JS Princeton:
Wow, thats even easier to understand than any of the descriptions of relativity Ive read so far…nice. I am currently reading Hyperspace, by Machio Kaku, the reading is going really slow though b/c I have an ACK!!! job now, but so far I really like his physics. Light is a geometrical ‘ripple’ in a higher dimension, like gravity is a ‘bend’ in space-time. This seems to explain the ultimate speed limit of light. I will look into those 2 books when I can.
Anyway, ive given up on my space travel story for now, b/c I dont understand the phsics yet, but I still would like input on my ideas.
Right now im working on a story closer to something I understand much more, computer programming. It is a modern version of the ‘Pygmalion’ myth, except with AI. Im sure its been done before, but (hopefully) not in the way im doing it. Any writers out there PLEASE dont copy the idea…Watch for the story on critters.org, or www.theharrow.com…the working title is Pygmalion 2k. I need a better title definatly.
-BM
No one else worries about that. Good for you! Remember us critical-reader types expect consist physics, not necessarily real physicics. Feel free to invent a FTL drive, but make sure you explain how it then takes a few hours go from the earth to the moon, etc.
That hasn’t stopped scores of sci-fi writers before. Just do what they all do and invent some sort of sub-dimension or alternate state of existence where there is no FTL limitation. And be sure to give it a cool name, like “Otherspace” or “Ultraspace”.
This is important. People are quite happy with impossible things in their fiction, but they demand consistency. Each story should have a consistent world behind it: to some degree, the reader should be able to predict how things will occur in the story, based on what they’ve already seen or read. For stories in many genres, the assumptions behind them are already known, so you don’t have to explain them. This is part of what being in a genre meands. But for stories taking place in a new world, you may have to weave in some explanations.
Hey heres a concept: A SF story that stays really close to Science Fact…Prolly be too boring…thats why the fantasy and horror Genre is sooo much easier to write for…
Oh yah, I have to make a confession…I am only a Coder…a Programmer. I want to be a writer though. Ive only had 2 stories published so far
Um what does “Rigardu, kaj vi ekvidos.” mean??? is it Klingon? the Altavista Babelfish choaked on it…
-Blah
Well, it won’t be full of neat-o Star Wars-style space battles or the like, but you can get away with a lot of things if you stick with Science Fact… as long as what you do is interesting.
Or Space Opera, which is essentially Fantasy with laser guns.
Only?!? Don’t feel bad. I haven’t had ANYTHING published ('course, I haven’t finished anything yet…).
I’d recommend that you step into Cafe Society for story ideas. It’s a great place to kick around plots. Or if you get stumped, do what I do and hit General Questions.
Isaac Azimov claimed that all his SF was based on scientific fact. The one exception was when he wrote a script for a movie about a submarine that traveled in a man’s blood vessel. He claimed that he did that only to make it as true to fact as possible. What he got paid may have been influential as well.
Mr. Asimov also taught me that you can travel faster than light, but not at the speed of light. There may be a whole new universe on the other side that thinks about us as traveling faster than the speed of light. There can be no information passed from one side of the speed of light to the other side, therefore we will never know for sure.
The late Dr. Asimov would have been upset with you for misspelling his name. I got his autograph on the magazine version of “The Martian Way” in Galaxy where his name was wrong, and he was mad about it 20 years later!
And he did not write the script for Fantastic Voyage, only the novelization. He tried to justify it by saying the extra mass got somehow dumped into hyperspace (the FTL method for the Foundation series) but it was clearly a feeble explanation.
If I understand correctly, moving faster than the speed of light means you’d be moving back in time. So you’d be introducing something (like a spaceship) into another time which was already full of matter. Like if a dart board is completely full of darts and you throw another one into it, won’t it displace the other ones? So my question is, what will happen to the matter who’s space you are about to occupy? will it move out of the way? will that create some kind of ripple? or will it just collide and make some kind of huge nuclear bomb?
I know I’m out of my league here, and you guys are probably gonna think I’m an idiot, but I’ve wondered about this for some time now.
Isaac Azimov claimed that all his SF was based on scientific fact. The one exception was when he wrote a script for a movie about a submarine that traveled in a man’s blood vessel.
(Side Note: Someone please tell me how to do that cool formating done by Voyager and the other hardcore-dopers)
Ok…Lets see…One VERY BIG scientific inaccuracy that Asimov actually admitted: The Positronic Brain. In his mind the ‘thoughts’ of the robot came from Positrons forming and (sometimes) annihilating with Electrons. He admitted that the creation of a single Positron would take IMMENSE ammounts of energy and that the annihilation w/Electrons would release IMMENSE amounts of energy as well. (Side Note: He never admited however that EVEN if a ‘positronic’ brain was possible to create, that there would always be the chance of a malfunction causing a Electron/Positron annihilation cascade which would result in an EXTREEMLY large release of energy which could destroy whole cities. According to the 3 laws of robotics, this would cause any robot with a positronic brain to immediatly shut down to avoid the VERY small chance of killing a human)
He also admitted several other inaccuracies and work arounds in several of his essays but I cant remember them right now.
BTW Dr. Asimov wrote a sequel to Fantastic Voyage which (for the most part) was more scientifically accurate than the first.
Still hes better than A. C. Clark who changes almost everything between EACH book of any series he writes. Yes, I do mean the 2001, 2010, 2064, and 3001 books. (Side Note: 3001 is not worth reading. It is VERY disappointing. For one thing he destroys any deep, phillisophical meanings any of the other books had.)
