Turning away from politics for a while... (everyone, wipe your feet and shower first... now, have a tall drink and settle in for something different... science fiction!)
Let's start with a way cool look at the physics and
paradoxes of time travel, in the newly released Time Travel: A History, by science historian James Gleick (author of The Information: A History, A Theory, A Flood). As usual, Gleick offers a delightful intellectual and verbal feast that is a pleasure to read. See an excerpt in Nautilus Magazine.
This chapter of Time Travel does not mention the array of sneaky means by which we sci fi authors try to weasel our way around causality and temporal protection. One is the universe branching point. When Spock accidentally lures a vengeful Romulan to go back in time and destroy Planet Vulcan (in J.J. Abrams's Star Trek flick) many fans consoled themselves that this is just a branching-off of a newborn parallel reality... that the older timeline still stands, where Shatner-Kirk and all the rest remain, along the original timeline, like a trellis for the new one to grow alongside.
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoe3SYfeucUDruTBXgnPlZRmvX_lbEeSjzXXQIw-4cBum1FeBZtd5i8fIKVIm7FGVhGyAN6-6FTnyTWAit2lcMlxAOj0kEw3EWaLDpiTmI-Cm_68KdCy5Ltl-9IIt3hdPHDH8/s320/time-travel.jpg)
This chapter of Time Travel does not mention the array of sneaky means by which we sci fi authors try to weasel our way around causality and temporal protection. One is the universe branching point. When Spock accidentally lures a vengeful Romulan to go back in time and destroy Planet Vulcan (in J.J. Abrams's Star Trek flick) many fans consoled themselves that this is just a branching-off of a newborn parallel reality... that the older timeline still stands, where Shatner-Kirk and all the rest remain, along the original timeline, like a trellis for the new one to grow alongside.
Well, well, that's an artistic representation of one of many ways
that physicists (at least a few) think that paradoxes might be resolved. Speaking as both
a physicist and a science fiction author, I must say that this very loose
partnership is one of the most fun that our unique and marvelous civilization
offers, during a unique and marvelous... time.
A topic covered in extensive depth by the recently released Now: The Physics of Time, by Richard A. Muller, professor and experimental physicist at UC Berkeley. What is now? "Now is at the boundary, the shock front, the new time that is coming from nothing, the leading edge of time," writes Muller, as he delves into the history, philosophy, paradoxes and science behind our current understanding of time, offering testable theories (using data from LIGO) that might be able to shed light upon the nature and flow of time.
We often talk about how science fiction has inspired scientists, but this article by Ben Narasin, The Importance of Science Fiction to Entrepreneurship, discusses how hard SF has influenced many tech startups and tech entrepreneurs from Reid to Thiel to Bezos to Musk; the article mentions works such as Stephenson’s Diamond Age and Barnes’s Mother of Storms.
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4E6qahRUDgJLfGKMLwYdqG7jng2U9LpKMM2_TxVPsIH8xLfXx8IN9Pj1GRyaY6Uh3tIeJ5ZjPDeNdXdlfP6_PDIv370tezCfZ3qg0n61xB4s_YaV3KwiWf6zPq2Pq06cDWAY/s320/Now-time.jpg)
We often talk about how science fiction has inspired scientists, but this article by Ben Narasin, The Importance of Science Fiction to Entrepreneurship, discusses how hard SF has influenced many tech startups and tech entrepreneurs from Reid to Thiel to Bezos to Musk; the article mentions works such as Stephenson’s Diamond Age and Barnes’s Mother of Storms.
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0l63ANGcMS3pqlNkEifSisrjUrzizAQsAY-cXOW9KX3A_KjZZSMRiuz2mXEjzVBo1Ino7ca4ixeeETSJk95szO-e2YHJ7GwB4FxwjDUbxgK2JLqAeya4nEaRAiGmk763iylA/s320/spaceships.jpg)
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUjTWkeCiwo0IinhhrCLZjVO6BpC5jeD51rJU8fFezs8pmPuBJX6DPLdQc8l1MX3zXIzmnkDOJWw4HTaFdA6hBUke_brXXqE93hHUJgxOKLkbKph1dY7BJn2PwkPOMpe_ZfKE/s320/spaceship.jpg)
Diamandis and Guthrie will be appearing at the Arthur C. Clarke Center for Human Imagination at UCSD in early November to discuss the frontiers and successes of commercial spaceflight. The Clarke Center will also host the San Diego premiere of the film Arrival in November, based on a short story by Ted Chiang (author of the collection, Stories of Your Life and Others) -- who will be on hand to discuss the movie.
And now... on to the real stuff!
== Imagining alternate futures ==
A vision of transparency from an older classic: “Normally we live surrounded by transparent walls which seem to be knitted of sparkling air; we live beneath the eyes of everyone, always bathed in light. We have nothing to conceal from one another; besides this mode of living makes the difficult and exalted task of the Guardians much easier. Without it many bad things might happen. It is possible that the strange opaque dwellings of the ancients were responsible for their pitiful cellish psychology. “My (sic!) home is my fortress!” How did they manage to think such things?”
Sound reminiscent of our modern world? It is from We, a novel by Yevgeny Zamyatin, written 1921, immediately banned in the Soviet Union (and not published in the USSR until 1988). We inspired many of the later dystopian works by Orwell, Huxley, Vonnegut and others.
A few more recent novels that look at issues of technology, transparency and secrecy in the modern world:
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqbEw-U12ZVGPpTK2uGFaICdnpqhGmn-ZVz1Y_kpjkilT2WgNbzNpmDNcsttPBYGSq2pfEIv7TO8yIlY4qdMEUECo4UqY_TZ2s_Gy7QDkoKQwX6RoeVDopRZX5WpS1JKl_v8A/s320/darknet-mather.jpg)
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgX7pXL4JLMkCY7QKpQ7OUPzn2jWlUE9x0UtBlXPBs9u1UsAknNXi7j3zwyy1MO9hAbViHQVY-7MqfL3EtanPtGHP2-pl7RCXfdvQT07jLRoq_KOeuTyLUqmaTOmHE2-WZyVc/s320/end-secrets.jpg)
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNBd16rd04E3X1o71_7NFDbbFWF_f0dxcy20is9WWQuKASR-hM9sYR5yWBKXIrt9jZYOhKqXdqSVLH48KqhMxG3xhmVtbJr5d-9PJMzb2PN65POhUIkGRUaBStZaKgNO0lb2E/s320/hertling-avogadro.jpg)
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0wmpAK3oFwEsmrJYVPua_mdH66waxiz8oH51r7w_US0AjS71stYNLcDl4g4PSZz2tiQJYI9-t1sjffHCbebSzIqeuQ23pVRwJeCqXiQmdX-nuohEG3YWRjfn3Mwx7rOv5FNQ/s320/ashby-company-town.jpg)
See also... a recent look at Startide Rising on Fantasy Book Review.
If you're looking for an intense immersive science fictional adventure, check out Event Horizon on Kickstarter, a weekend of Live Action Role Playing (LARP), taking place up north of San Francisco this spring. Choose your character, choose your alien homeworld -- in a galaxy on the edge of chaos; choose your weapon and fight for the fate of the galaxy....