Science In My Fiction

Quantum mechanics is the physics of the smallest of things, while general relativity is the physics of the largest. Not surprisingly, many physicists have been obsessessed with finding a Theory of Everything (TOE) that encompasses both limits.

This has not been easy.

In previous posts I’ve written of the difficulties that arise in creating a coherent theory of quantum gravity, and how one popular approach, string theory, attempts to solve the problem. String theory is not a failure, but neither has it been the overwhelming success quantum mechanics and general relativity have been. In particular, string theory has in general failed to make verified predictions in fundamental particle physics. (NB: some of the mathematical techniques of string theory have been applied to other areas of physics, but this is not the same thing.)

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A good public relations campaign can do wonders.

Science is empirical. If there is no experiment, no observation, then an idea is truly relegated to “it’s just a theory.” [1]

Yet, consider string theory, a mathematical exercise so intricate Einstein’s general relativity is easy in comparison, and with no experimental evidence backing it whatsoever.

In the popular imagination, however, string theory dominates modern physics. Popularizations of string theory have topped bestseller charts. Friends and neighbors ask me about string theory. Students tell me they want to be string theorists, even though they, along with most of the public, are unsure what string theory even is.

In this essay I’ll attempt to untangle string theory for you, explain what it’s good for, why there are such devoted proponents, and what the skeptics say. Read the rest of this entry »

You may have been in this situation:

You have two friends, your two best friends, both witty, fun, and thoughtful. An hour or so spent with either one leaves your brain buzzing with new ideas and insights. “I gotta get these two together,” you think.

You arrange a dinner, but the evening is a disaster. Your friends are incompatible in ways so deep, so fundamental, they can barely stand to be in the same room.

Now imagine your friends are physics theories; and not just any theories, but the two most revolutionary theories of the twentieth century, explaining entire libraries of data, predicting new, mind-blowing phenomena. They are quantum mechanics and general relativity.

And they do not play nice with each other.

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(Second in a series on the limits of knowledge; see the first post here.)

Of all branches of modern science, quantum mechanics is most seen as magic–either a nihilistic, quasi-Voldemortesque dark magic that needs to be overthrown, or else a wonderful wand that can be waved to justify anything, and I mean anything.

To be sure, Einstein’s relativity disquiets many people.  Without trustworthy, absolute clocks, who can boast about trains running on time?

But quantum mechanics is an order of magnitude stranger. The quantum world is fundamentally uncertain and fuzzy, with slippery wavefunctions leaping from one state to another. Even Einstein himself, who helped to father the field, hated it.

As I’ve written in an earlier post, many SF authors choose either to rebel and literally write quantum mechanics out of the equation, or to use quantum mechanics as a convenient justification for neato pseudo-scientific wish-fulfillment.

All of this is because of fundamental misunderstandings about quantum mechanics. Read the rest of this entry »

“Science fiction” is a sprawling, untidy genre, wearing so many masks it resists easy definition.  Even the “science” in science fiction spans a vast range, from incoherent technobabble to barely disguised excuses for magic to tightly constructed hard SF to Nebula and Hugo award-winning stories in which science makes no appearance at all. (Indeed, some have suggested the unifying thread is not science but history: James Gunn’s “the literature of change,” Kim Stanley Robinson’s “the histories we cannot know,” and David Brin’s “speculative history.”)  Some of the roles science plays in SF include:

* Scientific and technological advances signal that the world can and has changed, that history is in motion. This is especially relevant to the “speculative history” lens on SF.

* Advanced science and technology provide and justify exotic settings and characters, for example in many SFnal movies such as Avatar and Star Wars.

* Science can provide key plot points. This is particularly true in “hard” SF, where characters use science to reason their way out of a problem. Larry Niven at the height of his powers was a key exemplar, launching stories such as “The Coldest Place” and “Neutron Star.”

* Even the hardest SF is not really about science and technology but about our response to science and technological change. An example is the movie Gattaca, which critiques the danger of seeing people only through the lens of genetics.

What I want to write about today, however, is how science provides powerful symbols for SF, and how the imagery of science can echo the theme of a story.  And as befits SF, I’ll focus on stories that draw from a branch of science which is highly mathematical but which, deep down, appears as irrational and unreasoning as the Monster from the Id: quantum mechanics.
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