Dr. Michio Kaku is a physicist, futurist, media personality, and author. His globally best-selling popular science works include Physics of the Impossible (2008), The Future of the Mind (2014), and Quantum Supremacy (2025). He has also written several high-level physics textbooks, and more than 70 of his academic papers and articles have been published in prestigious scientific journals. For his work as a physicist and scientific communicator, he received the American Association of Physics Teachers’ annual Klopsteg Memorial Award in 2008 and the Sir Arthur Clarke Lifetime Achievement Award in 2021.

Kaku was born in 1947 to working-class, second-generation Japanese-American parents. His childhood interest in science was inspired by science fiction and news coverage of Albert Einstein’s (1879-1955) death. In high school, he earned a scholarship and mentorship from renowned physicist Edward Teller (1908-2003) by presenting a homemade particle accelerator capable of producing antimatter at the National Science Fair. He graduated at the top of his physics class at Harvard University in 1968 and earned his PhD from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1972. He was a lecturer at Princeton University and taught theoretical physics at the City College of New York for over 25 years. He has appeared as a guest lecturer and visiting professor at major educational establishments across America.

As a cocreator of string field theory, Kaku studies superstring theory, supergravity, supersymmetry, and hadronic physics in a quest to complete his childhood hero Einstein’s “Theory of Everything” by unifying the four fundamental forces of the universe. Throughout his life, he has remained at the forefront of physics research, although his ethical opposition to the US government’s advancement of nuclear weapons directed his career away from government-funded projects in his field. Instead, Kaku has dedicated himself to science communication, sharing groundbreaking discoveries with the general public worldwide. Kaku’s pioneering research and high public profile have made him one of the faces of modern science. Multiple Cosmos features have been written about his life, work, and philosophies, and he was the subject of Michael Apted’s award-winning documentary Me & Isaac Newton.

In addition to his aforementioned books and articles, Kaku has written as a columnist in some of the world’s most celebrated magazines, including Discover, New Scientist, and Newsweek. He hosts two national weekly radio programs, Science Fantastic and Explorations in Science, which are disseminated as podcasts worldwide, and is a regular contributor to the national TV show CBS: This Morning. He has presented or starred in countless television science programs for prestigious broadcasters such as the BBC, Discovery, and the History Channel, and has been a featured guest on almost all major talk shows and news programs in the US and worldwide. In Physics of the Impossible, Kaku combines his unparalleled experience as a popular science communicator with his lifelong fascination with sci-fi technology. A diehard futurist, Kaku uses his academic background and unquenchable enthusiasm for scientific progress to educate, inform, and inspire his readers.