I sometimes think that we should spend at least a little time explaining everyday manifestations of physics to undergraduates, so that they can talk about phenomena that appear in everyday lives. How The Ray Gun Got Its Zap (2013), is subtitled Odd Excursions Into Optics, which (combined with the manifesto above) pretty much covers what … Continue reading Stephen R. Wilk: How The Ray Gun Got Its Zap
Tag Archives: Science Fiction
The Celestial View From A Relativistic Starship: Part 2
In my previous post, I described the visual appearance of the starry sky for an observer moving at a substantial fraction of the speed of light—for instance, aboard a working Bussard interstellar ramjet, like the one pictured above. I’ll recap the terminology I established in that post, which comes from Special Relativity. We call the … Continue reading The Celestial View From A Relativistic Starship: Part 2
The Celestial View From A Relativistic Starship: Part 1
This is another one of those topics (like Coriolis effect and human vacuum exposure) that many science fiction writers seem to know enough about to include it in their stories, but not quite enough to get right. So in this post (and an estimated three subsequent posts) I’m going to write about what the starry … Continue reading The Celestial View From A Relativistic Starship: Part 1
Coriolis Effect In A Rotating Space Habitat (Supplement)
I’ve received a few enquiries in response to my post “Coriolis Effect In A Rotating Space Habitat”, concerning something I didn’t address at the time—what happens to the trajectory of objects moving parallel to the axis of rotation. (Though I did mention this topic in passing in my post about the Coriolis effect in general.) … Continue reading Coriolis Effect In A Rotating Space Habitat (Supplement)
Kit Pedler & Gerry Davis: Three Novels
None of us set out to do anything more than be technically ingenious. We succeeded and London nearly died. Surely that’s more than enough to make us redirect our activities. The next time it may be the whole world. Mutant 59: The Plastic Eaters (1971) Kit Pedler and Gerry Davis were a writing duo active … Continue reading Kit Pedler & Gerry Davis: Three Novels
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Nosthedony
nɒstˈhiːdəneɪ nosthedony: The pleasure to be gained from examining old objects Many of the [museum’s] objects touched me with nosthedony—the pleasure of returning to the past. For in many of the items I saw reflected a time when human life was different, perhaps less secure, certainly less austere. Brian Aldiss “Appearance of Life” (1976) Like … Continue reading Nosthedony
Brian Aldiss: The “Helliconia” Trilogy
This I tell you all. Some disaster happened in the past, in the long past. So complete was it that no one can explain to you what it was or how it came about. We know only that it brought darkness and cold. You try to live the best you can. Good, good, live well, … Continue reading Brian Aldiss: The “Helliconia” Trilogy
Anti-agathic
ˌæntɪəˈɡæθɪk anti-agathic: serving to prevent death; a drug that has this function This is a science fiction word. It was coined during the 1950s by James Blish as a key concept for his Cities in Flight series of novels, to designate the drugs that his characters took to give them potential immortality, allowing them to … Continue reading Anti-agathic
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James Blish: Cities In Flight
From the embankment of the long-abandoned Erie-Lackawanna-Pennsylvania Railroad, Chris sat silently watching the city of Scranton, Pennsylvania, preparing to take off, and sucked meditatively upon the red and white clover around him. It was a first time for each of them. Chris had known since he had been a boy—he was sixteen now—that the cities … Continue reading James Blish: Cities In Flight
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Kim Stanley Robinson: New York 2140
We’ve got good tech, we’ve got a nice planet, but we’re fucking it up by way of stupid laws. I’ve written about Kim Stanley Robinson before, when I reviewed his Green Earth. I mentioned his environmentalist and anti-capitalist concerns, his lyrical descriptions of landscape, his long passages where nothing much happens except characters talking to … Continue reading Kim Stanley Robinson: New York 2140
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