SF/Fantasy Poll

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

Sometimes, credibility just comes down to how well you describe your handwavium to your audience... if they buy the explanation, your science is "credible" to them. I've given explanations of FTL in 2 books, and they might be credible to the audience who reads them... but they only need to be credible enough to allow the reader to accept it long enough to enjoy the story.

Precisely. "Suspension of disbelief".

You might have a harder row to hoe if your thesis began with the idea that Ptolemy had it right, and the Earth was the center of the universe, but if you take what we know now and assume some developments down the road based on things we currently don't know, you have a good shot.

You're helped by the fact that the audience reading your books probably wants to suspend disbelief, so you don't have to jump through hoops to make that happen.
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Dennis

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Liviu_5

Interesting

I thought so...

Anyway with so many people parsing all of Mr. Weber's pronouncements - and he is so kind to answer a lot of questions if they do not impinge on Tum-te-tum - the Honorverse universe feels very *real* in a way that many others do not and that I think is an important reason why the books sell so well after 18 volumes - 14 novels , 4 ss collections - and counting and people beg for them even as drafts

I agree. I think David's engagement with his readers has gone some way toward fostering that "reality". And David has been fortunate enough to avoid the problems Joe Straczynski encounter with Babylon 5, where he constantly had to repeat "Don't post story ideas! If you do, I'm outta here!" because of liability concerns.
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Dennis

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Slite

Meh! Please don't do that, I just started on the Honorverse series! I haven't gotten through "On Basilisk Station" yet

I haven't provided any spoilers. I just made an observation. I'll be curious to see if you agree once you've read some of the series.

And yes, my e-Reader has introduced too stuff I had no idea was out there, i.e. the Baen books

"Want an ebook, little kid? The first ones are free...
______
Dennis

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by Gibbo

Fictionwise has the latest one Inside Straight

Thanks for flagging that for me!

On the other hand... 12 frikkin' dollars...

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by dickon25

I clicked the 'Fantasy' tab because, of the two, that's the one I read most. But I do read some SF as well - Greg Bear, Peter Hamilton, Asimov and others. I'm never quite sure why the two are lumped into one genre, because to me they are completely different. As someone else said above, SF is the art of the possible, or even probable, but fantasy is exactly that!

Think of them both as subsets of a larger genre called "fantastic literature", and it may be more understandable. And it's very hard to draw a dividing line and put things on one side or the other. Too many edge cases that can be either one, depending upon how you define the terms.

I'm just about to start Game of Thrones, 1st in the Song of Fire and Ice series by George Martin. I haven't read any of his stuff yet so wish me luck!!

I wish you joy, actually. George is an old friend, and you have a treat in store.
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Dennis

[=X=]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

... How do you know? ...

Keep it up and I'm telling mom!


Credibility
The discussion of creditability reminds me of an an old parable.

"'A certain Greenland Eskimo,' said Lomen, 'was taken on one of the American North Polar expeditions a number of years ago. Later, as a reward for faithful service, he was brought to New York City for a short visit. At all the miracles of sight and sound he was filled with a most amazed wonder. When he returned to his native village he told stories of buildings that rose into the very face of the sky; of street cars, which he described as houses that moved along the trail, with people living in them as they moved; of mammoth bridges, artificial lights, and all the other dazzling concomitants of the metropolis.
"'His people looked at him coldly and walked away. And forthwith throughout the whole village he was dubbed "Sagdluk," meaning "the Liar,"

When Einstein postulated his theory of Relativity it was shot down. It took nearly 2 decades for it to be accepted.

Later on Einstein was quoted as saying "God does not play dice with the Universe" with regards to Quantum Physics.


The point is what is "Creditable" and what can really happen are not one in the same. For me Creditability is not so much scientific but more the creative ability to have the audience suspend their belief in order for the author to tell his story.

One final comment
If you read modern science it reads more and more like science fiction. Man has proven that particles can travel faster than light, matter can be created (this has only been proven mathematically), and matter can occupy two spaces at once.





=X=

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by =X=

When Eisenstein postulated his theory of Relativity it was shot down. It took nearly 2 decades for it to be accepted.

Later on Eisenstein was quoted as saying "God does not play dice with the Universe" with regards to Quantum Physics.

I believe you mean Albert Einstein, not "Eisenstein".

"A wonderful family is Stein
There's Gert and there's Ep and there's Ein.
Gert's poems are punk.
Ep's statues are junk.
And nobody understands Ein!"

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Dennis

[=X=]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

I believe you mean Albert Einstein, not "Eisenstein".

"A wonderful family is Stein
There's Gert and there's Ep and there's Ein.
Gert's poems are punk.
Ep's statues are junk.
And nobody understands Ein!"

______
Dennis

Thx, as you can tell spelling is not one if my strengths.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by =X=

When Einstein postulated his theory of Relativity it was shot down. It took nearly 2 decades for it to be accepted.

With respect, that is not the case.

Classical physics was in "crisis" in the late 19th century, with many recent discoveries, especially in the new field of electromagnetism, simply not fitting in with the accepted physical models of the time.

"Special relativity" was an inevitable outcome of work being done by a number of physicists at the time. If Einstein hadn't come up with the theory, Lorentz or Maxwell would surely have done so within a year or so. "Maxwell's Equations" - the three fundanental equations which define the behaviour of electromagnetic waves - are essentially an expression of special relativity couched in slightly different terms.

It was simply one of those times when all the groundwork had been done to make a fundamental change in the outlook of science inevitable. The fact that Einstein was the one to come up with a formal expression of that new outlook, in the form of relativity, was pretty much irrelevent. Someone else would have done so if Einstein hadn't been around.

[Slite]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

Thanks for flagging that for me!

On the other hand... 12 frikkin' dollars...

12 bucks? Ouch, how the *beep* do they motivate that? The PB edition is $7.99 on Amazon. And Kindle edition is $9.99

And they wonder why new titles show up on the darknet.

[peterbbb]

Harry

That view "Someone else would have come up with the idea" is quite speculative. Maxwell's work led to Relativity but I don't know why that means that Maxwell would have then made the leap to relativity. The leap was to recognise that the apparent anomaly in the equations was explainable if mass, length and time were velocity dependent and not invariable.

It is true that often several research groups are close to the same discovery. What Albert did was to publish first but also describe the theory in a way others could get to grips with. He had models to describe the behaviour of matter and waves at high speed that others did not have as clearly.

Rather like Hawking's way of see the mathematics of black holes and space-time in "pictures".

But, SF - I like the political and social nature of societies that SF deals with. The "magic" stuff in fantasy seems a little like the same attraction that heavy metal has. Teenage boys and teenage fantasy... I think the characterisation is even weaker in fantasy than it is in SF - but neither are universally strong in that area. But boys don't do feelings - so that is ok.

Peter

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

It took almost 2 centuries between the time that atoms were first postulated, and were actually seen under a microscope. Today, quantum physics are the basis for all electronics, even though scientists still regard most of the rules by which quantum physics acts in electronic equipment as theoretical.

Of course, we also used to think there was "ether," and quite a bit of scientific prediction and experiment was based on that assumption. Not every prediction pans out, but often it leads to the real answers.

Either way, trying to make those predictions can be enlightening, stimulating, and fun! (Until your predictions lead you to things like Soylent Green, of course...)

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by Slite

12 bucks? Ouch, how the *beep* do they motivate that? The PB edition is $7.99 on Amazon. And Kindle edition is $9.99

And they wonder why new titles show up on the darknet.

No comment. All I know is, I won't be buying that e-book anytime soon.

[=X=]

Originally Posted by HarryT

With respect, that is not the case.

Classical physics was in "crisis" in the late 19th century, with many recent discoveries, especially in the new field of electromagnetism, simply not fitting in with the accepted physical models of the time.

"Special relativity" was an inevitable outcome of work being done by a number of physicists at the time. If Einstein hadn't come up with the theory, Lorentz or Maxwell would surely have done so within a year or so. "Maxwell's Equations" - the three fundanental equations which define the behaviour of electromagnetic waves - are essentially an expression of special relativity couched in slightly different terms.

It was simply one of those times when all the groundwork had been done to make a fundamental change in the outlook of science inevitable. The fact that Einstein was the one to come up with a formal expression of that new outlook, in the form of relativity, was pretty much irrelevent. Someone else would have done so if Einstein hadn't been around.

Originally Posted by HarryT

simply not fitting in with the accepted physical models of the time.

I’m not sure what you are disagreeing about. My statement was Einstein’s theory on Relativity took some time to accept. You’ve clearly said as much.

Your assertion that Maxwell would have discovered Relativity with a year of Einstein is really quite an intriguing one especially considering Maxwell died in 1879 and Einstein did not postulate his theory until 1905.

While it’s true Maxwell’s equations can be used to prove relativity, most people consider this to give more creditability to Einstine’s Relativity not visa versa. Also these equations do not prove relativity until some of Einstein assumptions are made.

P.S. Since you are talking about E&M (Electromagnetism) there are really 4 equations not 3. Here is a WIKI link for your entertainment, which is actually quite good.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by =X=

Your assertion that Maxwell would have discovered Relativity with a year of Einstein is really quite an intriguing one especially considering Maxwell died in 1879 and Einstein did not postulate his theory until 1905.

Doh!

You're absolutely right; my apologies. Given that I've written textbooks on EM, I really should know that, shouldn't I? . A "senior moment", obviously.

OK, then, not Maxwell (clearly!) but once the results of the Michelson-Morley experiment became well-known, people like Fitzgerald and Lorentz were postulating what were basically expressions of SR. They would have got there pretty soon, I'm sure.

Apologies for the goof, but I stand by my basic point - that both relativity and quantum theory were made more or less inevitable by the knowledge gained by experimental physicists in the final decades of the 19th century. "Classical" physics just couldn't stand up to the reality of the experimental results.