Michio Kako On Science Fiction Physics

In his provocative new book, Physics of the Impossible (Doubleday), Michio Kaku discusses all sorts of speculative technologies, particularly those that we've become used to through science fiction, like time travel, robots, and force fields. Many of them he explains as possible, and he lays out why for us folks who did not do well in high school physics. But a couple of them--precognition and perpetual motion machines--are what he calls "Class III impossibilities"--"technologies that violate the known laws of physics," and he explains why clearly, and with originality, they are a no go as far as that science is concerned. With regard to perpetual motion machines, he also repeats what IP lawyers know, which is that the US Patent Office won't grant a patent for such devices if the inventor doesn't supply a working model. Dr. Kako's latest book, like his other works, is easy to read for the non-specialist, and very informative.