Silly Science in Science Fiction

[Ice fyre]

Bad science in SF hmmm? Are we talking about the scientific impossibility of Faster than Light travel? Which is central pilllar of most SF.

Quite frankly the science being bad does not bother me.

What bother's me more is bad story telling lazy writing and lack of imagination something Hard sf witers suffer from as much as pulp Sf writers do.

AS to your point on humanoid species I would point out that we would interact with that which we know. Also this was done on Star Trek for a very good reason. Star trek was telling story's and using Sci-fi to tell them. Humanoid aliens were used as metephors by the writers to shine a spot light on our own predudices and behaviors. That is why most authors I presume use human like species and cultures!

I would leave the last word to Mr Strasinsky when asked what the speed of a Star fury was, his answer was "The speed of convenience" whatever the plot needed the Star fury could do!

Just relax its all fiction you know.

[chrispenycate]

Originally Posted by Atomika

yes, I know scientific publication can be dry and boring and all of that other stuff. What I mean by silly science is stuff like:

-all habitable planets have the same day length as Earth (+ or - 2 hrs).

while "within a couple of hours" is perhaps excessively limiting, if you go too far outside (Marky wanted a planet where his characters could travel round the equatot at the speed of night, so I tidally locked it, and then gave it a glancing shot with a comet. The meteology became slightly over the top; survivable, but requiring fast footwork, no permanent seas but lots of temporary ones; not a good place to bring up kids)

-all habitable planets look more or less like Earth, with the same species or related ones.

a habitable planet will look a lot like Earth(assuming you mean (habitable by non-modified human beings) The lifeforms, however, have no such constraints, and desriptions of many alien planets, while tending to assume the climatic variation of vegetation will parallel

-Being at the center of the Earth and have the same gravity as Earth's surface (I'm talking about Zion in the Matrix here).
-All intelligent species look exactly like humans except for one or two distinguishing facial features.

That's more a Hollywood (and Dr.Who) problem than Science fiction. We've had a wide range of physiologies for over a centory; it's just that the cinema/television had difficulties finding actorswith more than four arms.

-Lasers that have recoil or make noise

A sufficiently poweful laser does actually produce a pressure; I've got it down as one of my propulsion systems (though if you're only trying to burn bits off people its hardly worh going into the tens of thousands of terrawatts) And, if it's a pulsed laser, in atmosphere it makes a series of clicks as the air in front of it is heated by absorbed light. A linear accelerator (or railgun) has a lot of recoil, and the sound of its projectiles breaking the sound barrier is loud, and quite objectionable

-Evil aliens that look like savage beasts while good ones look like heavenly angels

wouldn't it be convenient if life were organised like that?

-The whole "Q" non-sense.
-Every single alien homeworld is suitible for humans, with corresponding atmospheric pressures and the correct amount of Oxygen/Nitrogen mix.

if I started listing the environments science fiction has explored as potential niches for lifeforms; The heart of stars, open space, gas giants and moons, neutron stars, computer networks, nebulae - thousands of possibilities. But again, the cinema doesn't want its stars to be bundled up and isolated, so exploration is "wild west" style, preferably in shirt sleeves.

-BS solutions to otherwise catastrophic problems.
-Weapon systems that have been borrowed and adapted from the colonial and industrial era, and work in pretty much the same way, with WWII battlefield tactics, strategies, and style of fighting for that matter.
-And other countless atrocities that are too numerous to list.

Why assume that democracy is the obvious ultimate step in social developement? I live in the oldest continuous democracy on this planet, and can see the limitations of the system, particularly as regards requiring an educated populace. The aristocratic sytem has a much longer pedigree, and has been proved to work (I didn't claim you had to like it; just that, as social evolution goes, it's a proven survivor. In a crisis situation strong men come forward, and frequently establish dynasties; kings or whatever are only names

Plant life is almost always depicted by Flowering Plants - which only developed on Earth very recently. Either that, or they are particularly barren rocky planets without plants at all, but still with an Oxygen atmosphere.

Anything to do with Aging or Cloning is never correct. Have you noticed how Clones are always the same age as the donor, with his/her memories and skills, even with very different upbringings and environmental factors?

I could cite several hundred books where cloning is handled realistically; Cherryh, Bujold, Varley, Clarke. I could keep going.The main "clones in batches" (for particular functions) seems to have started with Huxley's "brave new world", not that the word "clone" was yet in general use

De-evolution is possible!

very likely, if not at an individual level. "Throwbacks" to an earlier stage of developement occur from time to time in populations, and the tendency could quite possibly be accentuated artificially, though only to previous forms in that particular path; you'd never get a human embrio developing into a chimp (or a shark; maybe a jellyfish
All in all, I don't seem to have been reading the same science fiction as some of you; certainly, there are technical errors, and I take a malicious pleasure in finding them, but most of the authors I read expect readers like me. and make it as difficult as possible for us.

[kythe]

Originally Posted by Ice fyre

Bad science in SF hmmm? Are we talking about the scientific impossibility of Faster than Light travel? Which is central pilllar of most SF.

A few years ago I picked up a non-fiction book called "Faster Than Light" by Nick Herbert, where he proposes that such travel may be possible. I only read the first couple of chapters, so unfortunately I can't give a review of his theories. Not that I probably could anyway, since my understanding of physics is too minimal for me to be able to critique. The idea is out there, though.

[Dave]

This link has errors of Physics more typical of Hollywood movie:
Neatorama » Blog Archive » 9 Laws of Physics That Don’t Apply in Hollywood

There are several programmes of TV at the moment - 'Mythbusters' is one - that investigate if things such as the exploding petrol tanks really happen, if a postage stamp can unbalance a helicopter blade, how much sugar in your fuel actually stops the engine.

[MolotovCocktail]

lol thanks for the list Dave

[mosaix]

Many people seem to think that you can't hear sound in outer space - this isn't true.

One way sound is transmitted is by gas. An explosion or a rocket engine produces an expanding gas cloud and this is quite enough to transmit the corresponding sound. Of course it would dissipate, probably quite quickly, but before that happens, if it reached a human ear, then so would the sound.

[pyan]

This was one of the things that most impressed me about Kubrick's 2001 - he got the science right - no "Woosh" noises, or rockets roaring past.

[Kelvin Zero]

Well.. FTL, antigravity and teleportation are all unlikely technologies.

But think I could forgive all that if just once a spaceship would TURN AROUND AND FACE ITS THRUSTERS THE OTHER WAY when it intends to stop at a planet.

[isacked]

What about Isaac Asimov's fiction? I used to love him; he seemed so convincing. Now as an adult I feel he used many Big Words too, so I never figured out if I was being HAD. Is the science behind his stuff real?

[j. d. worthington]

Originally Posted by isacked

What about Isaac Asimov's fiction? I used to love him; he seemed so convincing. Now as an adult I feel he used many Big Words too, so I never figured out if I was being HAD. Is the science behind his stuff real?

A fair chunk of it, yes... he was a trained scientist (biochemistry), and had a knowledge of all sorts of other scientific fields (not to mention darned near everything else!).

Like most of the sf writers, however, if a good story demanded it, he would bend the rules at times; after all, he was pretty much convinced time travel was an impossibility, yet he wrote several stories featuring such, "The Ugly Little Boy" and The End of Eternity being two that come to mind....

But, generally speaking... yes, he tried to adhere to genuine scientific understanding of the time (or reasonable extrapolations from such) in most his work....

[Ice fyre]

I would point out that researchers at a universty somwhere managed to teleport and atom.....so it's theoretically possible to transport things. It really isnt practical though!

And I vaugley remmber Einstein had a secon theory of relativity which you could go faster than light, but I thought it involved black holes and time travel.....my brain hurt "thud thud

[Locksmith]

Again, aimed at films, but:

Intuitor Insultingly Stupid Movie Physics

is pretty amusing. Including, down at the bottom, a series of reviews of films - the one on the Core is particularly good.

As regards Mosaix's point about clouds of gas in space, Intuitor says "Yes, an explosion probably would create an expanding cloud of gases which would eventually impact a spaceship in its path. However, in the vacuum of space this expanding cloud of gas would have a very low density. When it hit a ship some distance from the explosion it would probably sound like a gust of wind blowing against the spacecraft," whichI think you recognised in your post.

[mosaix]

Great link - thanks for that Locksmith.

[mosaix]

Originally Posted by Ice fyre

I would point out that researchers at a universty somwhere managed to teleport and atom.....so it's theoretically possible to transport things. It really isnt practical though!

And I vaugley remmber Einstein had a secon theory of relativity which you could go faster than light, but I thought it involved black holes and time travel.....my brain hurt "thud thud

I seem to remember that they transferred the properties of one particle to another - a far cry from teleporting and atom.

[HardScienceFan]

Okay,my views on this one:
the genre we know & love,and ardently defend against antagonistic views (that is has no redeeming social value,is basically hogwash,etc.),uses the trappings of science,and this most of the times just to engender the necessary suspension of disbelief. Furthermore IMO
it is mostly not about the probable,but about the POSSIBLE.We assume scientist to be among the more logical and /or sane people on our planet,
so they figure in the "puzzle stories",e.g.dust rag by Hal Clement.SF has several subgenres which are mostly entertaining hogwash,but hogwash nonetheless.Most sf stories are parables anyway.A time travel story like Poul Anderson's Guardians of Time discusses the mechanix of time travel only summarily,and why:because writers like him,Heinlein and Asimov mostly wrote SF to show how people interacted* with technology,how societies interacted with it,and the way individuals and societies reacted to change.
The science in SF ALWAYS WAS SUBORDINATE.I began reading &*(&* (I'm not going to plug some publications here,as U notice)because most SF showed a disappointing lack of science PER SE(heuristics,data gathering),particular the biological sciences.
However,I do understand the writer's need to entertain.
We live in a dumbed-down society where we certainly don't want any science to mess up our fiction.And with this latter remark I do NOT mean contemporary SF,but ***GRIPE*** Hollywood of course.

PLUS TV,of course.
*BY the way:I can't think of any form of literature that deals with this interaction other than SF.There is an intrinsic difference with mainstream literature:it doesn't examine people per se,but interactions,particularly if they are societally driven.Most societies are driven by their technologies,or lack of it.Science begets technology(physics eventually produces semiconductors)ERGO
UHMMM,am I making sense here?