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How I swapped my ivory tower for the world of science fiction

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Re: How I swapped my ivory tower for the world of science fiction

#61

Post by jowea »

havblue wrote: post #43
KittenInABox wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny you talk about the Starship Enterprise... Star Trek is super political lol

I think it's reductive to say it's political. Trek at its best asks philosophical questions and explores the arguments. At its worst there's the "warp travel causes pollution, let's implement a speed limit" episode. Sure, you can reduce the Cardassians to being bad mid century Europeans. But you can also think of them as ruthlessly following the standards of utilitarianism. (Also bad) Saying it's just politics is laz…

I guess it depends on the episode, and I do prefer when it's more abstract, but when do you think it's political if indirectly advocating for example gay rights or environmental protections isn't?

Re: How I swapped my ivory tower for the world of science fiction

#62

Post by jowea »

swayvil wrote: post #19

Using science fiction to discuss politics is like using the Starship Enterprise to drive down to the corner grocery. Politics is small. Exploring the edges of reality is large.

In addition to the already mentioned irony of bring up ST, what do you think of say, Starship Troopers? Sure there is some scifi that's about some mind screwy science but there's more to the genre.

Anyway I like Asimov's classification, social scifi is political: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AsimovsThreeKind...

Re: How I swapped my ivory tower for the world of science fiction

#63

Post by js2 »

> I wanted a number name. I think seven is the best single digit number. It’s the number of bodies in the sky that move relative to the ‘fixed stars’ — in other words, the Sun, the Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. That’s why seven is such an important number cross-culturally: it represents all things that wander in the heavens. It’s also the number of variables in the Drake Equation, and Seven of Nine is my favourite Star Trek character. There’s a lot going on there.

George Costanza was way ahead here:

https://youtu.be/NRUdaWZ4FN0

Re: How I swapped my ivory tower for the world of science fiction

#64

Post by Lichtso »

js2 wrote: post #63

> I wanted a number name. I think seven is the best single digit number. It’s the number of bodies in the sky that move relative to the ‘fixed stars’ — in other words, the Sun, the Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. That’s why seven is such an important number cross-culturally: it represents all things that wander in the heavens. It’s also the number of variables in the Drake Equation, and Seven of Nine…

> why seven is such an important number cross-culturally

I think it is more likely Miller's law [0], that is the average number of "registers" a human mind has [1].

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller%27s_law#In_psychology [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Magical_Number_Seven,_Plus...

Re: How I swapped my ivory tower for the world of science fiction

#65

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

I think Gregory Benford is an astrophysicist, as well. He's done fairly well.

For myself, I tend to prefer fantasy, over SF. SF tends to have Big Ideas, and the characters are there to help the Big Idea strut its stuff.

In fantasy, the characters are usually the fulcrum of the story, and the world is built around their stories.

Re: How I swapped my ivory tower for the world of science fiction

#66

Post by queuebert »

jowea wrote: post #59
queuebert wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm talking about America, with a so-called democracy far older than the USSR Technically America is not a democracy -- it's a federal republic composed of states with widely differing interpretations of democracy.

Question: where does the idea that democracy and republic are incompatible comes from? I keep hearing this am curious where it started. Is it because the Founding Fathers wanted aristocratic elements to keep popular will at bay? To me the USA is obviously a (or maybe the ) federal democratic republic. There is no contradiction. Sovereignity resides in the people and there's no monarch so it's a republic and elected r…

Do you think we the people chose the presidential candidates we keep having? There are multiple levels of representation, and all of them are tainted by special interests and partisanship.

The primary system can choose candidates however they wish -- the Constitution does not specify the method [1]. A Democratic challenger to Biden this time was blatantly refused ballot access in many states. Backroom deals can cause good candidates to drop out and support worse candidates (see Buttigieg dropping out in 2020 and supporting Biden, and then Biden appoints him SecTrans). Kamala Harris was among the worst performers in the 2020 Democratic primary, but for some reason she was chosen (not elected, mind you, but chosen by Biden's team) as Biden's running mate, so now the Democrats have no good choices.

The Electoral College is winner-take-all in many places and the congressional districts are often gerrymandered to completely eliminate representation of the minority party. For example, Nashville had a Democrat representative, but after redistricting the city was split like a pizza among three mostly rural GOP districts to completely eliminate its member of Congress [2]. It is the capital of the state and largest city but has no member of Congress now.

I'm glad you have such a positive view of US democracy, but many of us living here are extremely worried about our trajectory.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_pri...

2. https://www.usnews.com/news/elections/articles/2022-11-04/na...

Re: How I swapped my ivory tower for the world of science fiction

#67

Post by MichaelNolan »

jowea wrote: post #59
queuebert wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm talking about America, with a so-called democracy far older than the USSR Technically America is not a democracy -- it's a federal republic composed of states with widely differing interpretations of democracy.

Question: where does the idea that democracy and republic are incompatible comes from? I keep hearing this am curious where it started. Is it because the Founding Fathers wanted aristocratic elements to keep popular will at bay? To me the USA is obviously a (or maybe the ) federal democratic republic. There is no contradiction. Sovereignity resides in the people and there's no monarch so it's a republic and elected r…

> Question: where does the idea that democracy and republic are incompatible comes from?

It’s just a retort that American conservatives like to say whenever American liberals mention how undemocratic/unfair the electoral college or the senate is. There’s no real historical substance to the phrase. It only became common to hear after the 2000 and 2016 elections where republicans won the presidency but received fewer total votes, the same scenario which almsot happened in 2020 and could very well happen in 2024.

Re: How I swapped my ivory tower for the world of science fiction

#68

Post by pavel_lishin »

karaterobot wrote: post #23

What is this article? She just released a book, but it's a non-fiction popular science book. I assumed this was about a lifelong academic switching careers to become a full-time science fiction writer, but all I know based on this article is that she's been teaching at community college for about two years, and has written exactly one science fiction short story.

My understanding is that it's pretty common for authors with a new book to basically do an interview circuit like this.

The headline for this story is particularly bad - I also expected her new book to be a sci-fi novel, and am much more interested in her short stories than a book about the Drake Equation.

Re: How I swapped my ivory tower for the world of science fiction

#69

Post by gus_massa »

tzs wrote: post #53
gus_massa wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes and no. The photographer needs a nice photo, she needs the article to sell books and not get traped again in the ivory tower. Eveyone is happy. It's part of the job. Like politician using a suit and smiling. (Aparently smiling people with suits don't steal or start random wars.) I looked at the equations, they look correct but so unrelated that made me chuckle. I imagine she was chuckling while writing them. I'm…

Anyone recognize all the equations? I only recognize a few specifically and can sort of guess the general area of some of the rest. From left to right then top to bottom: 1. No idea. Based on the E sub λ, the use of Planck's and Boltzmann's constants, and the e^(hc/λkt)-1 I'd guess its the energy of something at wavelength λ and temperature t. I don't recall ever seeing energy have a factor of 1/λ^5 before college wa…

[No cheating looking at Wikipedia]

3. Laplacian in spherical coordinates???

5. Conservation of energy in fluids. Preasure P + Kinetic 1/2 ρ v^2 + Potential ρ g h = ...

9. Probably something about a blackbody radiation like 1.

11. I agree it's related to gravity, but I'm not sure.

12. Velocity of an object a when there is constant aceleration "a" (for example with a constant force like friction) after it moved a distance Δx

15. Energy of photons when an electron changes the orbit in Hidrogen. (Is it the Bohr equation?)

16. No idea, or actualy too many ideas that make no sense.

17. Also, no idea, or actualy too many ideas that make no sense (it has G, T and h ¿¿¿Hawking radiation???)

Re: How I swapped my ivory tower for the world of science fiction

#70

Post by jhbadger »

FredPret wrote: post #46
anthk wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny you say that when capitalism has no morals beyond profit. Just have a look on what Boeing it's doing.

Boeing is a good example of capitalism working. Go and look at their financial statements. Look at their stock over the past half decade. It's all deep in the red. They're still alive because their past achievements are significant enough to carry them through this and they will probably still be salvaged. Otherwise they'd be long bankrupt, freeing up immense human, physical, and financial capital to go do something…

But Boeing is the only remaining US-based manufacturer of airliners (among other things). This didn't used to be the case, but through mergers and acquisitions it's true today. There is just no way the US government would ever let Boeing go under and let the Europeans or Chinese dominate airliners. Like the banks in 2008, Boeing is just "too big to fail".
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