Unexpected effects of good reading
Some books don’t seem quite as good as we remember.
Articles Tagged with science fiction
A village in space
The importance of being there
Indirect arguments
Simple is not always true
A common feature of paradoxers is a confusion between a simple argument and a correct one.
A surfeit of features
No one uses them all
Digital cameras, like calculators, have an immense menu of features. It’s certainly rare, and possibly unknown, for anyone to use them all. Why have them, then?
Why a forecast discussion?
More than numbers
Weather forecasts are much more reliable than they used to be, mostly thanks to more powerful computers. Input from people is still important, though.
The lovers’ lodestone
A prehistory of wireless telegraphy
It was much more difficult to stay in touch 300 years ago. A literary magazine from that era has a suggestion for a surprisingly modern way to do it.
Science fiction and verb conjugations
Past, present and future are not enough
Science fiction writers imagine whole new universes and explore their possibilities, as we’ve mentioned before. Perhaps they need to think about the changes in language that go along with them.
When predictions are wrong
The role of science fiction
Today’s world doesn’t look like most science fiction stories pictured it. But accurate prediction isn’t the main point of the genre.
How cold is space?
It’s more difficult than reading a thermometer
Our astronomer answers a question of interest to science-fiction writers.