Hard Science, Soft Brain

Me personally? I like to study what I consider to be real feats of scientific and engineering accomplishment.

For example, I'm a real history buff(like I live on the stuff, mostly post civil war US history), and I think one of my favorite real life events that I look at, is the Manhattan Project. That project serves as an inspiration to me, as well as a warning.

It's an inspiration in that it shows that if enough resources, and the best and brightest are turned onto something that truly monumental things can be achieved. The warning is that shifts in technology that great and monumental can have unforeseen consequences that will create waves for many years.

I look at that, and the other big one is the Apollo space program. As an engineer, I still weep when I see the landings, even though I wasn't around to see it happen. I don't weep out of sadness, but out of jealousy that I am unable to participate in a project of such scope and audacity. I look at that event as the pinnacle of engineering accomplishment, because it was such a huge goal and we engineers were given limitless resources to accomplish it. We went from not having been in space, to reaching the moon in a span of 10 years. It saddens me when I think of how little we've accomplished in the 40 years since then space wise.

We need things like that. Shit I'll probably even go out on a limb and say that if it wasn't for the space program, our country might have torn apart at the seams during the strife of the 1960s. The space program gave us something to look forward to, and to look towards. It made the impossible possible, and allowed for many of the technologies we take for granted to come into being. I still hold out the hope that NASA can return to it's former glory, back when we were willing to take risks and chances, and go balls out to accomplish the impossible. I look at the Apollo program in the same way as the manhattan project, as it served to inspire countless millions, but it also acts as a warning as to the dangers of apathy.

I think that someday a thousand years from now if we're still around, Cape Canaveral will be looked at as a nearly holy place. Even today people make "pilgrimages" from around the world, because it was in that location that mankind was able to accomplish something great, and because people understand that it will be remembered that it was from here where we began our final great journey of exploration. It's a place that like rome, egypt, and such that will always be remembered.

Nicole, it seems you have the same problem I do There's no way I could get any science degree at all. Yet, like you, it fascinates me. *G*My boyfriend is constantly hearing about bacteria, because I'm working on a novel that has to do with it -- to an extreme.

Research is still accessible to those of us who aren't scientists, astrophysicists, physicists and so on: the Internet is a wonderful place for that!

Or, if you prefer books like me, it's still possible to get hold of stuff that is understandable. For instance, quantum physics is described in a way the layman can comprehend it, in The Dancing Wu Li Masters. Or, if you're of a more biological mind, take a look at the extensive writings of Lynn Marguilis. She breaks the stuff down in a similar way, and it's very user-friendly.

I'd have to say my hero with regards to this is Greg Bear. Yes, he's a scientist, but even though the books he writes are hard sf by the old definition, they're comprehensible to someone like me. And if you look up the stuff in them, you'll find real things: Darwin's Radio dealt with Human EndoRetroVirus, and Vitals deals with bacteria, for instance.

Finally, if you're more into anthropology/sociology,. look at Margaret Mead and Sir Richard Francis Burton.

Honestly, you'll find that there's actually a huge amount of resources for people, and it's at all levels.

Good luck!

refdesk.com & resourceshelf.com have oodles of resources

The biggest thing, is if you're aiming for realism, run it by real life experts. I'm serious here. Have them read your story and speak on the plausibility of your plot. When ever I read a novel and it's trying to be realistic, yet they do something stupid like come up with a seemingly indestructible material, my bullshit detector goes off. However, when the intention isn't to be realistic, then it's less of an issue or not an issue at all.

Folks like me(I'd say I've got a bit of expertise in applied physics as a Mechanical Engineer), are often happy to apply our knowledge to things outside of our typical working experience. If I don't know something, then I'll probably know how to find someone who does. If you want to know about nuclear propulsion, aircraft, giant mining vehicles, acoustics, I know experts personally in those fields and many others.

Science fiction is one of those things though, that can be tricky because you can't really just research a subject like you can in others. I mean look at the works by Larry Niven. He did an EXCELLENT job at doing his homework in his ringworld novels, and Arthur C. Clarke has done a lot in that regard in his works. You have to understand what you're writing about, the harder the sci-fi the more in depth your knowledge needs to be.

Just remember, have someone who's truly knowledgeable in the particular science you're writing about check your idea. I've seen enough BS like the "The Day after Tomorrow", and "Armageddon", that a bit of factual double checking can really go a long way.

There's a reason I only write near-future sf.

I'm not arrogant enough to think my predictions 25 years out will be sound, much less 250 years.

You might want to check out this site - it's full of science press releases.
http://www.eurekalert.org/

I like to watch science shows on the Discovery Channel. OK, make fun of me if you want! But I do it for a couple of reasons. One, they try to stick to stuff that is pretty cool. Two, it's already presented in a way that most (i.e., my potential readers) can understand. I've almost taken notes a couple of times. One example: they have at least one show about black holes, Hawking vs. Kip Thorne, wormholes and the problems with faster-than-light travel. Good stuff, that.

www.sciencedaily.com is a great site.

I'm currently reading a bunch of particle physics books. Visit your local library.

I'm a sucker for those Nova specials on PBS. I think some of those are the amongst the most informative documentaries I've seen.

One of the problems I have with popularized science - especially when it comes to physics - is that the show/book/article will tell you the mind-bending conclusion reached by the scientist without telling you why he/she reached that conclusion. (IIRC, Zukav is guilty of of this in The Dancing Wu Li Masters But IIRC...it's been awhile.)

It's one thing to avoid the language of mathematics; it's another to neglect the reasoning behind it.

http://www.newscientist.com

I read this magazine a lot. When it starts getting deep into quantum or particle physics, I rarely understand at all, but I enjoy it nonetheless.

SmilingTed, I have to disagree with you about Zukav's writings. He does talk a fair amount about some of the reasoning behind physicists' and mathematicians' thoughts. For instance, he goes through why Einstein and Planck thought differently, discusses a bit of Young and Slater and so on. He also gives a lot of references in case someone wants to delve further into the concepts noted in his book.

Is it possible for those of us not of a mathematical mind not to understand completely an idea like quantum physics? Maybe. But we can at least get as close as possible.

You can sign up for NASA science news - I get regular emails on the latest discoveries/developments. And it's NASA's 50th anniversary this year, so there's lots of good stuff on its Web site, too.

Don't settle for TV shows, people. The content on the Discovery channel is so dummied-down and drawn out, it's sad. So-called science TV shows have a way of taking two pages of material and wasting an hour of your time with largely irrelevant graphics (and commercials!). Sure, there's a good show here & there, like "When We Left Earth". But even there, it's hard to come away with more than a glimpse of something important. Certainly, taking notes is admirable, but if you miss a few words, you can't go back and catch them. Books and magazines give better information, and you can absorb them at your own pace.

If you enjoy something or feel something is missing from your work, I'd hope you'd read voraciously on those topics. ScienceDaily.com was mentioned. NewScientist.com is okay, but can be a bit wonky. Discover magazine has a great variety of accessible science, gadgets & fun. Scientific American is still a good read. For astronomy, there astronomyNow.com, Astronomy magazine, Sky & telescope. For physics, it's more of a book-dominated market, with a few writers like Paul Davies and James Gleick cranking out good work (and Rudy Rucker and Roger Penrose delivering important but hard-to-read stuff). Anyone who wants to write sci-fi should read Douglas A. Hofstadter ("Godel, Escher, Bach"). For rational discussions of science topics, there's Skeptic magazine.

You can Google "science news", but there are a lot of sites that are just babble.

To write believable hard sci-fi, you don't need all the equations, only the basic rationale and correct use of the vocabulary (a.k.a. the implications of each phenomenon). I find that writers who rely on TV shows for science tend to produce very superficial and redundant work. If the science is incidental, maybe that's enough. Once someone mentions "hard" sci-fi, though, strive for more.

Cheers for the Greg Bear fan. Yes, you can also learn a lot by reading the masters of the genre. And why wouldn't you?

One other interesting source ... there are thousands of science lectures available now. You can Google "astronomy lecture mp3" (for example), and hunt and pick for topics that interest you. Download them, stick them on your mp3 player, whatever you like. All levels available, and some of the top names in each field. Generally more thorough and less distracting than anything on the Science Channel. I've been going through an archive of environmental law cases and polar voyages. No end to the fascinating stuff we can get for free! Happy hunting.

Yeah, I didn't like that about the dancing wu li masters. The book on particle physics I'm reading now does much better, by describing the advances in the apparatuses that allowed the scientists to discover new particles. It makes it much more intuitive.

scottVee said:

To write believable hard sci-fi, you don't need all the equations, only the basic rationale and correct use of the vocabulary (a.k.a. the implications of each phenomenon). I find that writers who rely on TV shows for science tend to produce very superficial and redundant work. If the science is incidental, maybe that's enough. Once someone mentions "hard" sci-fi, though, strive for more.

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Ahem. Since I was the one who suggested TV as INSPIRATION, I'll feel free to correct you. The Lady asked for ideas on where to get INSPIRATION - not "what do you rely on to understand science and portray it in a hard science format?" Of course you won't learn every detail of a scientific issue by watching a TV show. But once you're INSPIRED, then maybe - just maybe - the energy necessary to take the next steps will follow. What are the next steps? (1) research, (2) research, and (3) research - repeat as necessary.

Where do I go for INSPIRATION? A little scientific marvel called the cathode ray tube (I can't afford plasma or LCD yet).

I forgot to add one thing: I'm a PhD scientist who works in a lab for a living. TV rocks!!!!

SPMiller said:

There's a reason I only write near-future sf.

I'm not arrogant enough to think my predictions 25 years out will be sound, much less 250 years.

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Actually, because near future stuff has to be built off what we have now, distant future stuff can be easier cause you have more freedom in which direction your technology develops because of this big huge gray blob of amorphous space time called "The big gray blob of amorphous space time between the present and when your book is set" in which to put whatever research breakthroughs you want.

SPMiller said:

There's a reason I only write near-future sf.

I'm not arrogant enough to think my predictions 25 years out will be sound, much less 250 years.

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I answered this in another thread somewhere around here, but basically, as I see it, SF is NOT about predicting the future. Write yer damn stories, you can categorize and/or edit them later...

Sarpedon said:

Yeah, I didn't like that about the dancing wu li masters. The book on particle physics I'm reading now does much better, by describing the advances in the apparatuses that allowed the scientists to discover new particles. It makes it much more intuitive.

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What books are you reading?

I didn't read much of that, because the guy's a "spiritual" writer instead of a science writer and he had his agenda of connecting quantum mechanics with Eastern religions. Martin Gardner specifically debunked "The Dancing Wu Li Masters" in a chapter of his book (which I highly recommend) "Science: Good, Bad, Bogus."

Brian Greene also writes about quantum physics, mainly as an introduction to string theory, which makes quantum physics look real ordinary...

I've read several other books that describe quantum physics (in addition to Greene). Two are "In Search of Schrodinger's Cat" and "The Emperor's New Mind." In the last, Penrose has his own agenda that I don't quite agree with (that the workings of the mind are uniquely dependent on quantum phenomena, thus the mind cannot in theory be simulated by a computer), but most of the book is an excellent description of the physics up to that point.

Dommo said:

I'm a sucker for those Nova specials on PBS. I think some of those are the amongst the most informative documentaries I've seen.

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I agree, I've not watched it consistently, but I first saw it in the early/mid 70's, and it's been the best stuff on TV. But still, I'm really grateful for books, and now the Web as well...

Smiling Ted said:

One of the problems I have with popularized science - especially when it comes to physics - is that the show/book/article will tell you the mind-bending conclusion reached by the scientist without telling you why he/she reached that conclusion. (IIRC, Zukav is guilty of of this in The Dancing Wu Li Masters But IIRC...it's been awhile.)
It's one thing to avoid the language of mathematics; it's another to neglect the reasoning behind it.

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I suppose it depends on the book, or more accurately, the author. Again, I see Zukav as more of a new-age writer, rather like Deepak Chopra and John Bradshaw (the "Recovery guru," not the football player), than a science writer.

Well...you can always glaze over the science with the old:

"How does it work?"

"<snort> I don't know, I didn't build the <bleep>ing thing."

At the very least, subscribe to New Scientist.

It's the soft, "close enough" approach to science that finally drove me away from reading science fiction. Writers who are interested in the science articles they read in the newspaper, but who don't pursue science farther than that. I've thrown a lot of novels across rooms.