# Obsolete Science Fiction **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 6, 2002, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obsolete-science-fiction/102187 "2002-04-06T17:32:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2002, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obsolete-science-fiction/102187/41 "2002-04-07T23:18:41Z")
ah. That’s one of the few Tarzans I never read. Pardon my ignorance. ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2002, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obsolete-science-fiction/102187/42 "2002-04-07T23:22:28Z")
…didn’t John Carter of Mars get there by just sorta wishing on it? Was that telepathy? Also, the Martians had an extremely advanced technology…but fought with swords! What was that all about? Jules Verne wrote probably the most accurate science fiction (in terms of it coming true); however, his mistakes about the moon were rather damning-even the astronomers of his day knew the moon had no atmosphere. 😕 ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2002, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obsolete-science-fiction/102187/43 "2002-04-07T23:35:23Z")
> [@](#): > > _Originally posted by G. Odoreida \* > \*\* > For the science-fiction-as-a-product-of-its-time hijack, I find BNW to be embarassingly so. There’s such a men and girls atmosphere to it, with the alpha male scientists going out with the gamma (or whatever it was) female technicians._\* I think they were Betas. IIRC, every female character of note in the novel was a Beta, and there was no mention at all of female Alphas. That ticked me off even at age 13. ---
**Author:** ![lurkernomore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/d6d6ee/32.png) [@lurkernomore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lurkernomore)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2002, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obsolete-science-fiction/102187/44 "2002-04-08T00:31:21Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by ralph124c \* > **…didn’t John Carter of Mars get there by just sorta wishing on it? Was that telepathy?** IIRC he went into what turned out to be a sacred cave or the like - the second earthman begged the god of war to bring him to Mars. \*\* > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by ralph124c \* > Also, the Martians had an extremely advanced technology…but fought with swords! What was that all about? > \*\* Largely an honor code - you met an opponent with the same or lesser weapon, and you did it face to face. You can’t pull a radium pistol on me if I pull a sword on you, or you are a coward. ---
**Author:** ![partly\_warmer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/bc8723/32.png) [@partly\_warmer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/partly_warmer)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2002, 6:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obsolete-science-fiction/102187/45 "2002-04-08T06:24:49Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Wendell Wagner \*\*\*Most science fiction has bad predictions of the future. If you’re reading science fiction for the accuracy of its predictions, you’re reading it for the wrong reason. \*\* I’d agree. The idea for science fiction is to give the reader a **semblance** of the future, not the real thing. After all, zoom ahead 200 years and most readers would find it utterly incomprensible. For me, science fiction is good at identifying isolated problems and features of interest. The only thing the other contents have to do is provide a recognizable context. > [@](#): > > Mighty Maxmino said: **Asimov retconned it in some of his later books, but in the original Foundation trilogy, all the interstellar starships (and large industrial fission plants) had vacuum tubes.** But wait a minute! Wasn’t the sound from those old tube ships supposed to be warmer and mellower? ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2002, 6:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obsolete-science-fiction/102187/46 "2002-04-08T06:53:00Z")
_Star Trek: The Motion Picture_ I’m pretty sure NASA will never get its act together enough to launch four more Voyager probes. ---
**Author:** ![Muad\_Dib](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/35a633/32.png) [@Muad\_Dib](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muad_Dib)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2002, 7:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obsolete-science-fiction/102187/47 "2002-04-08T07:57:29Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by ralph124c \* > \*\*“THE BLACK BAG”- scathing look at what happens when advanced technology falls into the wrong hands. As I say, the startling thing is how far ahead we’ve gone technologically, yet how conservative we remain in our architectural and clothing styles.😕 \*\* Sounds like “The Fountainhead”. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2002, 11:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obsolete-science-fiction/102187/48 "2002-04-08T11:39:18Z")
> [@](#): > > ## quote: > > ## Originally posted by Qadgop the Mercotan Burroughs’ Pellucidar series. (That’s Edgar Rice, not William S.) No hole to the center of the earch at the North Pole. > > Qadgop, aren’t you thinking of Verne’s Journey to the Centre of the Earch? (or maybe Frankenstein?) > > The protagonists of Burroughs’ At the Earch’s Core got there by drilling down in a giant “mole” - Burroughs doesn’t say exactly where, but I’ve always assumed they started out from somewhere in the U.S. Ahh, Symmes’ hole. Back in the 19th century a naval officer named Symmes was convinced that the Earth was hollow and that there was an internal sun, with openings at both poles. The aurorae were reflections of the internal sun. There were a _lot_ of bad fantasy and sf novels based on this, like “A Goddess of Atvatabar” by Nobody You Ever Heard Of. See Martin Gardner’s **Fads and Fallacvies in the Name of Science**. Verne’s “Journey to the Center of the Earth” was _not_ inspired by this at all (although Poe’s “Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym” probably was, and Verne wrote a sequel to it – “The Sphinx of the Icefields”.) ---
**Author:** ![Rocketeer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rocketeer/32/4437_2.png) [@Rocketeer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rocketeer)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2002, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obsolete-science-fiction/102187/49 "2002-04-08T17:29:36Z")
**Derleth** , I think you’re referring to “Nerves” by Lester del Rey. Good story, inaccuracies and all. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2002, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obsolete-science-fiction/102187/50 "2002-04-08T17:38:49Z")
> [@](#): > > Speaking of E.R.Burroughs “BARSOOM” Series > …didn’t John Carter of Mars get there by just sorta wishing on it? Was that telepathy? Also, the Martians had an extremely advanced technology…but fought with swords! What was that all about? > Jules Verne wrote probably the most accurate science fiction (in terms of it coming true); however, his mistakes about the moon were rather damning-even the astronomers of his day knew the moon had no atmosphere. ??? Verne never put an atmosphere on the moon, as far as I can recall. The Melies film that is often held to be based on Verne (pretty damned loosely, though) shows people walking and breathing on the moon, but in Verne’s **From the Earth to the Moon** and **Around the Moon** no one ever _lands_ on the moon, let alone getting out. Verne did slip up now and then (his celestial mechanics in FTETTM doesn’t pass muster), and he had people breathing on a _comet_ in **Hector Servadac** (AKA **Off on a Comet** ), but you can’t blame him for putting an atmosphere on the moon. H.G. Wells put an atmosphere on the Moon, but he had some sleight of hand behind it. The really unforgivable “atmosphere on the Moon” offendere is Fritz Lang, in his film **Die Frau im Mond**. He shoulda known better. ---
**Author:** ![slortar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6bbea6/32.png) [@slortar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slortar)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2002, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obsolete-science-fiction/102187/51 "2002-04-08T17:47:42Z")
Whenever I reread **Spacehounds of IPC** (Doc Smith) I’m always amused by the fact that the main character is a _computer_, i.e. a man who _computes_ for a living. Still in a Doc Smith thread, his first novel, **The Skylark of Space** , has ships fueled by some form of radioactive copper…?.. ---
**Author:** ![Hometownboy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/5e9695/32.png) [@Hometownboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hometownboy)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2002, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obsolete-science-fiction/102187/52 "2002-04-08T18:53:46Z")
Hmmm, lessee now. Where to start? Well, nothing with Martian canals, even Heinlein’s **Red Planet** We won’t be traveling with **Lucky Starr and the Oceans of Venus** , my favorite of the series. And no dragons, voders or otherwise, in the swamps of Venus as in Heinlein’s **Citizen of the Galaxy** or “angels” with their happy dust from **Podkayne of Mars** And, speaking of the moon and atmosphere, it seems to me one of C.L. Moore’s Jirel of Joiry or Northwest of Earth stories explained **how** the moon lost its atmosphere… Oh, yeah. Those formfitting clothes often came with puffy little ridges standing up from the shoulders. And in many of those early 50s movies, the guys of the future wore baseball caps, without turning them backwards. ---
**Author:** ![Shade](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2bfe46/32.png) [@Shade](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shade)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2002, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obsolete-science-fiction/102187/53 "2002-04-08T18:59:09Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Lamia \* > \*\* > > I think they were Betas. IIRC, every female character of note in the novel was a Beta, and there was no mention at all of female Alphas. That ticked me off even at age 13. \*\* I’d assume they were engineered that way, by men who assumed they couldn’t, or didn’t want them to, be capable of much. ---
**Author:** ![Don\_Draper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b2d939/32.png) [@Don\_Draper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_Draper)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2002, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obsolete-science-fiction/102187/54 "2002-04-08T19:09:53Z")
I can’t remember the exact episode of the Next Generation this exchange occured on, but there was a scene in which Data walks into Picard’s office while the Captain is looking over Fermat’s “unsolvable theorem.” Picard remarks how, despite all the incredible technology the Federation has developed, no one could ever solve this puzzle. Fermat’s theorem was solved in 1992: [http://shop.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?userid=182X3ESVUV&mscssid=XTKT3FM35X9X8GFJ77QWRQ5N28HG01BC&isbn=0385319460](http://shop.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?userid=182X3ESVUV&mscssid=XTKT3FM35X9X8GFJ77QWRQ5N28HG01BC&isbn=0385319460) > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Tuckerfan \* > \*\*And they seemed to have a never ending supply of those things, too. > > How about the “Spock’s Brain” episode of ST, where Scotty is envious of the ion powered space ship? \*\* This is a hijack, but has it ever bothered anyone how everyone is so amazed how a brain could be surgically removed? The Enterprise routinely disassembled human bodies on a molecular level every time they beamed a landing party down to a planet’s surface. Taking a brain out ought to have seemed like child’s play compared to that. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2002, 1:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obsolete-science-fiction/102187/55 "2002-04-09T01:56:44Z")
Art Vandelay, Architect writes: \> Fermat’s theorem was solved in 1992 It was solved in 1993, actually. (The link you give says it was in 1995, but that’s wrong too.) Andrew Wiles announced the proof at a conference in 1993. There was a small hole in the proof he hadn’t plugged. He and John Taylor proved a lemma in 1994 that completed the proof of Fermat’s Last Theorem. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2002, 2:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obsolete-science-fiction/102187/56 "2002-04-09T02:15:56Z")
I just thought of another category: science fiction that’s obsolete because it _isn’t fiction anymore_. Examples: -cell phones -in vitro fertizization and surrogate motherhood -geneticly engineered and cloned animals -corrective eye surgery -flat-screen tv and monitors -face recognition by computer -voice recognition and computer dictation (still hasn’t replaced the keyboard, but longer “gee-whiz” -solid state lighting -videophones (no one _wants_ them, but they’re available, especially net cams) ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2002, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obsolete-science-fiction/102187/57 "2002-04-09T03:15:01Z")
also automatic bank machines - featured in _The Door into Summer_ by Heinlein. ---
**Author:** ![Weird\_AL\_Einstein](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c67d28/32.png) [@Weird\_AL\_Einstein](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Weird_AL_Einstein)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2002, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obsolete-science-fiction/102187/58 "2002-04-09T03:16:06Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Bryan Ekers \* > \*\*_Star Trek: The Motion Picture_ > > I’m pretty sure NASA will never get its act together enough to launch four more Voyager probes. \*\* Not to mention _Wrath of Khan_…according to that Khan and his people left Earth in 1996. :eek: > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Hometownboy \* > \*\*And no dragons, voders or otherwise, in the swamps of Venus as in Heinlein’s **Citizen of the Galaxy** \*\* You’re thinking of **Between Planets** here. No one visited Venus in **Citizen of the Galaxy**. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2002, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obsolete-science-fiction/102187/59 "2002-04-09T03:31:49Z")
Wasn’t part of _Space Cadets_ also set on Venus? ---
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2002, 4:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obsolete-science-fiction/102187/60 "2002-04-09T04:07:22Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Northern Piper \* > \*\*Wasn’t part of _Space Cadets_ also set on Venus? \*\* Yup. It was even inhabited by Venusians who were an amphibious race and highly intelligent. > [@](#): > > _Originally posted by slortar_ > Whenever I reread Spacehounds of IPC (Doc Smith) I’m always amused by the fact that the main character is a computer, i.e. a man who computes for a living. > > Still in a Doc Smith thread, his first novel, The Skylark of Space, has ships fueled by some form of radioactive copper…?.. It wasn’t so much radioactive copper as it was an element that allowed you to have some kind of nuclear reaction using copper, or other metals, and it gave off some kind of anti-gravity field as well that was never really explained. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obsolete-science-fiction/102187.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obsolete-science-fiction/102187.md?page=4)