This book discusses science and technology advancements in 6 areas, namely Computers, Artificial intelligence, Medicine, Nanotechnology, Energy and Space Travel. For each of these topics the author provides a bit of historical background and current affairs. He also relates his predictions for progress in the near, mid and far future. I have to say that I originally picked this book from my local library as I saw there were chapters on artificial intelligence, nanotechnology and space travel. Three topics I want to know more about. I learned a lot of new interesting things in each of the six chapters but I was a bit let down. One factor was the authors writing style (I got bored sometimes) and the second was the lack of critical perspective. The chapters seemed to me mere enumerations of cool technology. There was little if any mention if ethical or social implications from the creation and use of such technologies. A couple of examples I can mention are the sections on "designer children" and stem cells. Maybe this wasn't the aim of this book and I'm totally wrong asking for that. But I can't help feeling like that when I read about such sensitive topics otherwise they feel empty to me. Anyway, despite what I say above, I think Kaku did a great job "collecting" technologies by talking to dozens of experts around the world. This book is a sort of map of progress in relevant areas to predict how the future would look like.
In addition to the above there is a chapter on Wealth discussing subjects such as capitalism, digital divide and jobs in the future. Another chapter discusses the future of the human civilization explaining a ranking of civilizations introduced by astrophysicist Nikolai Kardashev which is based on the energy they consume. I really enjoyed this section of the book as it painted a much bigger picture than the ones discussed in previous chapters. The last chapter is a kind of speculative story of life in 2100 using some of the concepts discussed in the book.
The edition I got from the library is by Penguin books in 2012 with 366 pages.
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