Does Bad Science Ruin Science Fiction?

[psychotick]

Hi,

It depends. Would anyone argue that Hitchikers is bad sci fi? I wouldn't. I think it's great. So is Ringworld and it comes with all sorts of problems. And every space opera known to man breaks the rules of relativity.

What is important is that the science part is consistent with the world. That the rules are clear. And if they don't fit with what we "know" or think we know, there's some sort of explanation. So for say the Deathstalker series, there's a reason that swords are still useful after your one shot laser pistol is out - even though we all know it's so you can have sword fights in the future along with spaceships etc.

However, for me the best sci fi is when someone takes a possibility (which may or may not actually be possible) and explores all the ramifications. That's why I would rate Vernor Vinge's Peace War so highly. It takes a simple idea - stasis bubbles - and explores the ramifications of the technology. What you could do with it and what might result because of it. Sci fi should always ask the question "What if?"

Cheers, Greg.

 

[Chilari]

I think we're all prone to notice innaccuracies in areas we are well versed in. For example, I went to see 300: Rise of an Empire with my brother last week. His knowledge about ancient Greece: zero. Mine: Masters Degree level. He enjoyed the film, especially the violence. I came out raging about the 6-ship Athenian fleet portrayed in the movie (it should have been 180 ships) and the obsession with the Spartan fleet, when Corinth's fleet (40 ships) was over twice the size of Sparta's (16 ships) and the second largest fleet in the Greek fleet at Salamis, and the third largest fleet in Greece as a whole (Corcyra's 60 ships didn't arrive, they were delayed by unfavourable winds, or so they claimed). And was Corinth even mentioned? No. And that doesn't even go into the tactics of the battle. Clue: in the real event, recorded by Herodotus, there actually were tactics.

Anyway, point being, it's all about perspective. Knowing nothing of the real events the film was based on, and lacking any sense of actual taste, my brother enjoyed what was there. But I've studied Herodotus, I've read something of those events recently, and I'm pretty familiar with the background and context (namely, Sparta aren't exactly known for their seafaring abilities, not to mention a few other glaring crimes against history in the movie). And as a result, I was not at all impressed.

The same is true, I would expect, of science fiction. Provided an author gets enough of their science right that 95% of readers wouldn't spot what errors there are, I think the other 5% can suspend a little disbelief, since they're probably pretty well educated on the topic.

 

[ThinkerX]

I've been contemplating a 'hard SF' interstellar space voyage type tale for a long while now...at sub-light speeds. Up to around 0.95 C using either a bussard ramjet variant or some form or vacuum point (zero point) energy (yes, the ramjet would need some sort of booster to get up to operating speed, and would not work all that well more than a few hundred AU from a given star, but even so, 0.95 C seems at least possible before the drive isn't any good.

One of my reasons for doing this was to (hopefully) illustrate some of the basic issues with interstellar travel - like not going from zero to 95% light speed in just a few minutes, the hazards of hitting a stray speck of space dust at those speeds, 'stopping off' at an intermediate star system, and more. These sorts of things tend to get dumbed down way to much these days in a lot of present day science fiction.

And I did contemplate adding a FTL element later on (I currently envision this as a series of short stories or novelettes), but with this caveat: it came from a non human source, it works, it can be duplicated, but humans have no real idea how or why it works.

Long term project I contemplate now and again.

 

[James Chandler]

Now, when known science is sketchy, there is always room to give, such as with the concept of warp travel in Star Trek or light sabers in Star Wars. But if the science is cut and dry and someone breaks it without even providing a reasonable explanation, I, at least, will have a problem with it.

I think this is the key and, IMHO, should be for anyone. FTL travel is a great example. As far as I know, none of the speculated methods of space travel besides rockets have been proven possible, regardless of how sound the science is. But, Sci-Fi fans do not want to be told it will never be possible to travel to other star systems. (Although I have read some great works that never left the solar system.) So, figure out something else, but just saying "we can go faster than light now" is not going to cut it. For other stuff, if you base your speculation on good science, you will be fine, generally. Heck, that is the what sci-fi is all about. But, don't propose something science has already determined is impossible.

 

[Hainted]

I just use enough Hard Science to be plausible. I had an idea for a binary world system in a story, and bugged physics forums until someone could answer my questions about the setup. Is that data going to come out in the story? probably not, but I know enough to plausibly write about eclipses, tides, cycle of the planets through their phases(like the moon), how big they are in the sky, and how much can be seen by the naked eye. I'm sure someone could blow the thing apart from a "hard" science view, but it's enough for me to get the sky right.

 

[Ruby]

This relates in a way to the time travel thread (and because science fiction is a subgenre of fantasy, by some definitions). Whether or not it ruins it for me depends on what kind of story the author is telling

Does bad science ruin science fiction?

Hi Steerpike,

The trouble with writing SF is that Science is subjective and things change. For example, we were all taught about the solar system and that Pluto is a planet. (Now it's a Dwarf Planet.) So what if you'd written a Science Fiction story based on that 'fact'? Would you now find that no one wanted to read your book?

And wasn't there some talk recently that Einstein's Theory of Relativity was wrong and that everything that Physics accepts as being true, might not be?