trek or Star Wars or even Batman could happen in real life. It made the whole subject more approachable to hear about the discoveries that were made because a physicist happened to read Jules Verne or watch Aliens. The author was also great at conveying some real physics information without confusing the issue by jumping into the very complicated issues too deep.

I would recommend this book to anyone who is just a little bit geeky (like me) and interested in both physics and science fiction. If you have a longer attention span than me, you'll be able to breeze through it--otherwise, plan a little bit of time when the tv is off and no one is around, and you'll learn enough physics to make yourself look like a good science geek!