Book Review: Physics of the Future

For several years I've turned on the TV and watched the silver-haired physicist Michio Kaku equate complex theoretical physics to something the lay-person can relate to. This book is no different. Physics of the Future takes the form several futurists have used in the past, but one that is relevant today. Like Jules Verne, Kaku makes bold predictions of how the next century will pan out. In retrospect, Verne's predictions were mostly conservative, regardless of how outlandish they must have seemed at the time. However, Kaku consulted with over 300 scientists at the top of their respective fields to weave a tapestry of what future advancements could look like. It was with that mindset that I began reading Physics of the Future.

Michio Kaku splits up his volume into several chapters, each dealing with a different type of technological advancement. I found the chapters on Biotechnology and Medicine the most interesting, though they dealt little with physics. It seems only a matter of time, by Kaku's calculations, that humans will be able to live forever, or near enough to make no matter. Growing new organs, robotic limbs, soon the stuff of science fiction will not only be possible, it will be commonplace. Kaku's vision of the future is more optimistic than others I've read in the past. It seems his work is focused on what can be accomplished without any setbacks or global catastrophes. I, for one, believe the next hundred years could look a lot different if things keep going the way they are. However, people in the late 19th and early 20th century probably thought the same in their time, only to be proven wrong in the end. Most of Kaku's predictions are probable, which makes you think about how little our world has advanced in previous centuries as compared with the previous hundred years and certainly the coming hundred years.  

Bookophile Rating: Good (For optimism and insight into the possibilities that only a few years ago would have been laughed at as impossible)