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Originally Posted by bill_mchale
There is a lot of subjectivity, but your specific definition of Hard Science Fiction would kick out some of the best stories in the Hard Science Fiction canon. Gregory Benford's Timescape is one example.
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Remember, I'm not criticizing the stories... just because a story isn't Hard SF, doesn't mean it is less of a good story. Anyway, if my definition differs from everyone else's, that's really of consequence to no one but me.
Quote:
Originally Posted by bill_mchale
Further, FTL is not just fringe science these days; modern cosmology believes that most of the Universe is expanding away from us faster than the speed of light .
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True, but the "speed limit" of light, while varying depending on the region in the universe, is still considered inviolable by moving objects within that region. In other words, wherever you are, the limit is the limit, and you won't pass it. (I
really need Stephen Hawking now!)
Quote:
Originally Posted by bill_mchale
Steve, I think the difference between your point of view and mine is that you seem to want experimentally verified results, where I am willing to allow non-mainstream solutions to mainstream theories as a basis for an SF story.
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I don't demand "verified results." But I consider some things to have limits which we, as humans, are simply not likely to reach... such as the amount of energy that would be required to push anything more than a few atoms past the speed of light, or through a wormhole to exit at another point in time, which has been suggested by many physicists to be the equivalent of multiple suns' energy output, at best.
If, by "non-mainstream solutions to mainstream theories," you are talking about circumventing a physical law... say, using a tesseract to jump from point to point without traversing physical space... I'm willing to entertain such ideas. But only to the extent that there is some reasonable expectation that such a possibility even exists, and that it is conceivable that it could be deliberately utilized.
It's the difference between knowing about the existence of a black hole, and standing on one.
Gibbo... you're probably right.