This ambitious project got him a spot at the National Science Fair. This particle accelerator was made of 400 pounds of scrap metal, 22 miles of copper wire, and generated a magnetic field 20,000 times greater than the Earth's.

Michio was determined to understand what this incomplete theory was all about.īy the time Michio got to high school, he had a well-established passion for physics.įor the science fair, Michio constructed a 2.3eV atom smasher in his garage. Michio was fascinated by this story and unfinished theory, and began going to the library to learn more about Einstein and his work.Īlthough his family was poor, they whole-heartedly supported Michio’s curiosity, letting him build experiments in the house and taking him to local university libraries. The day Einstein died, Michio's teachers told his class that the great physicist had died before he completing his biggest discovery- a 'theory of everything'. Michio was also largely inspired by a non-fictional hero- Albert Einstein. I realized I needed to immerse myself in advanced mathematics and learn theoretical physics,' Michio says. 'Without a solid background in advanced physics, I would be forever speculating about futuristic technologies without understanding whether or not they were possible. So when he grew older and had to put science fiction aside, Michio knew the one place he could cling to the impossible was physics. They began a lifelong love the impossible,' Michio says. 'Magic, fantasy, science fiction were all a gigantic playground for my imagination. When Michio was growing up, he loved science fiction shows and books, filled with time-traveling heroes, parallel universes, and intergalactic space travel. Physics is about curiosity and imagination, not brilliance.Goal in life: to find a one-inch equation that explains everything.Built a particle accelerator in his garage in high school.

Physics of impossible by michio kaku