Michio Kaku

A fascinating exploration of the science of the impossible—from death rays and force fields to invisibility cloaks—revealing to what extent such technologies might be achievable decades or millennia into the future. One hundred years ago, scientists would have said that lasers, televisions, and the atomic bomb were beyond the realm of physical possibility. In Physics of the Impossible, the renowned physicist Michio Kaku explores to what extent the technologies and devices of science fiction that are deemed equally impossible today might well become commonplace in the future. From teleportation to telekinesis, Kaku uses the world of science fiction to explore the fundamentals—and the limits—of the laws of physics as we know them today. He ranks the impossible technologies by categories—Class I, II, and III, depending on when they might be achieved, within the next century, millennia, or perhaps never. In a compelling and thought-provoking narrative, he explains: - How the science of optics and electromagnetism may one day enable us to bend light around an object, like a stream flowing around a boulder, making the object invisible to observers “downstream” - How ramjet rockets, laser sails, antimatter engines, and nanorockets may one day take us to the nearby stars - How telepathy and psychokinesis, once considered pseudoscience, may one day be possible using advances in MRI, computers, superconductivity, and nanotechnology - Why a time machine is apparently consistent with the known laws of quantum physics, although it would take an unbelievably advanced civilization to actually build one Kaku uses his discussion of each technology as a jumping-off point to explain the science behind it. An extraordinary scientific adventure, Physics of the Impossible takes readers on an unforgettable, mesmerizing journey into the world of science that both enlightens and entertains.

Anthology features nineteen stories from bestselling, award-winning, and emerging authors, and includes brand new, never-before seen stories from Jim Butcher's, "Dresden Files," Robert Asprin's "The Myth-Adventures" by Jody Lynn Nye, and Neo Edmund's "Red Riding Alpha Huntress Chronicles."

Superstrings and M-theory are provocative and controversial, but unarguably among the most interesting and active areas of research in current physics. Called by some "the theory of everything," superstrings may solve a problem that has eluded physicists for the past 50 years, the final unification of the two great theories of the twentieth century, general relativity and quantum field theory. Now, here is a thoroughly revised, second edition of a course-tested comprehensive introductory graduate text on superstrings which stresses the most current areas of interest, not covered in other presentations, including four-dimensional superstrings, Kac-Moody algebras, Teichmuller spaces and Calabi-Yau manifolds, M-theory membranes and D-branes, duality and BPS relations, and matrix models. Prerequisites are an acquaintance with quantum mechanics and relativity.

This book is a modern pedagogic introduction to the ideas and techniques of quantum field theory. After a brief overview of particle physics and a survey of relativistic wave equations and Lagrangian methods, the quantum theory of scalar and spinor fields, and then of gauge fields, is developed. The emphasis throughout is on functional methods, which have played a large part in modern field theory. The book concludes with a brief survey of 'topological' objects in field theory and, new to this edition, a chapter devoted to supersymmetry.

This comprehensive tutorial introduces the development of, and current trends in, superstring theory, a significant and still controversial attempt to unify general relativity and quantum field theory. Intended for graduate students with a year of quantum mechanics and familiarity with relativistic methods, the book makes these exciting developments available to physicists, mathematicians, and others for the first time in one volume. Stressing current areas of research activity, Introduction to Superstrings addresses all relevant topics including string field theory, multi-loops and Teichmüller spaces, conformal field theory, and four-dimensional superstrings. Professor Kaku is currently leading seminars in superstring theory at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.

Beyond Einstein takes readers on an exciting excursion into the discoveries that have led scientists to the brightest new prospect in theoretical physics today -- superstring theory. What is superstring theory and why is it important? This revolutionary breakthrough may well be the fulfillment of Albert Einstein's lifelong dream of a Theory of Everything, uniting the laws of physics into a single description explaining all the known forces in the universe.

One hundred years ago, scientists would have said that lasers, televisions, and the atomic bomb were beyond the realm of physical possibility. Here, physicist Michio Kaku explores to what extent the technologies and devices of science fiction that are deemed equally impossible today might well become commonplace in the future. From teleportation to telekinesis, Kaku uses the world of science fiction to explore the fundamentals--and the limits--of the laws of physics as we know them today. He ranks the impossible technologies by categories--Class I, II, and III--depending on when they might be achieved, within the next century, millennia, or perhaps never. He uses his discussion of each technology as a jumping-off point to explain the science behind it.--From publisher description.

"String theory (and its latest incarnation, M-theory) has advanced at an astonishing pace in the last decade, and this book aims to acquaint the reader with the most active topics of research in the field. Building on the foundations laid in his Introduction to Superstrings and M-Theory, Kaku discusses such topics as conformal field theory, knot theory, the Yang-Baxter relation, quantum groups, nonpolynomial string field theory, topological field theory, S-T-U dualities, D-branes, and M-theory. The book conveys the vitality of current research in string theory and M-theory and places the reader at its forefront."--BOOK JACKET.