Would You Trust a Robot to Care for Grandma?

Many of those who reach old age don’t enjoy the condition much. Those who tend to them, their caregivers, often wish they could do something else with their time.

A few years ago, I and (mostly) my wife, served as caregivers for my mother-in-law. As a scifi writer, I wondered if technology might help ease the burden for other caregivers someday.

I wrote a short story, “Its Tender Metal Hand,” about a caregiver robot of the near future. That story appears in the new anthology by Cloaked Press, Spring into Scifi, now available.

The Need

With human lifespans lengthening and the large Baby Boom generation reaching old age, the need for caregivers grows daily. Worsening the problem, the current labor shortage reduces the supply of potential workers in the field. The recent deaths of actor Gene Hackman and his caregiver wife, Betsy Arakawa, showcased the importance of the caregiver role.

The Tasks

A caregiver becomes a jack-of-all-trades, though few tasks rate high in difficulty—for humans. A good caregiver should:

  • Remind about, and provide, medication;
  • Navigate the patient around the home and yard;
  • Provide companionship via conversation;
  • Play games;
  • Perform necessary housework;
  • Clean and bathe the patient;
  • Monitor symptoms; and
  • Administer first aid if necessary.

The ideal, more advanced, caregiver might also:

  • Lift, reposition, and physically move the patient;
  • Perform medical tasks such as taking vital readings, and drawing blood;
  • Conduct physical therapy; and
  • Conduct psychological therapy.

The Current State

No single robot exists today that performs all those tasks. Some robots perform one or a few of the functions, but a true, general purpose caregiver robot awaits future development.

Today’s caregiver robots include: Aibo by Sony, ASIMO by Honda, Baxter by Rethink Robotics, Care-O-Bot 4 by Fraunhofer IPA and Mojin Robotics, Dinsow Mini 2 by CT Robotics, ElliQ by Intuition Robotics, Grace by Hanson Robotics, Human Support Robot (HSR) by Toyota, Mabu by Catalia Health, Mirokaï by Enchanted Tools, Moxi by Diligent Robotics, Nadine by NTU Singapore, NAO by Aldebaran Robotics, Paro by Japan’s National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, Pepper by Aldebaran Robotics, Pria by Pillo Health and Stanley Black & Decker, Ruyi by NaviGait, and Stevie by Akara Robotics.

The Difficulties

Robots have advanced in capability, but still struggle with tasks humans find easy, and excel at some things people find problematic.

Two examples of the latter category occur to me. As mentioned in my previous blogpost, a robot will listen with patience to repeated re-tellings of the same story, and a sturdy robot could lift a heavy patient without spinal strain.

Also, certain tasks, even if robotically possible, present serious consequences if done wrong. For safety reasons, substantial testing must occur before permitting robots to perform medical tasks or to lift patients.

Perhaps the most elusive task for a caregiver robot, the last one to be achieved, will be to exhibit a truly human connection, a deep, sympathetic friendship bond.

Fictional Treatment

Movies have explored the concept of caregiver robots in various ways. Bicentennial Man and I, Robot touch on the idea. Big Hero 6 and Robot and Frank delve deeper, with caregiver robots integral to their plots.

I’m unfamiliar with two other caregiver robot movies: Android Kunjappan Version 5.25 or its remake, Koogle Kuttappa.

My story, “Its Tender Metal Hand,” features a general-purpose caregiver robot capable of most of the tasks mentioned above. However, it lacks an emotional bond, an understanding of the human condition.

But maybe it can learn.

Perhaps an advanced, capable caregiver robot lies in the future for—

Poseidon’s Scribe

March 24, 2025Permalink Leave a comment

Time to Spring into Scifi

Welcome to Spring! Starting today, you can Spring into Scifi by purchasing the new anthology by Cloaked Press, available here. The book contains one of my short stories.

My Story

My tale, “Its Tender Metal Hand,” concerns an aged man, Maleko Koamalu, whose remaining family can’t care for him.

They pay for a caregiver robot.

Maleko hates the robot, but the robot persists in taking care of his needs. Robots can do many things, but can they help an old man reconcile with his child before it’s too late?

If the story’s touching ending prompts a tear or two, well, sorry not sorry.

Inspiration

I wrote it after my wife and I served as caregivers for my mother-in-law. It occurred to me that a well-designed robot could perform all the required tasks. In a couple of ways, a robot might prove superior to a human caregiver. Robots often excel at the things humans struggle with, and vice versa.

Elderly people sometimes repeat themselves, forgetting that they’ve just said the same thing. This can annoy human caregivers, but a robot will listen patiently, over and over, responding each time as if hearing it afresh.

Also, human caregivers often find it difficult to lift and convey heavy patients between bed and wheelchair, or wheelchair and toilet. A well-built robot could do this with ease.

The Anthology

The book contains thirteen other short stories I look forward to reading. Edited by Andrew Ferrell and published by Cloaked Press, this new science fiction anthology, Spring into Scifi, is available here and here so far, with more distributors picking it up soon. As I may have mentioned, it includes a story written by—

Poseidon’s Scribe

March 21, 2025Permalink Leave a comment

How to Harmonize with Your Editor

When you submit a story, poem, or article to an anthology or magazine, you could be starting a great relationship with an editor. Don’t ruin it by doing something dumb.

A few years ago, I never thought I’d edit an anthology. Now I’ve edited three. I learned a few things while wielding the blue pencil, and I’ll share those lessons with you.

Obey the Submission Guidelines

Guidelines vary from editor to editor, so you’ll have to change the same submission to comport with different formats. Sorry. Fact of life. Since you’re the one trying to pique the editor’s interest (not the other way around), follow the guidelines. Otherwise, you’re telling the editor you don’t follow instructions well. Not a promising start.

Keep Your Cover Letter Brief

In fact, if the editor doesn’t ask for a cover letter, don’t submit one. No editor wants to read your life story, so if a cover letter is required, keep it short. Proofread it before sending. If the cover letter contains typos, why should the editor bother reading your submission?

Be Friendly and Professional

In all correspondence with an editor, strive to be the writer she likes to work with most. Nothing good comes from angry responses sent in a moment of rage. Shed the suffering-creative-artist-who’s-a-cauldron-of-bubbling-emotions costume, and don your let’s-work-this-deal business suit.

Respect the Editor’s Time

Provide prompt replies to your editor’s emails (consistent with being friendly and professional). Don’t be the last writer he’s waiting on. Once, as editor, I suggested some changes to a writer’s manuscript. The writer concurred and said I could go ahead and make the changes. No. That’s not how it works. If you’re the one getting paid, you’re the one doing the work.

Be Willing to Change

One time, a writer submitted a wonderful story, but it contained factual, numerical errors. As editor, I suggested the writer change the numbers to correspond to reality, alterations that would not have affected the story. The author refused, stating the story had already appeared in a prestigious magazine and they’d fact-checked it. If an editor points out a 2+2=5 mistake, or a sun-setting-in-the-morning error in your story, it doesn’t matter where else the story’s been published. Consider all your editor’s suggestions.

Defend Your Arguments with Rationale

Think of you and your editor as a team striving to publish the best possible version of your story, poem, or article. Sometimes, an editor will suggest a change you disagree with. It happens. If you can concur with the change, do so. If not, don’t just refuse to change. Spell out the reason you’d like to leave it unchanged. Most editors will respect solid, logical rationale, and may even agree with you.

Assist with Marketing

After publication, if you’re able, do your part to promote the anthology or magazine in which your piece appears. Post about it on social media, and blog about it on your website. That editor will look kindly on your next submission.

Will your next relationship with an editor work out? Or will you botch things along the way? It could go well, if you follow the advice of—

Poseidon’s Scribe

March 16, 2025Permalink Leave a comment

How Can You Know What Book to Read Next?

You’ve finished reading a book, and it’s time to start another. Which one do you pick? What process do you use to decide?

Image from Pixabay.com

In a way, you’re about to meet someone new, to form a new relationship. As a reader, you’ll be engaging with the thoughts of a writer. At the beginning, you don’t know where that relationship will go. With most books, the connection will make a fleeting impression, then recede into fading memory. For a golden few, though, the relationship will endure a lifetime, refreshed by periodic re-readings.

Carl Sagan’s Calculation

One thing’s for sure—you can’t read ’em all. As Dr. Carl Sagan pointed out in his TV show, Cosmos, you’re only able to read about 3500 books during your lifetime (one book a week for 70 years). That’s the number of books published in eight hours, so no matter how fast you read, you’ll only make it through a tiny sliver of all literature.

Four Quadrants

Not to make this too scientific, but let’s explore one way to categorize this. You could choose a book for fun and enjoyment, just the pleasure of it. Or you could select a book to learn new knowledge, for your betterment.

Next, who’s making the choice? Are you opting for the book yourself, or picking one chosen by others or by pure chance?

Since these quadrants overlap, let’s depict them with a Venn diagram.

Fun/Self

In the diagram’s upper left circle, we can include books: (1) by a favorite author, (2) in a favorite genre, (3) written in, or about, a favorite time period, (4) appearing next in your To Be Read (TBR) list, (5) that inspired your favorite movies, or (6) that suit your mood.

Betterment/Self

The upper right circle includes reading classics, and reading books in non-favorite genres to broaden your scope.

Fun/Others or Chance

Moving to the lower left circle, you can choose a book at random from a favorite genre or author, let chance decide which book in your TBR list to read next, or read one a friend enjoyed.

Betterment/Others or Chance

In the final circle at the lower right, you can read a book assigned by a reading challenge or book club, or a book found while browsing in a library or bookstore, or a book recommended by trusted readers—perhaps friends or family.

Thomas Jefferson’s Method

Here’s another idea, one that doesn’t fit into my quadrant schema. You could read several books concurrently, flipping from one to the other in accordance with your mood and interest. President Thomas Jefferson did this, and built a revolving five-book stand to facilitate the process.

So, Choose Already

Faced with more books than you can read, and with such a variety of ways to choose between them, some facts seem clear to me. What book you read is unimportant. How you select it is up to you. That you read books—ah, there’s the vital part.

In the meantime, I’d love to know how you choose what to read next. Feel free to reveal your decision process as a comment for—

Poseidon’s Scribe

March 9, 2025Permalink Leave a comment

Soon You’ll Hear Extraordinary Visions

Have you heard about the upcoming audiobook version of Extraordinary Visions: Stories Inspired by Jules Verne? In about a month, you’ll be able to listen to the first anthology ever sponsored by the North American Jules Verne Society.

The Book

Like the (still available) print and ebook versions, the audiobook will feature stories by modern authors taking up where Verne left off. Some stories provide an aftermath to a Verne novel. Some tell concurrent adventures involving Verne’s beloved characters. Some combine aspects of several novels.

The audiobook will include stories by Mike Adamson, Joel Allegretti, Gustavo Bondoni, Demetri Capetanopoulos, Brenda Carre, Eric Choi, Christopher M. Geeson, Kelly A. Harmon, David A. Natale, Alison L. Randall, Janice Rider, Michael Schulkins, and Joseph S. Walker.

The stories derive not only from Verne’s better-known novels, but also from the obscure ones many are unfamiliar with. These stories may prompt you to sample Verne’s lesser-known writings.

The Narrator

Tad Davis narrates the audiobook. You’ll enjoy his gentle voice and his skill in expressing a wide variety of accents and nationalities in a subtle way.  He has a master’s degree in theater and has been narrating audiobooks for years. His interest in Jules Verne drove him to narrate an updated translation of Journey to the Center of the Earth (BearManor Media, 2023). Extraordinary Visions is his ninth narration of a Verne-related book.

The Launch

As with the print versions, BearManor Media will publish the audiobook. We expect Extraordinary Visions: Stories Inspired by Jules Verne to be available in the new format around the first of April (no fooling!). You can watch for announcements on the BearManor site, or read upcoming website posts right here, by—

Poseidon’s Scribe

March 2, 2025Permalink Leave a comment

Writers and Authors – It’s in the Walk

You hear the terms “writer” and “author,” but do you know the difference? Is there a difference?

Definitions

Writers are people who write. They write fiction, nonfiction, books, vignettes, emails, texts, letters, grocery lists—doesn’t matter. They may write for others, for themselves or for nobody—doesn’t matter.

Authors are people who’ve had writing published. Big press, small press, self-published—doesn’t matter. Their work gets read by others and is intended that way.

Relationship

You may infer from those definitions that all authors are writers, but not vice versa. For the most part, that’s correct.

As shown in the Venn diagram, you may be an author without being a writer. That’s the case if you hire a ghost writer. As the author, your name appears on the book cover, but you didn’t write it.

No Certificate

No sanctioning body bestows the titles of writer or author. No authority bestows diplomas, sew-on patches, or military-style chest ribbons. You’re a writer if you say you are. You’re an author if you can point to a published work bearing your name.

Attitude

Definitions and certifications aside, a notable factor separates authors from writers, and I don’t see this discussed much. Attitude. Here, I’m contrasting authors with those writers who aspire to become published authors.

Not all writers seek publication, and that’s fine. Better for them, in some ways. No publisher will reject their manuscript. No critic will pan their book.

Many writers do pursue publication, though, and until they achieve it, you can tell a writer from an author by attitude alone.

Images from Pixabay.com

Writer Attitude

For writers, the path to publication seems daunting. They tread with care and hesitation through new territory, toward that glorious land of publication located beyond their zone of comfort. Though hopeful as they pursue a dream they glimpsed, they’re also fearful and they walk with tentative steps through a realm of mystery.

Author Attitude

Authors, even those with a single published short story, stride with a confident swagger, their chin up and their eyes glinting with determination. They’ve been down the trail before and know every rock and root, each bush and branch. They walk with a calm assurance borne of past experience.

Evidence

How do I know? When I go to scifi conferences, I see writers who dream of publication and I see authors who’ve achieved it. I witness a marked difference in gait, in bearing. Writers gaze at authors with awe, and authors carry themselves with poise and graceful ease, as if they own the world.

I saw this in my own journey. However, my authorial stride retains some writerly unease, and hasn’t reached full-fledged complacency yet. But there’s something about the assurance I felt from past accomplishment, knowing I could do it again.

You, Too

Take heart, writer. You’ll get there. One day you’ll walk (in the words of Shakespeare) “bestride the narrow world like a Colossus.” You’ll strut around like—

Poseidon’s Scribe

February 23, 2025Permalink Leave a comment

161 Years After the First Successful Submarine Attack

On this anniversary, let’s observe a moment of silent reading while we visualize the events of the day some brave submariners made history.

Aboard the Submarine

You’re sitting on a bench, crammed in beside six other sweaty men. Your hands grip a crankshaft, and you turn it under the command of a lieutenant sitting at the bow, to your left. You face the boat’s starboard side three feet away, a blank, curved bulkhead of iron, now moist with condensation. Stale air fills your lungs with each breath. The odors of sweat, urine, oil, and pipe tobacco assault your nostrils.

“We’ve got ’er now,” the lieutenant says. “Dead ahead. For the South, men! Full speed!”

Though exhausted and out of breath, you rotate the crankshaft with all your strength. You’re determined to strike a blow for your side’s cause, and you’re confident of success.

You feel a powerful impact and hear a loud explosion.

By Conrad Wise Chapman – American Civil War Museum – Chapman Paintings Portfolio American Civil War Museum – Online Collections Database, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=146384170

CSS Hunley

By late 1863, the Confederacy searched for any advantage that might reverse the currents of the Civil War in its favor. The Union blockade of Charleston hindered vital supply lines, and seemed impenetrable. If the Grey could not defeat the Blue on the surface, what about underwater?

People had tried submarines in battle before, but never with success. Inventor Horace Hunley believed his boat stood a good chance to break the blockade. Forty feet long and four feet in diameter, CSS Hunley introduced the cigar shape common to all later military submarines. Armed with a keg of explosives mounted on a spar projecting from her bow, the craft aimed to ram its prey, blast a hole in its hull, and sink it.

Poor Performance Record

An innovative boat requires a well-trained crew, and they made frequent practice runs. Just as the men began to gain proficiency, tragedy struck. On August 29, 1863, a mishap occurred, killing five crewmembers, who sank with the craft.

Still, the Confederacy needed a victory, so they recovered the Hunley and obtained a fresh crew. This time, Horace Hunley himself, the craft’s inventor, manned the boat. They completed many test runs until, on October 15, the submarine flooded again, killing all eight men aboard.

After a boat kills two crews, most of us would abandon further tries. The desperation of the South, though, had reached a point beyond rational calculation of odds. They raised the boat once more, removed its dead, and somehow obtained a third crew.

Attack and Aftermath

On the night of February 17, 1864, that crew rammed the Hunley into the side of USS Housatonic. The spar-mounted keg exploded, crippling the Union ship and sinking her with the loss of five sailors. The boat’s crew had performed the first successful submarine attack in history.

People waited on shore for the Hunley, but the little submarine never returned. Some thought the craft got sucked into the hole it created, but that proved untrue. Searchers found the Hunley in 1995, and salvagers raised her in 2000. Today, she rests on display at a museum in Charleston.

Rebel Spirit

Yes, the Confederacy fought to preserve the vile institution of slavery and lost the war. Even so, we can still admire the bravery of those men in the Hunley. They volunteered to serve aboard an experimental craft that had already killed two crews. They endured horrendous conditions in a cramped iron tube, hoping to free their countrymen from a blockade when no other recourse seemed possible.

Having served on a submarine, I feel a kinship with the Hunley crews. I’ve written a ghost story called Rebel Spirit about one of the crewman. You can purchase it in ebook or paperback format.

Thank you for sharing, on this anniversary, a somber moment of remembrance for the CSS Hunley crew along with—

Poseidon’s Scribe

February 17, 2025Permalink Leave a comment

On The Evolution of Alien Species

Aliens have come a long way. Not real aliens—I don’t even know if they exist. I’m referring to aliens in literature. Inspired by fine articles authored by Ian Simpson and Joelle Renstrom, I’ll describe how aliens evolved with science fiction.

Image from Pixabay.com

The Law of Alien Fiction

First, though, I’ll emphasize a non-intuitive law of alien literature: Alien stories aren’t about aliens. They’re about humans. Even stories populated only by non-human characters are about humans. A simple reason explains this—people write stories for other people. If we encounter aliens someday, we’ll write stories about them, and perhaps they’ll return the favor…if they write stories. Until then, it’s all about us.

Origins – Humanoids to Visit and Study

In primeval scifi, aliens resembled us. They served as stand-ins for primitive human societies encountered during exploratory voyages. They existed to be noticed and remarked upon, or to serve as metaphors serving the author’s purposes.

Examples include the sun and moon people of Lucian’s True History, the tall lunar Christians of Francis Godwin’s The Man in the Moone, and the titanic aliens of Voltaire’s Micromégas.

Post-Darwin Evolutionary Branching

Charles Darwin’s Theory of Evolution showed how animal species evolve from earlier forms and sometimes split into two or more species. This freed writers from the humanoid anatomy, so aliens branched out in all directions, exploding into the universe of fiction. They filled all niches. Their attitudes toward humans ranged from bad, through neutral, to good.

We saw warlike, conquest-driven aliens shaped like giant heads in H.G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds. A variety of species populated Mars in Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Barsoom series. God-like aliens appeared in Olaf Stapleton’s Star Maker. C.S. Lewis gave readers otter-like bipeds and insect-frogs in Out of the Silent Planet. E.E. “Doc” Smith’s The Skylark of Space featured non-material aliens. Arthur C. Clarke showed us Satan-like aliens whose purpose was to prepare humanity for its designated future role, in Childhood’s End. In Starship Troopers, Robert A. Heinlein scared us with huge bug-aliens. By contrast, peaceful and philosophical aliens occupied Mars until humans colonized the planet and displaced them in Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles.

3-D Aliens

Readers loved these aliens, but began asking questions. They wanted more depth. Authors began fleshing out the aliens, thinking through the implications. They gave the aliens backstory, culture, language, politics, art, philosophy, mores, and logical motivations.

In Dune and its sequels, author Frank Herbert supplied a life cycle for the giant sandworms, and integrated them into the values and mythos of the planet.

Larry Niven became the exemplar for fully-imagined aliens, from the puppeteers and Kzinti of Ringworld, to the Moties of The Mote in God’s Eye, to the elephantine Fithp of Footfall (the latter two co-written with Jerry Pournelle). These aliens possessed history, characteristic gestures, distinctive modes of thought, their own behavior patterns—the whole package.

Explanations for Non-Contact

As decades passed and the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) failed to detect evidence of aliens, and as the difficulty of interstellar travel became more apparent, writers found it less credible to craft stories teeming with star-voyaging alien life.

Authors had to confront the Fermi Paradox problem of why humans haven’t heard from aliens, and what forms that communication might take. Carl Sagan’s Contact, Robert J. Sawyer’s Rollback, and Ted Chiang’s “Story of Your Life” examined these themes in different ways.

Your Alien Story

Like time, evolution marches on. I don’t know what’s next for aliens. Perhaps, in an upcoming story of yours, you’ll tell—

Poseidon’s Scribe

February 9, 2025Permalink Leave a comment

We Want These 14 Improbable Technologies Now

Science fiction literature has provided many fun and interesting technologies that lie beyond our current abilities. Let’s look at a few.

Waterfall, by M.C. Escher

I’m calling these technologies improbable rather than impossible. One person’s impossible often becomes a later person’s accomplishment. The technologies on my list aren’t available now, and some violate known laws of physics, but scientists are researching all of them, and breakthroughs can occur.

Faster than Light (FTL) Travel

This one violates the General Theory of Relativity. That speed limit of c stretches interstellar travel into century or millennium timeframes. If you could exceed light-speed, no policeman could pull you over.

FTL Communication

If relativity forbids pushing matter faster than light, what about information? Sadly, so-called super-luminal communication also violates relativity and nobody has demonstrated it yet. Call me, you Andromedans, just not collect.

Wormhole Transit

The notion of sending matter (including people) through a wormhole connecting distant regions of space sounds appealing. It doesn’t violate relativity or even require FTL. However, nobody has found a wormhole and we don’t know if they exist, or can be created. We should come up with a better name, though.

Teleportation

The movement of macroscopic objects (including people) from one point to another without passing through the space between, as with the Star Trek transporter, might happen one day. The process doesn’t violate physics laws, but would require computational complexity beyond our current means. You’ve got to rearrange all 7 x 1027 atoms in their proper position. So far, scientists can “teleport” information about a single atom across a distance of 3 meters, but that’s all. “Beam me up, Scotty.” “Sorry, I canna do that, Captain.”

Time Travel

From the little I understand, time travel comports with physics laws. However, traveling to the past introduces causality problems, like the Grandfather Paradox. Traveling to the future avoids that difficulty, but remains beyond our technological reach. Except, I believe, for DeLoreans with the advanced options package.

Artificial Gravity and Anti-gravity

Though these are different things, I’ve lumped them together due to their mutual attraction. Artificial gravity, broadly defined, presents no difficulty. Use the centripetal force of a rotating spaceship, or the ship’s linear acceleration, to create it. However, creating gravity itself or eliminating it lies beyond our capability today. Heavy, huh?

Force Fields and Tractor Beams

If we can’t go faster than light, can we at least equip our spaceships with force fields or deflector shields to keep meteors away, and maybe tractor beams to grab things? Perhaps. Scientists are researching these gadgets, but each might consume more energy than they’re worth. Seems like physicists are spoiling all our fun.

Tactile Holograms

Scientists keep telling us no, but they’ll let us have holodecks, like in Star Trek the Next Generation, or hologram doctors, like in Star Trek Voyager, right? Sorry, you can’t touch light. Electromagnetic radiation, as we understand it, doesn’t work that way. Physicists ruin everything.

Lightsaber

Those laser weapons in the Star Wars movies look dangerous but handy. However, they violate what we know about optics and electromagnetic radiation. We can give you a laser, but the beam won’t end in mid-air, and will cross right through your opponent’s laser beam. Also, a laser strong enough to hurt people won’t fit in your hand. Sorry, apprentice Jedi, I’ve got nothing for you.

Invisibility

We’d all love this technology. Think of the practical jokes and the deniability. Optics researchers are working on invisibility using metamaterials, but haven’t seen any practical results. (I should reword that.) Invisibility suffers from an unfortunate downside—blindness. Light passes unseen through a transparent eyeball. A normal, opaque eyeball can see, but also be seen. Don’t look for invisibility any time soon.

Neuralyzer

Maybe I wouldn’t need a lightsaber if I had a neuralyzer, as in the Men in Black movies. Using that gadget, I could make my enemy forget why he wanted to fight. This time, physicists give their consent. However, biologists point out they’ve only demonstrated the technology on mice, and only by implanting fiber optic cables into the mice brains. They’d test it on humans, but nobody has yet volunteered to have their mind wiped.

Suspended Animation

That light speed limit bums me out. If interstellar travel takes centuries, then let me sleep through it, Rip Van Winkle style, and wake me when we get there. Oh, no. Here come those nay-saying biologists They acknowledge suspended animation happens all the time with microorganisms and plant seeds. It’s happened with humans for an hour or two, no more. At light speed, that only takes us one or two billion kilometers. They’d be waking me up before we got to Uranus.

Mind Uploading

The nature of our bodies renders some of these technologies improbable. We could get around that and become immortal if we simply upload our minds into computers. Maybe someday, not today. Here, computational complexity limits us. Work faster, you computer engineers! Why, I have half a mind to…

Cloning Long-Extinct Species

Not known for long-term planning, dinosaurs neglected to leave behind enough intact DNA for us to clone them. Maybe it’s just as well. If we did clone dinosaurs now, in our time, what would they eat?

Conclusion

I’ve teased about scientists spoiling our fun, but they can’t. We can still enjoy reading scifi books about these improbable technologies. They make for fascinating stories. Many scientists love scifi even while they wince at some of the gadgets. Some of these improbable devices even appear in the stories of—

Poseidon’s Scribe

February 2, 2025Permalink Leave a comment

How To Help Readers Understand Complex Topics

You science fiction writers and technical writers face a difficult problem. How do you convey complicated information to an average reader in an understandable way? The late Dr. Richard Feynman may have your answer.

Who Was Richard Feynman?

Dr. Richard Feynman

Feynman (1918-1988) studied quantum mechanics, helped develop the atomic bomb, foresaw nanotechnology, investigated the Space Shuttle Challenger accident, and won a Nobel Prize in Physics. For purposes of this blogpost, Dr. Feynman developed his own technique for learning and understanding things.

The Feynman Technique

Wikipedia mentions the technique here. In brief, here’s how to do it:

  1. Research your topic
  2. Teach it to a child
  3. Fill in knowledge gaps
  4. Review, organize, simplify, and go back to step 2.

First, find out as much as you can about the subject. The second step requires you to teach it to a child who’s about eight years old. You can simulate that step if you wish, but it forces you to use simple words and think of relatable analogies. While doing this, you’ll notice holes in your knowledge (often by confusing the eight-year-old), so the next step involves seeking source materials to fill those gaps. Then you can review your notes, put them in order, simplify them further and try again to teach the topic to a child.

Thoughts on the Technique

My father portraying Richard Feynman

My father used to participate in historical portrayals, in which he acted the part of a historical figure. One time, he chose Richard Feynman, not so much for the scientist’s learning technique, but for his space shuttle commission work. Still, in preparing for his presentations, my dad made use of the technique to get to the essence of Feynman himself.

I wish someone had shown me the technique when I was going through school. Even if I’d imagined I’d have to teach the topic to others, I would’ve paid more attention.

How well do we know what we know? Could we teach an eight-year-old a complex subject? While in the submarine service, I had to study all the systems on the boat. Qualified watchstanders asked me detailed questions about each system, probing until they reached something I didn’t know. Then they’d send me away to look up the answer to the missed questions. That process shares similarities with the Feynman Technique.

Later, in my engineering career, I came upon other engineers who used big words, but I suspected they only knew how to pronounce them, not the details of their meaning. Some people try to impress with high-sounding language, but often those who use simpler vocabulary understand subjects best.

How Can Writers Use the Technique?

Author Isaac Asimov explained complex topics in plain terms. Few writers demonstrate that skill. More than other fiction genres, science fiction delves into complicated technical subjects. Writers strive to entertain, not educate, so must work their explanations into the prose in a manner that neither confuses readers nor slows down the action.

Following the Feynman Technique can help with that. If you follow that method, you’ll know the material well, and possess the simple words and analogies to allow you to convey it to readers without info dumps or head-scratching jargon.

If you need to understand a new topic, or describe it to readers, try the Feynman Technique. It’s a new favorite of—

Poseidon’s Scribe

January 26, 2025Permalink Leave a comment