What are the Best Michio Kaku Books on Wormholes, Black Holes, and Time Travel?

[NekOSound]

Hi everyone,

I was looking on Amazon for books about wormholes, black holes, time travel, Einsteins equations about the 4th dimension, the future (the way physicians see it) and other (pseudo)scientific myths / mysteries.

I found that Michio Kaku wrote several books on the subject but I can't seem to find one or two that his "best" books.

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

- Einstein's Cosmos: How Albert Einstein's Vision Transformed Our Understanding of Space and Time (Great Discoveries) ?

- Hyperspace: A Scientific Odyssey Through Parallel Universes, Time Warps, and the 10th Dimension ?

- Physics of the Impossible: A Scientific Exploration into the World of Phasers, Force Fields, Teleportation, and Time Travel ?

What I mean by "best" is not outdated, simple enough to understand for an amateur but [STRIKE]"complicated"[/STRIKE] thorough enough on the subject too understand the modern concepts.

If you know books on this subject from another autor don't hesitateto mension them.

Thank you a lot in advance !

--NekOSound

 

[Nugatory]

Are you looking for entertainment or for understanding? Kaku only offers the former, and if that's also what you want you're asking the wrong website.

If you're more serious, then start with Taylor and Wheelerer's book "Spacetime Physics". It won't directly cover everything you've mentioned, but it touches on some of it and it is a solid base for further exploration.

 

[vanhees71]

That's a bit unjust. Kaku has written a pretty nice QFT book:

M. Kaku, Quantum Field Theory, Oxford University Press (1993)

To write a good popular book about physics is very difficult, much more difficult than to write a good textbook!

 

[Demystifier]

I liked the Kaku's "Hyperspace".

 

[Demystifier]

If you know books on this subject from another autor don't hesitateto mension them.

I recommend everything from Brian Greene, especially "The Farbric of the Cosmos". His books are at the same level as those of Kaku, but are written even better.

 

[Demystifier]

Are you looking for entertainment or for understanding? Kaku only offers the former, and if that's also what you want you're asking the wrong website.

I strongly disagree with this attitude. I think that layman with no interest or talent in math also deserve to know something about modern physics, and people here can help to recommend books which are good for that purpose. Popularization of science is important for a general understanding of science in the public. Popular science books serve that purpose and I wouldn't call it entertainment.

 

[gmax137]

"Black Holes & Time Warps" by Kip Thorne

 

[vanhees71]

I recommend everything from Brian Greene, especially "The Elegant Universe". His books are at the same level as those of Kaku, but are written even better.

I'm surprised. I had the impression that Brian Greene's popular science writings are a big commercial for string theory (in fact a quite successful one) with little information on physics as a natural science.

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

I would strongly suggest Universe in a Nutshell by Stephen Hawking
https://www.amazon.com/dp/055380202X/?tag=pfamazon01-20

 

[Demystifier]

I'm surprised. I had the impression that Brian Greene's popular science writings are a big commercial for string theory (in fact a quite successful one) with little information on physics as a natural science.

Ups, sorry! I meant "The Fabric of the Cosmos". Now I corrected my previous post. His first book "The Elegant Universe" is a popularization of string theory, but his second one, "The Fabric of the Cosmos", has a much wider scope.

 

[PeterDonis]

I recommend everything from Brian Greene, especially "The Farbric of the Cosmos".

Greene's books are popular, but anyone reading them who is a regular here at PF should be aware that we have had plenty of past threads where misconceptions people had gotten from his books had to be cleared up.

Popularization of science is important for a general understanding of science in the public. Popular science books serve that purpose and I wouldn't call it entertainment.

It depends on what you mean by "understanding". Pop science books can certainly inform a lay person about things that science has discovered. But they do not give an understanding of the science involved in the sense of the lay person, after reading the pop science book, being able to use the knowledge they have gained to correctly answer follow-up questions they want to ask about things that aren't discussed in the book.

In fact, pop science books often give an incorrect understanding in that sense: a person asks themselves a question that isn't discussed in the book, use what they think the book has told them to come up with an answer, and then find out--often by coming here to PF and starting a thread like the ones I mentioned above--that in fact most of what they thought they had learned from the pop science book was wrong, in the sense of leading them to a wrong answer to the question they asked themselves. The only solution to that problem is usually to unlearn what the person thought they had learned from the pop science book, and then re-learn the correct science from a textbook such as the one @Nugatory recommended.

 

[DarMM]

If you don't mind a little mathematics (just addition and subtraction) for Quantum Mechanics I'd recommend Terry Rudolph's "Q is for Quantum". If you don't mind algebra there is Nicolas Gisin's "Quantum Chance: Nonlocality, Teleportation and Other Quantum Marvels".

For General Relativity "Black Holes and Time Warps" is a classic.

 

[Demystifier]

In fact, pop science books often give an incorrect understanding in that sense: a person asks themselves a question that isn't discussed in the book, use what they think the book has told them to come up with an answer, and then find out--often by coming here to PF and starting a thread like the ones I mentioned above--that in fact most of what they thought they had learned from the pop science book was wrong, in the sense of leading them to a wrong answer to the question they asked themselves.

That's of course true. But if they didn't read the pop science book, they would never come to PF in the first place, so they would never have a chance to understand it correctly. It's better to have misconceptions (provided that the person is humble enough to accept that he/she can be wrong) than to not have conceptions at all. Pop science books, similarly to wikipedia, can be good as a starting point which motivates or directs further investigations.

 

[Demystifier]

Terry Rudolph's "Q is for Quantum"

It's John Gribbin.

 

[Truecrimson]

It's John Gribbin.

I didn't realize Gribbin wrote a book with the same title a long time ago (1998?). Anyway, DarMM's book is from 2017. http://qisforquantum.org/

 

[Demystifier]

I didn't realize Gribbin wrote a book with the same title a long time ago (1998?). Anyway, DarMM's book is from 2017. http://qisforquantum.org/

And I didn't know that Rudolph recently wrote a book with the same title, thanks for the info! And by the way, isn't it plagiarism?

 

[Nugatory]

And I didn't know that Rudolph recently wrote a book with the same title, thanks for the info! And by the way, isn't it plagiarism?

Titles are generally not protected by copyright, at least under American law.