scholarly journals From Science as Solution to Science as Suspect:

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nathan Fuhrer
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
Central Element ◽  
Human Science ◽  
New Science

Edified in Isaac Asimov's canonical Foundations trilogy, the exemplification of science as a panacea to human quandaries--herein referred to as technoidealism--is a central element of the 1950's science-fiction canon. Faced with a period of upheaval and a wave of new science fictions authors, this article explores the manner in which this assumption is modified, complicated, and popularly rejected. Drawing on the work of authors such as Isaac Asimov, Frank Herbert, Philip K. Dick, Jeff Somers, and Iain Reid, the technoidealist impulse serves to highlight the utopian current undergirding Asimov's work and the genre's complication of the human-science relationship. In drifting from its nascent futurist idealism, the literary endorsement of "science as solution" has veered toward "science as suspect" through a complication and reproval of the technoidealist assumption.  

scholarly journals Observing the impossible – in situ observations of hail trajectories using the HailSonde

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joshua Soderholm
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
Sensor Applications ◽  
New Science ◽  
Prototype Development ◽  
Real Science ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Micro Sensor ◽  
Battery Technology ◽  
Aviation Risk ◽  
Ground Impact

<p>From the early stages of hailstone growth to the ground-impact finale, a trajectory is taken by each hailstone through the parent hailstorm. Larger hailstones form as their trajectory takes them into regions of the storm that are more favorable for growth, while others may miss out entirely. Simulation-based studies have shown that interactions between the hailstone fall speed, aerodynamics, storm winds (which continue to change along the trajectory and with new growth) can take hailstones on a myriad of different trajectories. Despite improvements in radar technology over the last 20 years, operational hail analysis techniques have changed little, and do not consider trajectories, leaving a high degree of uncertainty when estimating ground impact.</p> <p>Case studies have demonstrated that trajectory information provides significant improvements to hail impact mapping and nowcasting services, but the lack of robust<br />observational datasets to leverage new radar technology and verify trajectories prevents the transition of this new science into operations. The follow proposal presents an innovative approach to measuring trajectories within a hailstorm using hailstone-shaped probes called “HailSondes”. Recent advances in low-energy telemetry, battery technology and electronics miniaturization are combined to make this new sensor possible, which, until recently, was the realm of fantasy for meteorologists (e.g., the 1996 Hollywood classic “Twister” imagined a similar sensors for observing tornadoes). The design challenges, simulations, prototype development and deployment of HailSondes are discussed.</p> <p>HailSonde measurements will provide critical validation for the practical application radarderived trajectories for hailstorm analysis and nowcasting, supporting the transition to future hail services and benefiting a wide range of sectors from aviation, risk management, transport and public safety. This transition from science fiction into real science signifies extraordinary potential for further remote micro-sensor applications in the future. </p>

scholarly journals Deceived by orchids: sex, science, fiction and Darwin

2016 ◽  
Vol 49 (2) ◽  
pp. 205-229 ◽  
Author(s):  
JIM ENDERSBY
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Science Fiction ◽  
Female Sexuality ◽  
Charles Darwin ◽  
Popular Fiction ◽  
Popular Science ◽  
New Science ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
Fiction Writers ◽  
The Many

AbstractBetween 1916 and 1927, botanists in several countries independently resolved three problems that had mystified earlier naturalists – including Charles Darwin: how did the many species of orchid that did not produce nectar persuade insects to pollinate them? Why did some orchid flowers seem to mimic insects? And why should a native British orchid suffer ‘attacks’ from a bee? Half a century after Darwin's death, these three mysteries were shown to be aspects of a phenomenon now known as pseudocopulation, whereby male insects are deceived into attempting to mate with the orchid's flowers, which mimic female insects; the males then carry the flower's pollen with them when they move on to try the next deceptive orchid. Early twentieth-century botanists were able to see what their predecessors had not because orchids (along with other plants) had undergone an imaginative re-creation: Darwin's science was appropriated by popular interpreters of science, including the novelist Grant Allen; then H.G. Wells imagined orchids as killers (inspiring a number of imitators), to produce a genre of orchid stories that reflected significant cultural shifts, not least in the presentation of female sexuality. It was only after these changes that scientists were able to see plants as equipped with agency, actively able to pursue their own, cunning reproductive strategies – and to outwit animals in the process. This paper traces the movement of a set of ideas that were created in a context that was recognizably scientific; they then became popular non-fiction, then popular fiction, and then inspired a new science, which in turn inspired a new generation of fiction writers. Long after clear barriers between elite and popular science had supposedly been established in the early twentieth century, they remained porous because a variety of imaginative writers kept destabilizing them. The fluidity of the boundaries between makers, interpreters and publics of scientific knowledge was a highly productive one; it helped biology become a vital part of public culture in the twentieth century and beyond.

UCR Hires New Science Fiction Librarian

2015 ◽  
Vol 42 (3) ◽  
pp. 614
Author(s):  
Alison Scott
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
New Science

Science, Technology and the Large Corporation

1992 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 190-212 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Wilks
Keyword(s):  
Technological Change ◽  
Science Fiction ◽  
Economic History ◽  
Industrial Development ◽  
Central Element ◽  
Industrial Growth ◽  
The Core ◽  
Science Technology ◽  
Future Society ◽  
Political Differences

ECONOMIC HISTORY IS FAR REMOVED FROM PRECISE SCIENCE and cannot offer an unambiguous explanation of the initiation, pace and causes of rapid industrial growth. Nevertheless, few economic historians would disagree that the pattern of growth is not random; and that in evaluating it, technological innovation must be a central element.The landmarks of industrial development are conventionally thought of in terms of science and technology. From the adoption of the stirrup and the plough, which heralded the feudal age in Europe; to the spread of the silicon chip and the microprocessor, which lie at the core of the emergent IT economy, the development of society can be charted in terms of technological change. And just as the analysis of technological change has become one of the dominant tools of the economic historian, so ‘futurology’ is centred around trajectories of innovation. Over the next century changes are projected which are just as profound as those experienced since 1890. The world of 2090 will be different, and while the fundamental political differences may be unpredictable, there is a presumption that it will be technologically very different from the present. It is appropriate that popular speculation about future society is termed not ‘future fiction’ but ‘science fiction’.

scholarly journals The future arrives earlier in Palo Alto (but when it's high noon there, it's already tomorrow in Asia): a conversation about writing science fiction and reimagining histories of science and technology

BJHS Themes ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 249-266
Author(s):  
ANNA GREENSPAN ◽  
ANIL MENON ◽  
KAVITA PHILIP ◽  
JEFFREY WASSERSTROM
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
Modern Science ◽  
Fiction Writing ◽  
Interdisciplinary Work ◽  
New Science ◽  
Catch Up ◽  
Digital Cultures ◽  
Global Influence ◽  
Writing Science ◽  
India And China

AbstractA conversation between philosopher of digital cultures Anna Greenspan and historian of China Jeffrey Wasserstrom, speculative-fiction writer Anil Menon, and historian of science Kavita Philip, exploring the emerging work from scholars who have grown up with the global influence of science fiction in popular culture while being trained in the disciplinary spaces between science, engineering, social science, law and the humanities. The following questions are addressed: what are the prehistories of science fiction and the futures of such interdisciplinary work? How do India and China, as places where important new science fiction is being written, and as nations exploding now into emerging markets characterized by technological dynamism, fit into older historiographic frames that saw the European Enlightenment as the source of modern science, and the ‘developing world’ as destined only to ever play catch-up? How should the politics of digital futures and non-European pasts figure in historical research and in fiction writing, keeping in mind the historian's fear of presentism and anachronism, and the fiction writer's dislike of political moralism?

Blackstone and the Science of Law

1987 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 311-335 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Lobban
Keyword(s):  
Significant Contribution ◽  
Human Science ◽  
The Other ◽  
New Science ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
English Law ◽  
The One ◽  
Theoretical Foundations ◽  
Sir William Jones

Blackstone's Commentaries have traditionally evoked two responses. On the one hand, from Bentham on, the work has been seen as confused and contradictory, based on theoretical foundations which were either irrelevant to his task, or ignored in practice in the book. On the other hand, although his achievement and in particular his theorising have been criticised, the Commentaries have also been seen as the first attempt to systematise English law and to ground it on solid principles, thereby creating a new ‘science of English law’. Both Lord Mansfield and Bentham himself praised Blackstone on this score, while Sir William Jones enthused that ‘his Commentaries are the most correct and beautiful outline that was ever exhibited of any human science’ Modern writers have agreed that Blackstone made a significant contribution to the development of law as a science.

Romanticism with the Machine (1): From Frankenstein’s Monster to Hippie Computing

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Coeckelbergh
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
Life Sciences ◽  
New Science ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Counter Culture ◽  
Historical Times ◽  
1960S And 1970S ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Romantic Science ◽  
A Current

In chapter 4 it is argued that already in historical times the romantic relation to technology cannot be reduced to mere opposition. It is shown how in the early nineteenth century romantics were not only fearful of, but also fascinated by the new science and technology. Drawing on Tresch (2012) and Holmes (2008) it is argued that there was a current in Romanticism which viewed science and the arts as entwined, and which tried to fuse the organic and the mechanic, life and science. These material romanticisms are neglected by philosophers of technology who reduce romanticism to escapism, nostalgia, or anti-machine thinking. This brings us to our age, with its life sciences and its robotics that share these deeply material-romantic aims. First it is shown how in the 20th century there was a romantic science (Freud) and how technology and romanticism became very much entangled: not only in science fiction but also in reality: born as hippie computing in the context of the 1960s and 1970s counter-culture, there is a development of what we may call romantic devices.

"Realists of a Larger Reality": On New Science Fiction

2016 ◽  
Vol 67 (11) ◽  
pp. 55
Author(s):  
Amy Schrager Lang ◽  
Daniel Rosza Lang/Levitsky
Keyword(s):  
Short Stories ◽  
Science Fiction ◽  
Index Volume ◽  
The United States ◽  
Literary Fiction ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Writers Of Color ◽  
Human Power ◽  
New Science ◽  
Near Future

<div class="quote-intro">Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings.<p class="quote-intro-author">&mdash;Ursula K. Le Guin</p></div>Le Guin is undoubtedly right about resistance in the "real" world, but in reading, only some books offer a call to resistance and the possibilities of a new reality. Among the books considered here, some come to us as "literary fiction"; others are marked as belonging to another, historically denigrated, form, "science fiction" or "fantasy." This could be a distinction without a difference: two are near-future dystopian novels about corporate capitalism in the United States (both by well-established white authors); two are collections of near-future short stories that set out to critique the human powers that structure our world (written by both established and new voices, primarily writers of color). But the books that embrace rather than evade their status as science fiction or fantasy are the ones able to imagine the resistance and change that Le Guin invokes.<p class="mrlink"><p class="mrpurchaselink"><a href="http://monthlyreview.org/index/volume-67-number-11" title="Vol. 67, No. 11: April 2016" target="_self">Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the <em>Monthly Review</em> website.</a></p>

‘Geoengineering'–taking Control of Our Planet's Climate

2009 ◽  
Vol 92 (2) ◽  
pp. 139-162 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Irvine ◽  
Andy Ridgwell
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Science Fiction ◽  
Environmental Quality ◽  
Global Environmental Change ◽  
Energy Sources ◽  
The Sun ◽  
International Consensus ◽  
New Science ◽  
Global Environmental ◽  
Dangerous Climate Change

There is international consensus that ‘dangerous’ climate change must be avoided. Yet without radical changes in energy sources and usage and global economies, changes that so far society has been unable or unwilling to make, it seems highly likely that we will start to experience unacceptably damaging and/or societally disruptive global environmental change later this century. What actions can be taken to safeguard future environmental quality, ecosystems, agriculture, economy, and society? A new science–‘geoengineering'–that until recently would have seemed pure science fiction, promises an alternative way of temporarily regaining control of climate. Colossal engineering schemes to shade the sun, make the atmosphere hazier, modify clouds, even throw iron into the ocean, are all being promoted as possible ways out of our dilemma. This article considers the state of this new science, and its implications for society.

scholarly journals Procedimientos cinemáticos en la narrativa de Edmundo Paz Soldán: "Norte" (2011), "Billie Ruth" (2012) e "Iris" (2014)

2016 ◽  
pp. 263
Author(s):  
José Seoane Riveira
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
American Literature ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Central Element ◽  
Latin American Literature ◽  
Film Genre ◽  
Literatura Latinoamericana ◽  
Contemporary Latin American Literature ◽  
The Media ◽  
Literary Techniques

La narrativa del escritor boliviano Edmundo Paz Soldán (Cochabamba, 1967), uno de los representantes más destacados de la generación McOndo, contiene numerosos ejemplos de lo que puede considerarse escritura cinemática. Este artículo analiza las estrategias visuales utilizadas por Soldán en Norte (2011), novela que importa rasgos del género negro clásico cinematográfico; su más reciente colección de cuentos, Billie Ruth (2012), que expone varias técnicas literarias que provienen directamente de la imagen o el montaje cinematográfico; y de su última novela, Iris (2014), en la que se llevan a cabo numerosos procesos narrativos pertenecientes al cine de ciencia ficción. Sus  narraciones son ejemplos que ponen en relieve la influencia decisiva que los medios de comunicación y entretenimiento, especialmente los de carácter visual y en concreto el cine, tienen en gran parte de la literatura latinoamericana contemporánea. The narrative production of the Bolivian writer Edmundo Paz Soldán (Cochabamba, 1967), one of the most prominent representatives of the McOndo generation, contains numerous examples of what can be considered as cinematic writing. This article analyzes some visual strategies used by Soldán in Norte (2011), a novel which presents characteristics of the classic noir film genre; his latest collection of short stories, Billie Ruth (2012), which sets out various literary techniques that come directly from the image or film editing; and his latest novel, Iris (2014), which carried out numerous narrative processes that belongs to science fiction cinema. His stories are examples that highlight the decisive influence that the media, especially the ones that present image as a central element and in particular the cinema, have in most contemporary Latin American literature.

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