Category Archives: Science

Join the Laser Pistol Gang

I plead guilty…to violating many laws of science in my writing. But I’m not alone. I’m in good company with many other science fiction writers. Call us the Laser Pistol Gang.

Authors of so-called ‘hard SF’ should adhere to known scientific principles and knowledge, but aren’t above bending or breaking the laws of physics for the sake of a good story.

Mary Shelley really stretched biological science in Frankenstein when her fictional scientist animated a human from dead tissue. Jules Verne knew human astronauts wouldn’t survive the acceleration of a manned projectile launched from a canon in From the Earth to the Moon. H.G. Wells disobeyed temporal causality in The Time Machine. When he wrote Fantastic Voyage, Isaac Asimov understood the impossibility of miniaturizing people. From his medical training, Michael Crichton must have realized not enough intact DNA fragments remain to create the living dinosaurs of Jurassic Park.

These represent a small sampling from SF literature. Don’t get me started on SF movies, which seem to break more laws of science than they obey.

On what charges could the science police arrest me? Consider my rap sheet:

  • “The Steam Elephant” (from Steampunk Tales, Issue #5 and The Gallery of Curiosities #3). The state of steam and mechanical technology in the 19th Century did not allow for a walking, steam-powered, quadrupedal vehicle.
  • “Within Victorian Mists.” Everything needed to invent lasers existed in the 1800s except the conceptual framework, so if it had happened, it would have required dumb luck.
  • “Bringing the Future to You” (from Cheer Up, Universe!). That story contains too many science violations to list, but I meant the tale to be funny.
  • “Leonardo’s Lion.” Some accounts state Leonardo da Vinci built a walking, clockwork lion. Even if true, it’s doubtful the creation would have supported a child’s weight or traveled over rough terrain, as it does in my story.
  • “The Six Hundred Dollar Man.” Yes, steam engines existed in the late 19th Century, but no one then could have made one small enough to fit on a man’s back and power the man’s replacement limbs.
  • “A Tale More True.” Try as you might, you can’t build a metal spring strong enough to launch yourself into space as my protagonist does.
  • “The Cometeers.” In this story, I violate the same laws Verne did in launching humans to space using a canon. In fact, I used his same canon.
  • “Time’s Deformèd Hand.” Nobody in 1600 AD built walking, talking automatons powered by springs. However, I did mention the wood came from magical trees.
  • “A Clouded Affair” (from Avast, Ye Airships!). You couldn’t build a steam-powered ornithopter in the 1800s, and you’d find it difficult even today.
  • “Ripper’s Ring” Human invisibility remains impossible today, let alone in 1888. Even if it were possible, it would render the subject blind.
  • “The Cats of Nerio-3” (from In a Cat’s Eye). Evolution allows organisms to adapt to new environments, but neither cats nor rats would likely evolve in such a rapid and drastic manner as my story suggests.
  • “Instability” (from Dark Luminous Wings). According to legend, a Benedictine monk constructed a set of wings and tested them sometime around 1000 AD. The wings work no better in my story than they would have in reality.
  • “The Unparalleled Attempt to Rescue One Hans Pfaall” (from Quoth the Raven). Just because Edgar Allan Poe wrote about a balloon trip to the moon didn’t mean I had to repeat his error.

With so much law-breaking going on, how can we hope for an orderly reading society? Must we be forever besieged by the criminal authors of the Laser Pistol Gang?

That answer, I’m happy to report, is yes. Authors write to entertain readers. That’s a writer’s ‘prime directive,’ to steal a phrase. If the writer must bend or break a rule of science to tell a good story, the writer is going to do it.

One key phrase there is ‘good story.’ The better the story, the easier it is for a reader to forgive a scientific flaw. Of course, if you can tell a good story while keeping the science accurate, by all means, do that.

If you aim to join the Laser Pistol Gang, be aware we have a tough initiation ritual. You have to write a story where a law of science gets broken. Not a very exclusive gang, I admit. But it’s a proud, longstanding group. Take it from one of its most notorious members, known by his gang name—

Poseidon’s Scribe

March 18, 2023Permalink

The SF Obsolescence Problem

No matter how much a science fiction writer keeps up with science, the writer’s stories will go obsolete.

As science advances, our understanding of the universe changes. A spherical earth replaced a flat one. A sun-centered solar system replaced an earth-centered one. Birds replaced reptiles as closer descendants of dinosaurs. Continental drift replaced an unchanging map.

SF stories based on outdated science seem backward, passe, naïve. Yet we still read them. Why?

When Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, she may have thought the technology to animate dead human tissue lay in the near future since Luigi Galvani had caused frog legs to twitch with jolts of electricity. Two centuries later, we still can’t animate dead humans. How silly it seems to have ever thought it possible at the dawn of the 19th Century. Yet we still enjoy Shelley’s novel today.

Jules Verne’s Around the World in Eighty Days astounded his reading audience at such a short duration for a globe-circling trip. Today, astronauts orbit the planet in just over eighty minutes. How quaint to think of an eighty-day circumnavigation as short. Yet we still enjoy Verne’s novel today.

H.G. Wells’ story The War of the Worlds gave us invaders from Mars. Today we can’t imagine fearing an attack from inhabitants of that planet. How pathetic to think people once swallowed that premise. Yet we still enjoy Wells’ novel today.

Why do we readers find these outdated, naïve, obsolete books—and others like them—still readable? Because science fiction isn’t only about science.

SF, like all fiction, is about one thing—the human condition.

True, readers of SF prefer stories in which authors adhere to the science at the time of writing. But as decades pass, readers know the progress of science may render a work of fiction obsolete. They forgive all of that for the sake of a good story.

They want to read about human characters struggling to achieve a goal, to win a prize, to survive. To live means to suffer, but also to strive against and despite that suffering. The struggle reveals the human qualities of bravery, ingenuity, perseverance, loyalty, love, and others. These timeless truths persist no matter how much science morphs our understanding of the cosmos.

As essayist James Wallace Harris stated in this post, “It’s the story, stupid.” Author Michael Sapenoff put it this way: “So while the language itself remains outdated, the ideas are not.”

You may shake your head, chuckle, or even sneer at the obsolete notions in SF stories, ideas since debunked or overturned by later discoveries. But remember, while looking down your nose, science fiction is more about the fiction than the science.

I encourage you to suspend your scientific skepticism and just enjoy the tale, follow the spinning of the yarn. Set aside the transitory and obsolete parts and appreciate the unchanging, permanent parts.

Maybe, in the end, the SF obsolescence problem isn’t a problem after all, for you or for—

Poseidon’s Scribe

February 19, 2023Permalink

Filby’s Question

To begin the world anew, you get three books. Which do you choose? That’s Filby’s question. Let’s explore it.

At the end of the movie The Time Machine (1960), David Filby discovers his friend George has departed in his time machine, again. Filby says to the housekeeper, “He’s gone back to the future, to begin a new world. But it’s not like George to go off without a plan. He must have taken something with him. Is anything missing?”

Credit to https://filmfreedonia.com

Mrs. Watchett replies, “Nothing…” and then sees a blank space on a bookshelf. “Except three books.” Filby asks, “Which three?” Mrs. Watchett replies, “I don’t know. Is it important?”

“Oh, I suppose not,” Filby answers. “Only…which three books would you have taken?”

There’s an interesting question. If you were headed to a place where people had no knowledge of civilization, where you had to start from scratch, what books would you take?

At this point, you may be thinking the premise of the question is so unlikely that it’s not worth thinking about. True, you won’t be travelling through time to restart civilization with only three books.

However, there are many similar—and more likely—scenarios in which you might need to make such a choice. Our civilization could collapse economically, militarily, through natural disaster, or some other way. You might be the one who saves the three most useful books needed to start up again.

Besides, it’s the thought process that’s important, not the specific problem. It’s good to know how to prioritize things when resources are highly constrained.

Therefore, to return to Filby’s question, here are some book topics to consider:

  • Technology. You could bring a book about how things are made, how things work.
  • Literature. You might bring the complete works of Shakespeare, or the works of Homer. One of those books would help your civilization understand what it is to be human.
  • Culture. Maybe you’d take sheet music of our greatest composers, or books with pictures of timeless art and sculpture, if only to preserve them.
  • Governance. You could bring a copy of the U.S. Constitution or a book about various forms of government.
  • Religion. The Bible, Torah, or Quran. When starting a civilization, the spiritual side is important.
  • Philosophy. You could pick a single philosopher or a general book on the subject. Philosophers consider the biggest questions of all.
  • Survival. Perhaps a camping handbook or some other manual about survival techniques, growing and preparing food, etc.
  • Science. Maybe you’d need an up-to-date science reference so your civilization can avoid rediscovering things.
  • History. If you bring a history book, maybe this new civilization can learn from our mistakes.

There are certainly some categories I’ve missed. Even if you restrict your choices to the categories above, the limit of three books is frustrating. No matter which three books you choose, you’ll wish you’d brought others.

As for me, I think I’d bring one book on technology, a second on survival, and the third on systems of governance. I sure wish my time machine had room for more books!

With all the time in the world, I’m—

Poseidon’s Scribe

November 8, 2020Permalink

Is Science Ruining SciFi?

Fantasy fiction writers have an advantage over science fiction writers—no scientist will come along and say the fantasy writer depicted her dragons incorrectly or that she botched a description of werewolves.

But scifi relies on facts about a field that’s frequently upending previous conclusions, so new scientific discoveries can invalidate your fiction at any time.

Still, do those discoveries render the affected novel unreadable? That is, just because your story, written before 2006, discusses the ‘planet’ Pluto, does the body’s new designation as a ‘dwarf planet’ make your novel passé, or so retro as to be unworthy of reading?

The pair writing under the name James S.A. Corey wrote an open letter to NASA about such an occurrence. Their novel Leviathan Wakes portrayed a human population on the asteroid Ceres as being so desperate for water that they obtained it from Saturn’s rings.

In 2015, a NASA mission to Ceres showed that it has plenty of water, easily enough for the millions of people living there in the novel.

Oops.

Does that mean nobody should read Leviathan Wakes or watch The Expanse?

In my opinion, it doesn’t mean that at all. As Corey points out in their letter, there’s a supportive feedback mechanism at work, a mutual admiration society. SciFi writers respect scientists, follow every discovery, and cheer them on. For their part, many scientists were inspired to pursue their passion by science fiction writers.

Many scifi short stories and novels will not endure; their fate will be to gather dust and remain unread. But, that’s not because scientific discoveries rendered them obsolete. It’s because those stories aren’t good fiction.

In other words, classic scifi becomes classic because of its high quality, not because it anticipates new advances in knowledge.

To take my favorite novel as an example, Jules Verne strove to keep Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea as accurate as the known science of 1870 would permit. Today, however, we know:

  • A riveted steel submarine could not safely dive as deeply as the Nautilus;
  • A sodium/mercury battery would not propel a submarine at fifty knots (without taking up its entire internal volume);
  • No spot in the ocean is 16,000 meters deep;
  • Sharks do not need to turn upside down just prior to attacking;

…among many other errors. Does that mean you can’t read and enjoy the novel today? Of course you can.

Editors should do their best to provide footnotes or forwards that state where subsequent discoveries have made parts of a fictional work implausible. However, even if they don’t, most readers don’t turn to fiction for the latest scientific facts. Readers understand that scifi authors use the best-known science of their time…and then sometimes stretch that for the sake of a great story.

Science doesn’t ruin scifi. If anything, they reciprocally support each other. In that conclusion, I think James S.A. Corey would agree with—

Poseidon’s Scribe

October 18, 2020Permalink

Everything We Know is Wrong

Sometimes a movie can capture a profound thought in a simple line of dialogue. With a single, succinct line, the film How to Train Your Dragon (2010) provided good insight into the advancement of science.

The movie showed the young hero, Hiccup, learning from his father, village authorities, and the “Book of Dragons” that these beasts were extremely dangerous and must be killed on sight.

When he observed actual dragon behavior close-up, however, he discovered they were not as he’d been told, nor as he’d read. Surprised at this, he said, “Everything we know about you guys is wrong.”

This is a great expression of the way science advances in the real world. At one point, authorities agreed the Earth was flat, the Sun revolved around the Earth, species were unchanging, continents did not move, dinosaurs were reptiles, etc.

In each case, one open-minded person examined actual evidence and discovered previously accepted facts to be in error. In each case, the astonished person might well have uttered a statement similar to Hiccup’s. “Everything we’ve known about this is wrong.”

After that, there ensues a long struggle by that brave, lone person against established authority, and eventual acceptance by scientists of the new understanding.

Since these dramatic moments of dogma-toppling discovery occur in real life, they’re well suited to fiction, as in the dragon-training movie. The common elements of the everything-we-know-is-wrong story include:

  • A widely-accepted model or theory of how things are, codified by respected authority and regarded as true beyond question.
  • A hero character, who, by intent or accident, discovers that reality does not correspond to the standard model or theory. The hero is usually puzzled and surprised at the moment of discovery.
  • The struggle by the hero to convince others of the truth of the discovery through practical demonstration and empirical evidence. The hero becomes frustrated that people would rather believe a book or authorities than their own senses.
  • The escalation of that struggle until the hero must confront the authorities who are invested in the status quo. This is a second moment of high drama as the hero demonstrates bravery in speaking truth to power.
  • Eventual wearing down of the established order until authorities at last accept the new model as true.

We like to think of Science and scientists as being open to new discoveries, as inviting the advancement of new theories, so long as they’re backed up by evidence. In reality, scientists can get entrenched and stolid, just like any other authorities.

Of course, not everyone’s model-busting theory is true. Sometimes a crackpot idea is just a crackpot idea, and there are plenty of those.

Still, what legitimate paradigm-destroying discoveries await us? What remaining falsehoods do we all accept as true? How open and accepting will you be when someone comes to you with proof that everything you know about something is wrong?

Here’s a more intriguing question: what if you’re the one who makes the next such discovery? Are you bold enough to advance your theory to a skeptical world? Are you brave enough to defy well-established authority?

Whether it’s you or someone else who comes up with the next world-shaking discovery that proved everything we know is wrong, I’ll bet when it occurs, you’ll think of Hiccup, and you may also think of—

Poseidon’s Scribe

November 3, 2019Permalink