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Physics of the Impossible

Michio Kaku · read by Feodor Chin

It explains. Hardcover files this book as non-fiction. A fact, not a factor: it plays no part in our call.

Not enough to go on

Every book we have judged on how far the recording outruns the page: 201 of them, the page's answer at the left-hand end and the recording's at the right. Marked for scale: All the Light We Cannot See, To Kill a Mockingbird and Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. This one is not placed: we have no audio case for it.
Every call we have made is on that line. This one is not: with no audio case for it, there is nowhere honest to put it.

Nobody has rated the narration yet, and the reading is half the question. We know plenty about the book; it is the recording we cannot judge.

What you can do Press play on the sample and judge the voice yourself, because it is the half of the question too few listeners have answered.

Last searched Audible UK ·

Length does not decide this

11h 50m to listen, at 1×9h 28m to listen, at 1.25×7h 53m to listen, at 1.5×6h 46m to listen, at 1.75×5h 55m to listen, at 2×about 11 hours to readabout 8 hours to readabout 7 hours to readabout 5 hours to readabout 4 hours to read

The runtime is Audible’s own, shown at the speed beside it. The reading time is our estimate: 329 pages at 30 pages an hour, the pace you told us. Ours is 50, about 300 words a page, read at 250 a minute.The runtime is Audible’s own, shown at the speed beside it. The reading time is our estimate: 329 pages at 40 pages an hour, the pace you told us. Ours is 50, about 300 words a page, read at 250 a minute.The runtime is Audible’s own, shown at the speed beside it. The reading time is our estimate: 329 pages at 50 pages an hour, which is about 300 words a page, read at 250 a minute.The runtime is Audible’s own, shown at the speed beside it. The reading time is our estimate: 329 pages at 65 pages an hour, the pace you told us. Ours is 50, about 300 words a page, read at 250 a minute.The runtime is Audible’s own, shown at the speed beside it. The reading time is our estimate: 329 pages at 80 pages an hour, the pace you told us. Ours is 50, about 300 words a page, read at 250 a minute.

Reading load against listening load

Every book we hold placed by how much work it asks on the page, left to right, against how much it asks in your ears, bottom to top: 222 of them. Easy both ways is the bottom left corner, hard both ways the top right; above the dashed line the ears work harder, below it the page does. Marked for scale: Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, To Kill a Mockingbird and The Diary of a Young Girl. This one is in the middle 40% of our shelf of books for effort on the page and in the middle 40% of our shelf of books for effort in your ears.
The dashed line is where a book would be same effort either way. This one sits on that line (the format is not fighting you either way), between the bottom 34% and the top 23% of our shelf of books for extra work in audio.
On the page0.11
In your ears0.15
Audio disadvantage0.15

Where that puts this one among the books we hold: in the middle 40% of our shelf of books on both counts (effort on the page and effort in your ears). The middle of the scale is not the middle of the shelf (most books sit below the average on both), so a book at 0.00 is already in the top 43% for effort on the page. Each of the three is measured against the whole shelf separately, so the bottom figure is not the top two subtracted. It is this book’s own distance from the middle.

What the audio disadvantage is made of. Two things and no others: how fast readers say this one moves, and how demanding the reviews we read found it. There is no third: the structural one has no data source, so it contributes nothing rather than being guessed at. Both directions are declared priors we have never fitted against a real verdict, which is the weakest-evidenced part of the whole model.

Every book we could measure both features on placed by pace, fast to slow, against how demanding the reviews we read found it, plain to demanding: 166 of them. The easiest listens are the bottom left corner and the hardest the top right, which is the shaded one. Marked for scale: Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, To Kill a Mockingbird and The Diary of a Young Girl. This one is not placed: too few readers have told Hardcover how fast it moves for us to put it anywhere honestly.
This one is not placed: too few readers have told Hardcover how fast it moves for us to put it anywhere honestly.

How the call was made

Where a bar carries ticks, the grey one is the middle of our shelf and a coloured one is a line we publish, cool where we start backing the page, warm where we start backing the recording. The evidence squares at the foot are a different thing: how far each of our four sources went, hatched where there was nothing to measure at all.

What is at stake
−0.37It sits between the bottom 27% and the top 33% of our shelf of books for how well the print crowds think of a book: middling regard, so this barely moves the call either way. Blended across 42,154 Goodreads ratings and 106 on Hardcover, each scored inside its own population first, and never added together.
Evidence
0.55How much of the picture we actually have, out of 1.00: four questions, each answered as far as the source could answer it, less anything taken off for reading fewer reviews than we aim to.The readingNobody has rated this reading yet: thinThe second sourceHardcover knows this book, with 106 readers there: enough to lean onThe matchHow sure we are that the recording we scored is this book: as good as it getsThe reviewsWe read 300 reviews to judge how demanding it is: as good as it getsWe are also missing something we treat as essential: not one rating of the narration.

What each crowd complains about

We would need 40 reviews from each crowd before setting the two side by side, and only 17 of the reviews we read said they listened to it. So we are not drawing this one.

What the two crowds said

4.09−0.41 sdGoodreads
the book itselfGoodreads
the book itself, against Goodreads’ own crowd
42%5 stars: 42 per cent, 17,576 ratings
35%4 stars: 35 per cent, 14,878 ratings
16%3 stars: 16 per cent, 6,896 ratings
4%2 stars: 4 per cent, 1,696 ratings
3%1 stars: 3 per cent, 1,108 ratings

42,154 ratings

Every reading we hold

One complete reading of this book, and it is the reading every audio figure above is measured on. If there is another, we have not found it. The shelf grows in reviewed batches, never because somebody searched for a book.

  • Feodor Chinthe one we measured11h 50m9h 28m7h 53m6h 46m5h 55m · One voice · Audible UK and US

    Nobody has rated this one in either shop, so we have nothing to go on.

    Hear it · Audible’s clip, its length read from them on load

The recording these numbers came from

Runtime
11h 50m at 1×
Read by
Feodor Chin
Kind
One voice
ASIN
B0FMFV8DFW · Audible UK
Published
Penguin · 2025

Too few people have rated this reading for us to call it our pick (our published bar is 250), so these are its details rather than a recommendation, and Audible sorts a search by newest, so check before you buy. The runtime is the check: if the one in front of you says 11h 50m, that is the reading these numbers describe. We do not link out to a shop, and we take nothing if you buy there.