Making the Impossible Possible

OUR JOB IS TO KEEP THE TORCH BURNING, and to pass it to a new generation on our way out. Because we are all gone soon enough, we must think of our legacy. Goethe said "We are indeed immortal, of only because of the effects of our actions." Rock on, honkie. If we the living of 2013 can keep the torch aflame, our descendents have a chance to live in a wonderful world of miracles. Sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Our grandchildren have a chance to live in a world free of poverty, disease, and war. But that is only the beginning. Some of the miracles our grand children may experience are described in a fascinating book entitled "Physics of the Impossible", by Michio Kaku. Michio Kaku grew up reading science fiction and dreaming of following in the footsteps of Albert Einstein. Somehow or other, he managed to build a nuclear reactor in his parents basement his senior year in high school, and for this he got a scholarship to Harvard. Kaku is,in a sense, the heir to Carl Sagan, as the most popular and effective popularizer of science and space exploration. In his book, Kaku discusses all the best science fiction fantasies: space travel, time travel, teleportation, invisibility, extraterrestrials, the whole realm of imaginative high tech futuristic life. He gives a brief history of research into all these areas, discusses where the research stands now, and what problems it faces in the future. Then, he gives his estimate of how likely each development is. The exciting part is that Kaku seems to think that all these impossible developments are in fact possible, within the next one hundred years.