SCI-FI

  


     “If the facts don’t fit the theory, 

     change the facts.” 

  ~Albert Einstein

~Albert EinsteinIf the facts don't fit the theory, change the facts.
Read more at: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/topics/topic_science.html

If the facts don't fit the theory, change the facts. Albert Einstein
Read more at: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/topics/topic_science.html

If the facts don't fit the theory, change the facts. Albert Einstein
Read more at: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/topics/topic_science.html

       I've been a sci-fi fan since the late 1940's, when in grammar school I first started reading sci-fi comics, and later reams of pulp fiction short stories by masters like Bradbury, Heinlein and Lester Del Ray. I loved hiding under the covers at night listening to fascinatingly weird sci-fi radio shows like "Quiet Please." Old sci-fi movies were great (the original black-and-white "The Thing (from Outer Space)” starring James Arness is still one of the best. Even early tv offered primatively produced sci-fantasy series such as Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon, and of course "Outer Limits."
      Like many fans, I thought sci-fi had reached its pinnacle with movies such as Arthur C. Clarke's "2001, A Space Odessey," "Forbidden Planet," the original "War of the Worlds," and others of that period. Personally, I prefer Clarke's "2010" - the follow-up to "2001" - to the earlier opera grande.
      There is no doubt that Clarke was a talented visionary; we have lost a man with a very fertile imagination. While it's true that many of his ideas were based on those of earlier thinkers (there’s little brand new in this world), Clarke had the ability to transform a cold idea into an interesting saga which put behinds into seats at movie theaters.
      At some point along the way, I lost my taste for sci-fi stories and movies. I suppose the main reason is America's changing culture. Whereas earlier sci-fi tales were essentially dramatizations of scientific ideas, with just enough "life-style" of their characters thrown in to give them dimension, Hollywood decided it needed to appeal to a broader audience (a euphemism for greed), sci-fi scripts heavied-up on human foibles as complex romantic relationships entered the story lines. As kids usually put it; yuck, kissing. Then, sci-fi began injecting insufferabe politically correct themes. If I want that sort of thing, I'd much rather watch any movie with Bogart and Hepburn. The minute you introduce sex, complex relationships or political correctness into a sci-fi movie, you can start deducting stars and thumbs-up for that flick.
      Of course there are some notable exceptions. "Blade Runner" has strong sexual and romantic content, but with a difference. The human protagonist (convincingly played by Harrison Ford) isn't sure if the beauty he falls in love with (portrayed with cool heat by Sean Young) is or isn’t, well... really human. It's the crux of the story; when androids become convincingly human, will we “real” humans develop romantic relationships with them? It’s not an incidental side trip.
      But the primary reason I lost interest in sci-fi, I'm sorry to say, is that most of it just devolved into plain boring crap. So-called “big ideas” which are nowadays so highly touted are in reality simply simple-minded. No more science-based than the fire-breathing dragons or magic swords so prominently featured in sci-fantasy, the sister genre of sci-fi.
      One of Clarke's big ideas was the space elevator. The concept preceded Clarke's writings on the subject by decades. Be that as it may; here we have a large space station parked in a geo-stationary orbit, physically connected to the Earth by - let's call it a tether - a large tube. The tube acts as an elevator shaft (90 or more miles long!) wherein heavy objects and people can be lifted into space without the use of massive fuel-gulping spaceships. At the time of this writing, we were told that NASA has plans on paper for this kind of contraption. Okay fine. Look, there are so many holes in this space elevator concept that we ought not waste a nickel of taxpayer money on it.
      The science which is most interesting today is not what's on the minds of sci-fi writers, but on the production lines of real manufacturing companies. It appears that few if any sci-fi writers ever envisioned something like a wireless laptop computer which works at the speeds we now commonly experience; everybody connected via a world-wide internet where almost anything you want to know or see is available with the tapping of a few keys, within seconds. We can’t include Dick Tracy’s wrist-watch radio since it did little more than a two-way radio. But I'm sure you can think of other amazing things to come down the manufacturing conveyor belt of ingenuity in recent years, things which were not conceived in the pages of sci-fi.
      Today, accolades for creativity should go not to sci-fi writers or theoretical physicists but to the manufacturing geniuses of our era. They are so amazingly good they have forced sci-fi writers and theoretical scientists to go farther and farther out on the limb - into true borderland science - where most of the ideas are just plain, well... borderline.
      Who fills you with wonder more? People who can fit something that used to be the size of a two-car garage onto a tiny silicon chip the size of a Sen-Sen... or people who preach "dark matter" as mediator of the Cosmos’ movement (when they can't even really explain what gravity or electricity are)?
      Theoretical scientists may still be scratching their heads about exactly what electricity is... oh they can define its properties, interactions, et cetera, but as they say, let’s not confuse the map for the terrain.  Manufacturers and their engineers, on the other hand, aren't allowing any of that to stop them from bringing more and more amazing electronic marvels to market.
      Electronics product engineers may not know exactly what electricity is but they sure know how to make it do somersaults, don’t they?