Never Discount the Impossible

[shipperx]

From The Daily Galaxy  Posted by Casey Kazan:

Michio Kaku, in his new book, Physics of the Impossible, warns us that nothing should be considered impossible or beyond our eventual understanding. "In my own short lifetime," he writes, "I have seen the seemingly impossible become established fact over and over again."

Kaku, a  professor of theoretical physics at the City University of New York and world-renowned author of "Parallel Worlds," "Beyond Einstein" and the bestselling "Hyperspace. " Kaku pioneered string field theory and is now working on the fabled Theory of Everything (a union of gravity with the three other fundamental forces: electromagnetism and the strong and weak nuclear forces).

In "Physics of the Impossible," Kaku divides the "seemingly impossible" into three classes.

Class I consists of technologies that "might be possible in this century," including "teleportation, antimatter engines, certain forms of telepathy, psychokinesis, and invisibility." Class II awaits the wisdom we will have acquired in "millennia to millions of years in the future" and includes time machines, hyperspace travel and popping through wormholes in space into another universe. Class III  is the "perpetual motion machine" and precognition. Kaku concludes that if "they do turn out to be possible, they would represent a fundamental shift in our understanding of physics."

Soon, Kaku belives, humanity may face an existential shock as the current list of a dozen Jupiter-sized extra-solar planets swells to hundreds of earth-sized planets, almost identical twins of Earth. This may usher in a new era in our relationship with the universe: we will never see the night sky in the same way ever again, realizing that scientists may eventually compile an encyclopedia identifying the precise co-ordinates of perhaps hundreds of earth-like planets.

"The Space Interferometry Mission (SIM)," Kaku writes, "to be launched early in the next decade, consists of multiple telescopes placed along a 30 foot structure. With an unprecedented resolution approaching the physical limits of optics, the SIM is so sensitive that it almost defies belief: orbiting the earth, it can detect the motion of a lantern being waved by an astronaut on Mars! The SIM, in turn, will pave the way for the Terrestrial Planet Finder, to be launched late in the next decade, which should identify even more earth-like planets. It will scan the brightest 1,000 stars within 50 light years of the earth and will focus on the 50 to 100 brightest planetary systems."

"All this, in turn, will stimulate an active effort to determine if any of them harbor life, perhaps some with civilizations more advanced than ours."

Comments

[petzipellepingo.livejournal.com]

The SIM, in turn, will pave the way for the Terrestrial Planet Finder, to be launched late in the next decade, which should identify even more earth-like planets. It will scan the brightest 1,000 stars within 50 light years of the earth and will focus on the 50 to 100 brightest planetary systems."


Cool!

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

It does sound cool.