Books in the Science and Fiction series

There is a huge gulf between the real physics of space travel and the way it is commonly portrayed in movies and TV shows. That¿s not because space physics is difficult or obscure ¿ most of the details were understood by the end of the 18th century ¿ but because it can often be bafflingly counter-intuitive for a general audience. The purpose of this book isn¿t to criticize or debunk popular sci-fi depictions, which can be very entertaining, but to focus on how space physics really works. This is done with the aid of numerous practical illustrations taken from the works of serious science fiction authors ¿ from Jules Verne and Arthur C. Clarke to Larry Niven and Andy Weir ¿ who have taken positive pleasure in getting their scientific facts right.

Just Like Being There is the first collection of science fiction stories by award-winning author and aerospace engineer Eric Choi spanning his 25 year writing career. The stories are "hard" science fiction in which some element of engineering or science is so central there would be no story if that element were removed.

The voyage to Atlantis, the new home for mankind, enters a mysterious and disquieting territory, where conspiracy theories about what is real and what is virtual emerge. THE EXODUS INCIDENT is a novel about an interstellar journey, which connects science to virtual realities and epistemology.

Soon, they are cast into the middle of a crisis that threatens the future of their society and pits it against a parallel, but strictly separated, society where genome manipulation is forbidden on religious grounds.The book includes an essay on the potential of human genome engineering and related genome-based choices.

Invisibility has fascinated people since time immemorial, but only a decade ago did invisibility become a serious subject of scientific investigation.

SAINT JOAN OF NEW YORK is a novel about a math prodigy who becomes obsessed with discovering the Theory of Everything. Joan Cooper, a 17-year-old genius traumatized by the death of her older sister, tries to rebuild her shattered world by studying string theory and the efforts to unify the laws of physics.

Exploring Science Through Science Fiction addresses these and other intriguing questions, using science fiction as a springboard for discussing fundamental science concepts and cutting-edge science research.

People are used to seeing "fake physics" in science fiction - concepts like faster-than-light travel, antigravity and time travel to name a few.

Broderick homes in on the topic through the lens of science as well as fiction, exploring some fifty different time-travel scenarios and conundrums found in the science fiction literature and film.

From novels and short stories to television and film, popular media has made a cottage industry of predicting the end of the world will be caused by particle accelerators. Rather than allay such fears, public pronouncements by particle scientists themselves often unwittingly fan the flames of hysteria.This book surveys media depictions of particle accelerator physics and the perceived dangers these experiments pose. In addition, it describes the role of scientists in propagating such fears and misconceptions, offering as a conclusion ways in which the scientific community could successfully allay such misplaced fears through more effective communication strategies.The book is aimed at the general reader interested in separating fact from fiction in the field of high-energy physics, at science educators and communicators, and, last but not least, at all scientists concerned about these issues.About the AuthorKristine M Larsen holds a Ph.D. in Physics and is currently a professor at Central Connecticut State University, New Britain, CT, in the Geological Sciences Department. She has published a number of books, among them The Women Who Popularized Geology in the 19th Century (Springer, 2017), The Mythological Dimensions of Neil Gaiman (eds. Anthony Burdge, Jessica Burke, and Kristine Larsen. Kitsune Press, 2012. Recipient of the Gold Medal for Science Fiction/Fantasy in the 2012 Florida Publishing Association Awards), The Mythological Dimensions of Doctor Who (eds. Anthony Burdge, Jessica Burke, and Kristine Larsen. Kitsune Press, 2010), as well as Stephen Hawking: A Biography (Greenwood Press, 2005) and Cosmology 101 (Greenwood Press, (2007).

This book presents the reader with some of the earliest classic SF short stories - all of them published between 1858 and 1934, featuring both well-known and long-forgotten writers - dealing for the first time with topics to which science had (some) answers only at much later stages.

Carolyn's parents did not, after all, make genomics history by synthesizing her genome in a lab.

This book is about the American moon-landings - and about the doubts expressed ever since concerning the reality of these landings. Were the images of men on the moon really just a huge and cleverly executed hoax? Eversberg explains the best-known claims and conspiracy theories, and analyses the evidence with the help of detailed full-colour images, as well as numerous film documents that can be accessed directly from the book. He addresses both the persistent older claims and more recently devised doubts. The book will inform and entertain a wide range of readers interested in space exploration and tells a gripping story covering physics, politics and history.

Science fiction explores the wonderful, baffling and wildly entertaining aspects of a universe unimaginably old and vast, and with a future even more immense. It reaches into that endless cosmos with the tools of rational investigation and storytelling. At the core of both science and science fiction is the engaged human mind--a consciousness that sees and feels and thinks and loves. But what is this mind, this aware and self-aware consciousness that seems unlike anything else we experience? What makes consciousness the Hard Problem of philosophy, still unsolved after millennia of probing? This book looks into the heart of this mystery - at the science and philosophy of consciousness and at many inspiring fictional examples - and finds strange, challenging answers.The book's content and entertaining style will appeal equally to science fiction enthusiasts and scholars, including cognitive and neuroscientists, as well as philosophers of mind. It is a refreshing romp through the science and science fiction of consciousness.

Yet, in the newly settled Simpac system, some unexpected and worrying anomalies begin cropping up, making an urgent expedition to the system necessary: is it the underlying data, the computations, or is some unknown entity tampering with the space colonization program?

Two shorter essays on the second topic - time travel in SF literature - introduce, amongst others, the well-known and fascinating mosaic novel Time Gifts, which skillfully explores the more literary side of the notions of past, present and future.

The Cold War saw scientists in East and West racing to create amazing new technologies, the like of which the world had never seen. Yet not everyone was taken by surprise. From super-powerful atomic weapons to rockets and space travel, readers of science fiction (SF) had seen it all before. Sometimes reality lived up to the SF vision, at other times it didn't. The hydrogen bomb was as terrifyingly destructive as anything in fiction, while real-world lasers didn't come close to the promise of the classic SF ray gun. Nevertheless, when the scientific Cold War culminated in the Strategic Defence Initiative of the 1980s, it was so science-fictional in its aspirations that the media dubbed it "Star Wars". This entertaining account, offering a plethora of little known facts and insights from previously classified military projects, shows how the real-world science of the Cold War followed in the footsteps of SF - and how the two together changed our perception of both science and scientists, and paved the way to the world we live in today.

This riveting scientific novel combines adventure, love, suspense, magic, pathos, and mystery in a carefully woven plot that is full of unexpected twists and turns.

In this highly original book, Russell Blackford discusses the intersection of science fiction and humanity's moral imagination.

Informative, entertaining and upbeat, this book continues Grazier and Cass's exploration of how technology, science, and scientists are portrayed in Hollywood productions.

This collection of science fiction writings by Jayant V. Narlikar offers readers a unique glimpse into the world-famous Indian astrophysicist¿s vivid and highly imaginative concepts and stories.The fictional material comprises a witty short story ("The rare idol of Ganesha") that cleverly explores the possible consequences of a mirror-symmetric individual in the context of cricket test match performances, as well as the fast-paced, gripping science fiction thriller "The return of Vaman": when an alien container is unearthed by a crew of scientists, the enormous potential technological applications of its contents bring various criminal elements on the scene ¿ but when the real danger becomes apparent it is almost too late to save humanity.Last but not least, the book provides readers with extensive insights into the genesis and scientific background of the fictional material presented in this volume, along with an autobiographical account of the author¿s life-long interest in science fiction and his contributions to the genre.About the author:Jayant V. Narlikar is internationally known for his work in cosmology, in particular for championing models alternative to the standard big-bang theory. He was president of the cosmology commission of the International Astronomical Union from 1994 to 1997. He has received several national and international awards and honorary doctorates - he is a Bhatnagar awardee, as well as recipient of the M.P. Birla award, the Prix Janssen of the French Astronomical Society and an Associate of the Royal Astronomical Society of London. He is Fellow of the three Indian national science academies as well as of the Third World Academy of Sciences. Well beyond his scientific research, Prof. Narlikar is widely known as a science communicator through his books, articles and radio/TV programs and he was honored by the UNESCO in 1996 with the Kalinga Award.He made his debut in science fiction writing in 1974, bywinning the top prize in the story writing competition organized by the Marathi Vidnyan Parishad, a non-governmental organization engaged in science popularization.