'Beam me up Scotty' nearing reality

[SouthernJet]

Teleportation and forcefields possible within decades, says Professor Michio Kaku

By Matthew Moore

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

Extended extracts from Prof Kaku's new book 'Physics of the Impossible'

Future of science: 'We will have the power of the gods'

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.

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 - they are likely to be realisable within a few decades or at most a century.

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.

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.

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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 - may take centuries or millennia to perfect

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 - truly impossible.

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."

[Arsis]

All of this is considering that the modern laws of physics are 100% truth. Also if there was a such thing as time travel in the future why are there no time traveling tourists from the future? Why wouldn't someone have come back here from the future to give us advanced medical technology or say "hello" or something like that. Chances are out species doesn't last long enough to see the "centuries" this person is saying that we will need to perfect time travel.

[SouthernJet]

All of this is considering that the modern laws of physics are 100% truth. Also if there was a such thing as time travel in the future why are there no time traveling tourists from the future? Why wouldn't someone have come back here from the future to give us advanced medical technology or say "hello" or something like that. Chances are out species doesn't last long enough to see the "centuries" this person is saying that we will need to perfect time travel.

time space continuum..

wont be a factor until 1st invented, then policies and preventitive measures are implemented,,

ask JGB, he is the astro-physicist

[Panzer Division Marduk]

All of this is considering that the modern laws of physics are 100% truth. Also if there was a such thing as time travel in the future why are there no time traveling tourists from the future? Why wouldn't someone have come back here from the future to give us advanced medical technology or say "hello" or something like that. Chances are out species doesn't last long enough to see the "centuries" this person is saying that we will need to perfect time travel.

Lurker's from the future. He brought back a sports almanac.

[Arsis]

time space continuum..

wont be a factor until 1st invented, then policies and preventitive measures are implemented,,

ask JGB, he is the astro-physicist

So what changing something in the past will break "the time space continuum" but ****ing with time and space and sending objects and people to places they don't belong by means that shouldn't exists will not doing anything to it? Yeah, okay makes a lot of sense to me.

[SouthernJet]

So what changing something in the past will break "the time space continuum" but ****ing with time and space and sending objects and people to places they don't belong by means that shouldn't exists will not doing anything to it? Yeah, okay makes a lot of sense to me.

see that wasnt hard..

[Panzer Division Marduk]

So what changing something in the past will break "the time space continuum" but ****ing with time and space and sending objects and people to places they don't belong by means that shouldn't exists will not doing anything to it? Yeah, okay makes a lot of sense to me.

Watch Timecop. See what happens when the space time continuum gets broken?

[Arsis]

Watch Timecop. See what happens when the space time continuum gets broken?

I say this science is about as true and accurate as Timecop. Hell Timecop probably had better science.

[SouthernJet]

Watch Timecop. See what happens when the space time continuum gets broken?

Panzer right..

Panzer? Are you meeting us tonight for a beer? We will be at usual place, Long Branch Saloon, Dodge City, 1878.

[Panzer Division Marduk]

Panzer right..

Panzer? Are you meeting us tonight for a beer? We will be at usual place, Long Branch Saloon, Dodge City, 1878.

Sorry, the Flux Capacitator's hit the 20,000 year mark, and needs a service. I'll try to make it for Chicago in 1871 for the BBQ.

[shutout]

Watch Timecop. See what happens when the space time continuum gets broken?

Good point. If the space-time continuum is broken, people suddenly think its a good idea to watch and reference movies starring Jean-Claude Van Damme.

[Mavrik]

All of this is considering that the modern laws of physics are 100% truth. Also if there was a such thing as time travel in the future why are there no time traveling tourists from the future? Why wouldn't someone have come back here from the future to give us advanced medical technology or say "hello" or something like that. Chances are out species doesn't last long enough to see the "centuries" this person is saying that we will need to perfect time travel.

would you believe someone who said they were from the future? I'd imagine you would think they were nutjobs, like 99% of everyone else probably would.

[Arsis]

would you believe someone who said they were from the future? I'd imagine you would think they were nutjobs, like 99% of everyone else probably would.

Not if they didn't have any proof. If present reasonable and strong proof of anything I would believe it. I'm not so dead set that I know everything and am pretty open minded about things.

[L.S. Dylan]

The question is, if someone was travelling through time, why would they give a **** if you believed them?

[JerryK]

This would be cool, except he's trying to tell the future

...which is a Class III impossibility.

[Arsis]

This would be cool, except he's trying to tell the future

...which is a Class III impossibility.

potw

[johnny green balls]

this is really facsinating. however, faster than light travel is unecessary unless you're trying to travel in time. it's not an end in and of itself. for example, light takes ~8 minutes to reach us from the sun but if you were sitting on the light particle, the journey would be instantaneous. therefore, if you could travel at the speed of light, a journey to anywhere would appear to the traveller to be instant. of course if you travelled very far (100 light years let's say) everyone you know back home would be dead even though no time passed for you. here's where time travel would be best used: to travel large distances such as 100 light years, but then simultaneously travel back in time 100 years. that way, the journey would appear to be instant to you AND to people back home. using the quantum equations the result of this journey would take negative 100 years (to the traveller). and you'd "pop" at the destination at the same instant you left the origin. however there is a problem with travelling at the speed of light or faster-- relativistic length contraction. the faster you go, the more you shrink (i don't really understand why). if you hit light speed, you become all energy and a light particle, slowing down may not cause you to gain your mass back. no one knows.

if anyone cares, here's a link with the equations for time dilation and length contraction: http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/relativ/tdil.html

All of this is considering that the modern laws of physics are 100% truth. Also if there was a such thing as time travel in the future why are there no time traveling tourists from the future? Why wouldn't someone have come back here from the future to give us advanced medical technology or say "hello" or something like that. Chances are out species doesn't last long enough to see the "centuries" this person is saying that we will need to perfect time travel.

maybe all the time tourists turned into light particles and they're all around us.

time travel already exists to some extent. it's called the theory of relativity. the faster you go, the greater the effect according to einstein's equation for time dilation. even going in your car at 30mph causes a tiny, imperceptible effect--time goes by slightly slower for moving objects than for stationary ones. air force did an expirement years ago. took two atomic clocks, they left one on the ground and flew the other around the world. when they compared the two, they were a fraction of a second off from each other. so using time dilation, FUTURE travel is possible (go real fast, time around you goes by a lot faster than the time to the traveller, this is what happened in "planet of the apes") but coming back is the tough--maybe impossible--part.

time space continuum..

wont be a factor until 1st invented, then policies and preventitive measures are implemented,,

ask JGB, he is the astro-physicist

believe it or not, that's a great pickup line.

Lurker's from the future. He brought back a sports almanac.

POTW nominee.

[#27TheDominator]

maybe all the time tourists turned into light particles and they're all around us.

Is that supposed to remind me of Reverend Horton Heat Hears a Who or the weed scene from Animal House?

[johnny green balls]

Is that supposed to remind me of Reverend Horton Heat Hears a Who or the weed scene from Animal House?

you mean people live in my fingernails???