Hot on the heels of last week’s posts about using 100 per cent proof real science in science fiction (Special Relativity in particular), Night Shade Books sent me a copy of Greg Egan’s recently released novel Incandescence. Greg Egan writes what can be called hard space opera. The space opera part comes from the fact that his books are set on a galaxy-sized canvas, and most of his protagonists are members of fantastically advanced civilizations. The “hard” part refers to hard science fiction — the physical laws followed and natural objects found within this type of story are written to be as close to scientifically accurate as possible.
Archive for the ‘Mathematics’ Category
Greg Egan’s Incandescence: Upping the Relativistic Ante
Eureka and Special Relativity: If Carter Can Do It, So Can You!
As chance would have it, the night after writing this post about the equations shown in science fiction, an episode of Eureka aired in which Sheriff Carter was faced with the pictured board full of equations.
Carter, not the most technical of men, had to learn the equations in order to have chance at stopping a runaway time-loop. The equations looked familiar, so I checked in with Kevin Grazier, Eureka’s science advisor, a JPL researcher, and a panelist on DISCOVER’s “Science Behind Science Fiction” Panel at this year’s Comic-Con. It turns out that Kevin actually wrote the equations, borrowed from a real class he gives that touches on the theories of special and general relativity. The equations refer to how time behaves in Einstein’s relativity theory, in particular, the phenomenon of time dilation. The neat part is that pretty much anybody who finished high school can master the math and science behind special relativity’s prediction of time dilation (as the title of this post says, if Carter can do it, so can you!).
Time dilation occurs noticeably when a object is moving close to the speed of light: imagine a spacecraft shooting by the Earth. From the point of view of someone standing on Earth, time dilation means that time is running slowly onboard the spacecraft. A second on the spaceship could be equal to an hour on Earth. (Time dilation has been experimentally verified using subatomic particles and particle accelerators, but the principle is the same.) The key is this one part of the board, which I’ve highlighted.
Equation Answers
Okay, here we go! (more…)
Propmasters Beware: It’s Actual Equation Time!
We’ve all watched the scene. Maybe it’s the scientist character trying to provide a huge dollop of exposition to the rest of the team, maybe it’s in a montage as the cast grope towards the breakthrough that will drive Act II.
Whatever it is, it features a blackboard / whiteboard / cave wall covered in equations that supposedly relate to the situation at hand. Some shows—such as Numb3rs—really try to match what’s on the board to the plot. Others just pick science equations at random, or delegate a junior props guy to scribble a grab-bag of greek letters and math symbols on the board. But can people really tell the difference? What follows are some equations (and hints) that relate to classic science-fiction scenarios — see if you can identify them. Answers and explanations tomorrow.
