Teleportation and forcefields possible within decades, says Professor
Michio Kaku
By Matthew Moore
Last Updated: 1:01pm BST 02/04/2008

Teleportation and forcefields could become scientific realities within
decades, and time travel will also be possible in the future, according to
one of the world's leading physicists.
*Interview with Michio Kaku, Mr Parallel Universe
<http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2008/03/23/sv_...>
*
*Extended extracts from Prof Kaku's new book 'Physics of the
Impossible'<http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2008/03/23/sv_...>
*
*Future of science: 'We will have the power of the gods'
<http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2007/10/23/sci...>
*

Professor Michio Kaku of City University in New York has studied a range of
scientific "impossibilities" and concluded that most will almost certainly
be achieved as our knowledge expands.
 [image: Professor Michio Kaku]Prof Kaku: 'What is unthinkable today might
not be forbidden in a few decades or centuries'

Applying the rule that unless something breaks a law of physics "then it's
not only possible, it is sure to be built someday", Prof Kaku has
established a hierarchy of "impossibilities", separating those phenomena
that are sure to remain science fiction from those which are likely to
become reality at some point in the future.

Teleportation, telepathy, forcefields and invisibility are Class 1
impossibilities, meaning they are likely to be realisable within a few
decades or at most a century.

Class II impossibilities may take centuries or millennia to perfect, while
Class III impossibilities are truly impossible.

*Class 1 *

*Teleportation* is likely to be achieved through "quantum entanglement", a
property that allows connections to be formed – and information transmitted
- between particles many miles apart.

Applying the process to larger objects like people is just a scientific
"engineering problem", that is likely to be solved in time, Prof Kaku writes
in his new book Physics of the
Impossible<http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2008/03/23/sv_...>.

Similarly, *telepathy *will be made possible by improved MRI machines that
can effectively read minds, and electrodes that can then pass the
information into the brains of other humans.
advertisement

<http://ad.uk.doubleclick.net/click%3Bh=v8/369e/f/6c/%2a/p%3B197839942...>

*Invisibility* will probably be achieved using a recently-built
"metamaterial" capable of bending light rays, he argues. *Alien life* will
most likely be discovered within decades as our ability to analyse the
universe improves.

*Class II*

*Time travel *is a Class II impossibility because, while it need not break
the laws of physics, science still has major knowledge gaps to cross to make
it a reality, Prof Kaku believes.

"What makes them [Class II impossibilities] so difficult is that they
generally require vast amounts of energy, and their underlying physics is
not totally understood," he writes in this week's New Scientist magazine.

The research of Stephen Hawking, Albert Einstein and the physicist Kip
Thorne has shown that time travel is theoretically possible, but no-one has
yet found a way to produce the energy necessary to keep a "wormhole" open.

"This technology is only achievable for a civilisation significantly more
advanced than ours," Prof Kaku writes.

*Parallel universes* and *travelling faster than the speed of light* are
also Class II impossibilities, he argues.

*Class III*

The only two science fiction phenomena which Prof Kaku believes are truly
impossible – Class III impossibilities – are *perpetual motion machines* and
*telling the future* (precognition), both of which break the fundamental
laws of modern physics.

"In considering what the future may hold, then, we should keep an open mind
to Class 1 and Class 2 impossibilities," Prof Kaku writes.

"What is unthinkable today might not be forbidden in a few decades or
centuries."
'Physics of the Impossible' by Michio Kaku (Allen Lane) is available from
Telegraph Books for £18 plus £1.25 p&p. Call 0870 428 4115 or order online
at books.telegraph.co.uk <http://www.books.telegraph.co.uk/>

--
Trevor Watkins
bas...@gmail.com 083 44 11 721  (f)0866532363 www.libertarian.org.za
2 Poplar Street, Jeffreys Bay, 6330