Michio Kaku Review and Analyses of: Physics of the Future: How Science Will Shape Human Destiny and Our Daily Lives by the Year 2100

 Preliminary Review and Analyses of:

   

 Physics of the Future: How Science Will Shape Human Destiny and Our Daily Lives by the Year 2100

Preliminary Review and Analyses of:

Author: Michio Kaku

Published: 2011

Today I'm going to review a book about Science and Physics general, which are very far away from my area of expertise (international relations and politics), but I always had a soft spot for advanced science for two reasons: I love science fiction, Star Trek and Star War ( in that order), have hijacked my mind and set me on a path of nerdisim since I was a  little kid and the other reason is that my grandfather was a aeronautical engineer that worked on the US space program during the space race, especially on the Apollo missions, and he used to love to talk to me about physics and about space, and he was a gifted professor, and  that's probably way I like Michio Kaku he reminds me of my grand father Carlos Cavoti, he's  able to explain things in a ways that you can understand, even super complicated stuff. In my analysis of this book I'm going to look at things from social political point of view, to see how these scientific milestones possibility impact our societies and alter the political dynamic.

So to start off  its important to know that Mr. Kaku is a Theoretical Physicist who Works at the City College of New York, and that he works tirelessly to get people in Physics and Science, and in this book his futurist side just runs  totally unfiltered.  

The book starts of explaining the that scientist are just too busy investigating, and that they do not spend too much time thinking about the future, so futurology has fallen into the hands of many literary greats, and their fascination with science has fueled  science fiction for more than 150 years, people like Jules Verne, H. G Wells, Isaac Asimov...just to name a few, the author explains that they were true visionaries and that actually inspired legions of young people to get into science in the first place, it's interesting to reach a personal   conclusion right at the binging of the book, that culture and science actual work together to push progress forward, mutually inspiring each other and its a mistake forcibly separating the two.

So Michio dives in different areas of science that are going to shape the future in each chapter and he actually talks about thing that scientist are working on now, literally prototypes of some incredible stuff, he does talk about purely theoretical stuff, but he tries to keep speculation down to a minimum, his nerd side does get the best of him at moments.

The Good:

·         The book actually explains super complicated science stuff in a way that makes it very accessible for none experts. Michio has an incredible gift in explaining things in such a way that it really gets to you and  it easy to understand. his writing style is pretty engaging it keeps you wanting to read more.

·         Michio Kaku is a fully fledged nerd,  he loves science fiction as much as I do, he  actually references Star Trek on 12 occasions ( more references than to Albert Einstein with. 7), Star Wars mentioned 7 times and even Terminator 4 times. He does this for reason to get to the reader hooked and relating with the reader find commun ground, he's trying to explain to the reader that all that cool stuff you see in the movies are actually possible thanks to scientific investigation. In the case of Star Trek he make some hardcore references he actually mention the Borg and Q to important character from the series to explain in what phase of civilization a specie has archived.

·         The author divides the book in nine chapters, and each one is dedicated to a  specific area where science is making major progress and each chapter is divided in three parts the  now, thirty years from now and finally how will be a hundred years from now.


A interesting aspect of this book that I actually found stuff that I used on other blogs about Immigration, Religion and International Politics, at moments not even Kaku understands the scope of the thing he's writing about.

 

Some core topics, debatable stuff and Analysis:

·         Artificial intelligence is still in its infancy, so we don't have to worry about losing our jobs yet. But many people will lose their jobs to semi autonomous robots and computer programs, from my point of view it will be pretty interesting to see how  governments will cope with rising unemployment, and this actually happening now the slow growth of empolyment in the US in part is thanks to these type of robots  invading the work force. And also thanks to this, many professions will basically becomes obsolete, it's truly surprising to see the fields  robots and programs are invading, progressively eliminating the "frictions of capitalism"  especially eliminating the middle man and having the potencial to producea social backlash if not well handled.

In the chapter about the future of medicine and how some major advances will help us live better and longer, I can't stop thinking how this will affect humanity demographically, States will have to manage this issue responsibly because this will affect population growth and its well being, but this will inevitably bring a strain on the world's economy, especially on food production and energy consumption, just to start off longer life spans will cause State to rethink the retirement ages which is already has sparked a very strong political debate.

The chapter dedicated to energy production is fascinating, if there is a break through with nuclear fusion, which can create colossal amounts of energy at a low cost and low risk, that generates very little radioactive waste and contamination, this really would  be a game changer on a global level, this should a total priority for Nation States, and established as global Moonshot. I actual used this for class I gave as a adscrip  university professor talking about the renaissance of nuclear energy which countries are starting to debate again and giving nuclear energy a second chance but  that there are two  very important projects related to nuclear fusion that will change the energy sector forever if ever made functional on a industrial level, one in France called ITER, which was a cooperation project between the United State of America and Russia, which was spawned during  the end of the cold war , France and Japan joined in at the very early stages,  now it's  a global initiative and the other nuclear fusion project can be found in the US called NIF.

Kaku establishes that the two major weakness in our modern civilization are decency on cheap oil and Moore's law.

The four phases in the evolution of technology presented by Kaku is fascinating, it gives you a unique perspective in understanding how these products transition from being used super exclusively to being used by just about anyone, and  from my point of view this has a profound social impact altering the groups power dynamic, on a political level, phase I  or II can be used by a particular group of people, like a political elite to obtain political power, controlling the accesses to any particular technology once this exclusivity is gone they loss their political edge the playing field is leveled.  

The why Kaku uses to classify our civilization fusing the models created by Nikolai Kardashev and Carl Sagan, is super interesting to use to establish possible ways  how human society could evolve, even though even though Kaku's social/political views are pretty simplistic.

The Bad:

Michio is a little too optimistic at moments. 

·  Some of Kaku's political and Economic views are a little naive.  

Even though these technological advances will inevitably leave capitalism and establish the need of a new economic model, the author has the inclination to think that capitalism is the only valid economic system, till its left obsolete.

 

  The book gets 8 out of 10.

Have you read this book? Did you like it? What do you think about Michio Kaku?

 I would love to revive feedback guys.