The Future of Humanity:Terraforming Mars, Interstellar Travel, Immortality, and Our Destiny Beyond Earth

The Future of Humanity:Terraforming Mars, Interstellar Travel, Immortality, and Our Destiny Beyond Earth by Michio Kaku               Audio Book: 12 hours     Paperback Book: 592 pages        

The book lets readers know why Sheldon Cooper is so fascinated with physics.    A very well written book that speaks to the layman about things Einstein, Tesla, Schopenhauer, Hawking, Asimov and the world of the Science elite were and are involved in monitoring the state of the planet while monitoring the skies and whether life may exist beyond the earth.    Kaku keeps it so easy to follow along it is like an introduction to the universe, with a dollop of global warming thrown in mixed well together then served up to tell the reader where from a scientific, geological, meteorological, astronomical, engineering sector where it is that humanity finds itself in the scheme of life on earth and given all the factors how long we can expect life to continue as we know it and what must be done to save the human race from the impending meltdown path the earth is currently on.    Given the tracking of global warming and the rise in temperature of the earth’s core, Kaku tells in great detail many of the programs currently underway by the government and private funding sector, exploring  the potential of other planets, moons (not just our moon but also those circling the other planets in our Milky Way  galaxy and the Andromeda Galaxy, even beyond) that could be habitable as it becomes necessary for the continuation of the human civilization to carry on living that with overpopulation, the gravitational pull between earth, moon and even that of the galaxy stretching itself into a flatter shape,  the looming black hole found at the outermost reaches of the Milky Way show that things are going to have to change and within the next century.     Billionaires are investing in plans to work out interstellar travel.     Scientists are working on ways to make the atmospheres on other planets workable for colonization.   It will blow your mind to learn all that is going on that the public generally doesn’t hear much about.    Colonization training, is real.    It will take many years to send up exploration vehicles, robots to test the terrain,  even robots built to replicate themselves on another planet for the purpose of doing the necessary work – building factories on other planets to produce the materials necessary for putting up homes, biodomes,  hydroponics for sustaining life once the limited supplies taken there run out, etc.     Kaku tells the reader what is currently being discussed, planned, alternatives being researched, it is mind boggling all that is going on throughout the countries of the world to make sure that in the event of massive trauma to the earth there are viable alternatives to continue the human race so that we don’t go the way of the dinosaur if a huge asteroid were to plummet into the earth and bring on another ice age.    There are even plans and research going on that go out 1,000 years to future generations continuing colonizing as technology advances even further into space so that the human race, if it were to evolve into many colonies (replicating the move from Africa into Europe and the poles on this planet) that in the event humans living on a myriad of planets might begin to think of themselves as something other than Earthlings and splinter off into differing groups as they move further and further away from one another.     It is wild.    The book discusses how mankind might have to eventually become  hybrid into cyborg like states in order to stay strong enough to meet the demands put on human bodies living in vastly different environments given the state of the atmosphere on other planets (Searing heat, lethal gases, etc.) not to mention making communication remain stable and fast.    Aging is another field being worked on and it is thought that one day it might be possible to halt the aging process and Kaku outlines several areas of research currently going on and what their initial and long-term goals are.     He discusses research being done currently on lab animals to install microchips that would allow humans to communicate with their minds through whatever the internet becomes.    Though it sounds sci-fi and too much to believe scientists have already been able to capture memories of mice.    The stuff of Jules Verne, Ray Bradbury and others is nothing compared to the actual true programs currently in place.     This book will floor you.   Seriously.

Why Time Flies

Why Time Flies by Alan Burdick               Audio Book: 9 hours, 30 minutes    Hardback Book:  320 pages             

Alan Burdick sites some fascinating studies and their findings on how people and animals relate to time, to sequencing and how their concepts relate to their existence in the known now, the known past and their best guess for their futures.    As is often said, “Time Flies” or for Latin scholars, “Tempus Fugit” which sounds really catchy doesn’t it?    He explores the reasoning behind why the young think time passes so slowly while folks 50 and over feel time seriously flies.    It boils down to a math calculation that is based on the number of years you have been alive which is what  your perception is based on.    Those with many years ahead of them see years spreading out ahead of them while people on the half century mark see their mortality ahead of them and not that many years hence as when they were young.    It’s that space time continuum thing Einstein spoke of.   Your position on the question depends on where you are at on the time line of your life.    Lots of good stories and research on the subject here.    Fascinating people and insightful studies going on that will give you pause to ponder.   This book is a good mind stretcher and will have you looking at time in a far more significant way than just passing time.    You will want to be sure you utilize every second to its fullest potential.     He leaves you with Niche’s analogy of man’s relationship to time by how he builds a sandcastle.   The first man will proceed hesitantly, intent on craftsmanship yet all the while fretting all the time about the inevitable wave that will come then he is shocked by his loss when it does come.    The second man won’t even try to build a sandcastle seeing the futility of it,  why bother when the wave will just destroy it.   The third man, the paragon of manhood in Niche’s view, embraces the unavoidable and throws himself into the work regardless, joyful but not oblivious.   Burdick watched his sons building sandcastles on a beach in Normandy, France one day.    When the tide came in and destroyed the sandcastle the first time his one young son cried but he rebuilt only to have the sand castle city he and his brother rebuilt diminished again.   They built it a third time and by then the tide was coming back in and the ocean ran over the sand city, first the moat, then the city walls and then it flowed down through the streets.   Burdick’s second son stood up with his arms outstretched and faced the tide saying, “The end is near!   The end is near!”   Burdick enjoyed that response so much he envied it.   Time is full of surprises.    Time allows the builder to learn new ways of insuring the sand castle withstands the wave - incase it in something that will protect the integrity of the design and hold fast regardless of the torrent beating against it.   Time allows the builder to learn, if, he is willing to expand his mind and accept the consequence of his actions then learn from what was and what is to prepare a better way for the future.    Or as Burdick’s sons reacted either cry about where time has taken us or face it head on full force  standing up to it with that “HERE I AM TIME, COME AND GET ME!   LET’S SEE WHERE WE GO FROM HERE!’   Yeah, buddy!

  

A tale for the time being

A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki
422 Pages

"In Tokyo, sixteen-year-old Nao has decided there's only one escape from her aching loneliness and her classmates' bullying. But before she ends it all, Nao first plans to document the life of her great grandmother, a Buddhist nun who's lived more than a century. A diary is Nao's only solace--and will touch lives in ways she can scarcely imagine. Across the Pacific, we meet Ruth, a novelist living on a remote island who discovers a collection of artifacts washed ashore in a Hello Kitty lunchbox--possibly debris from the devastating 2011 tsunami. As the mystery of its contents unfolds, Ruth is pulled into the past, into Nao's drama and her unknown fate, and forward into her own future."

 I enjoyed this novel although at times I was a little confused with the time analogies.  It was recommended by Ann Patchett on her blog for Parnassus books and like Ms. Patchett, I originally didn't choose to read this novel because the cover was a little off-putting.  So I did judge a book by its cover.  I am happy to have read it.

Fatal Tree

The Fatal Tree by Steven Lawhead
356 Pages


The final chapter of the Bright Empire Series, the Fatal Tree opens with the Ley lines beginning to fail as the universe begins to contract and undo itself.  People begin to be displaced in time as this happens and the main characters of the series are in a race against time to find out the cause of this problem.


While the book had some bright spots, for me it was an unsatisfying conclusion to the series itself.