Science Fiction and No-Way Physics

The physics of impossibility goes by a variety of names, including no-way physics. These names refer to physical principles that simply can't be contravened or gotten around.

Robert P. Crease, chairman of the philosophy department at Stony Brook University and historian at the Brookhaven National Laboratory, recently wrote an interesting piece on this topic. He says in part:

No-way physics produces a special kind of dissatisfaction, involving the collision of science with our hopes and dreams ? of limitless energy, of superluminal travel, of pinning things to specific places at specific times. Humans seem hard-wired to have such hopes, and hard-wired to balk at the science that dashes them...

Science fiction writers seem hard-wired to balk at "no-way physics" as well. Even the people designated as "hard science fiction" writers are often inclined to go around the rules:

• Arthur C. Clarke
  Author of rigorously accurate novels like A Fall of Moondust, Clarke also remarked: "When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong." See 2001:A Space Odyssey to watch Clarke enjoy superluminal travel.
  Clarke's space suggestions range from the predictive (see geosynchronous satellite) to the fanciful (see Solar Tadpoles Finally Explained).
• Robert Heinlein
  Heinlein knew enough about science to think of many things that now exist (like Drafting Dan and Joy-boat Junior). But he was not above writing about things like the fold box (it's bigger on the inside than the outside) and the Tesseract House.
  He had plenty of practical space suggestions, like Skiing on the Moon , the lunar bicycle and Lunar Construction Techniques.
• Larry Niven
  Niven needs the big canvas; he's happy providing readers with things they could use now (like big push and floating islands) as well as things that - according to physicists - can't be done (like portable gravity lenses, stepping discs and the zero-time jail).
  He also had good advice on how to Look for Alien Civilizations.

Do you like science fiction that absolutely obeys the rules (as we know them) or are you more of a contrarian? Let us know.

Via No-way physics.

(This Science Fiction in the News story used with permission from Technovelgy.com - where science meets fiction.)