The bestseller of the American physicist Michio Kaku "Physics of the Impossible" has been published in Russian
Will we learn to walk through walls? Build faster-than-light starships? Become invisible? As Michio Kaku admits in the foreword to his book, these questions worried him since childhood.
“Think, just 150 years ago, much of what seems to us natural today, scientists declared impossible. In 1863, Jules Verne wrote Paris in the 20th Century; the novel is replete with descriptions of devices and technologies that were considered impossible in the 19th century, including faxes, a worldwide communications network, glass skyscrapers, gas cars and high-speed trains on special flyovers … A deep understanding of the foundations of science allowed the writer to make startling predictions.
Physicist Michio Kaku decided to follow the same path. He examined the most important technical devices and human abilities, which now can be found not in scientific articles, but only in science fiction novels. And I tried to analyze: is it possible for them to appear in reality. And if there is such a chance, then when the wonders of science will enter our lives.
The physicist divided all these "fantasy dreams" into three categories.
CATEGORY 1: We will definitely have it
The first category includes “technologies that are impossible today, but do not violate the known laws of nature. Therefore, they may become possible already in this century or, perhaps, in the next in a modified form."
FORCE FIELD
No starship in any space opera is complete without a protective force shield. However, this thing is useful not only in space, but also on Earth: it would be possible to surround whole cities or ships in the sea with such a shield during bad weather.
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Kaku is optimistic that perhaps we will have force shields in a few decades. Here he is counting on the study of plasma physics and the study of superconductors.
INVISIBILITY
Approximately the same period as with the force field, the author of "Physics of the Impossible" sets aside for the appearance of devices that can make a person invisible.
And he even offers several options for how this can happen. He predicts the main role here for nanotechnology. For example, tiny implants are implanted into the body, which cause electromagnetic waves of light to bend around the object. Experiments in this direction are already underway. Well, we are waiting for the invisible man to visit.
TELEPORTATION
The ability to instantly move objects doesn't seem like fantasy either. Rather, he predicts, teleportation of molecules and living cells will become possible by the end of this century, and it will probably take several more centuries to master the technologies of human movement. By the way, scientists have already learned how to teleport atoms.
TELEPATHY AND TELEKINESIS
Many of us consider people who claim to be able to read other people's minds to be charlatans. How about mastering this art yourself? After all, when we come to the hospital, we are not surprised by the procedure for taking an electroencephalogram. The human brain emits weak electrical signals, and doctors fix them using electrodes attached to the head. "Work is starting on the compilation of a brain atlas," says Michio Kaku. "Scientists want to understand which words and images correspond to the firing of certain neurons in the brain."
“If humanity masters telepathy, then the era of telekinesis will be just around the corner,” - this is the meaning of another statement in the book. Of course, we will not be able to move objects at a distance just by looking at them. But we can think about it, and the army of nanorobots will accept the thought and fulfill our desire.
FOREIGNERS
The thought of brothers in mind has always worried earthlings. But only in the twentieth century the dream received a theoretical basis. American astronomer Frank Drake derived a formula according to which it turns out that among the 100 billion stars around us, there are from 100 to 10 thousand such, near which planets with intelligent inhabitants revolve. In this case, the closest civilization to us lives very “nearby” - about a hundred light years away (an inconceivable distance of 1 trillion kilometers). But later another astronomer, Carl Sagan, proposed another formula, according to which it turns out that there are at least a million civilizations in the galaxy. This means that our neighbors live much closer.
Michio Kaku is confident that by the end of the century we will find brothers in mind. He bases his optimism on the fact that now the telescopes "Koro" and "Kepler" are working in space, whose task is to search for planets similar to the Earth (read about this in the next issues of "KP" - Ed.), And on the SETI program - search for radio signals of artificial origin, coming from other stars. The chief astronomer of this program, Seth Shostak, is confident that such a signal will be caught before 2025.
STARSELVES
Sooner or later, our Sun will explode. And humanity will have to make legs. But where can we fly if the spacecraft engines are not very powerful: for example, an expedition to Mars with current technologies will last about three years. Kaku is betting on the creation of a solar sail (a spacecraft powered by an engine powered by the pressure of sunlight). To the same Mars it will be possible to turn around in just three months. Theoretically, it can be used to accelerate to half the speed of light (150,000 km / s). By the way, Russian scientists are actively engaged in the creation of a solar sail.
CATEGORY 2: Maybe, maybe not
In the second category, Michio Kaku brought things no less fantastic than in the first. But it is unclear if they have a chance to exist. “These are technologies that have only recently become seriously at the forefront of our understanding of the physical world. If they are at all possible, then their implementation can take thousands and even millions of years."
SUPER LIGHT SPEED
According to Einstein, it is impossible to fly faster than the speed of light. Then how do we get to other galaxies? For ten years now, scientists have been discussing the theory of "wormholes". These are special spatial channels that connect different galaxies. Theoretically, looking into such a "hole", you can see what is happening at a distance of millions of light years. Or maybe we'll even learn how to travel through these holes in starships. But this is theory. In practice, "holes" have not yet been found.
TIME MACHINE AND PARALLEL WORLDS
Here Kaku quotes famous physicist Stephen Hawking: "If time travel is possible, then where are the tourists from the future?" “Hawking has challenged the world. He declared: there must be a physical law prohibiting time travel. " However, physicists failed to find such a law. It turned out that the existence of a time machine does not contradict the laws of nature. " There are several theories for its creation. But, as Kaku concludes, "The only way to resolve the issue of time travel is to develop a complete theory of gravity and space-time." Is it possible? Scientists shrug their shoulders … By the way, there is a hypothesis that through the "wormholes" you can get into parallel universes.
CATEGORY 3: Alas, this is fantastic
The third category according to the Kaku classification: “technologies that violate the laws of physics we know. And if it turns out that they are possible, it will mean a fundamental shift in our understanding of physics. In other words, scientists do not yet even imagine how this is possible. Sadly, but such technologies Michio Kaku referred to the perpetual motion machine and the ability to foresee the future. Alas, this is not in our power, according to the Japanese. However, as has happened more than once in the history of mankind, scientists can be wrong.