Following up with his interview on Fresh Air on NPR, I picked up the Future of Physics, a new book by physicist Michio Kaku. I have only just begun to read, but I am already intrigued by the idea.

The book centers on predicting the future up till 2100. All of the futuristic ideas presented in the book already have prototypes in various laboratories around the world. I have ventured a few pages into the book and have encountered computer chips the size of atoms and as cheap as scrap paper, contact lenses that can act as an interface to the Internet, and augmented reality glasses than can paint a false projection of the world around us.

One problem I have with this book is that it shows us a utopian image of the world in 2100. While it is always good to be optimistic, I feel that the author does not account for any of the downfalls of these new inventions. Of course, this is very early into the book, and he may address my concerns later on. To his credit, he has predicted the end of Moore’s law, a law governing how computing power should grow: at an astounding rate.

When I read about the use of computers to create an augmented reality, I was reminded of the Pendragon Adventure series of books. In one book, huge, futuristic pyramids were constructed on a very technologically-savvy planet. The entire population of the planet lived in these pyramids. The appeal was that the giant behemoths allowed the people to dream and live in an augmented reality they controlled, a perfect life, so to speak.

The downfall of this augmented reality was that the world outside slowly began to change as nature retook its property and began to encroach upon the pyramids. Worse, all the denizens were inside dreaming and had no wish to see whether the rumors of destruction outside were actually true.

Whether our future will one day turn out like this is unlikely, but only time can tell.