"The advance of science does kill some romance. In 1950, it was still possible to think of a barely habitable Mars. There was still the possibility of canals, of liquid water, of a high civilization either alive or recently dead ? at least there was no definite scientific evidence to the contrary."
? Isaac Asimov, on A.E. van Vogt's Enchanted Village
Speculative Fiction often uses the real-world scientific knowledge that was actually available when it was written. There is nothing wrong with that, and indeed powering and justifying your world with Hard Science is, to many people, preferable to Applied Phlebotinum and Techno Babble. Basing your fictional science off of real world science is an excellent way to create Willing Suspension of Disbelief.
There's one problem with this approach, however: Science evolves. Five hundred years ago, some cultures thought that the sun revolved around the earth. One hundred years ago, there still were scientists who openly questioned the existence of atoms. And many of our current assumptions about Life, the Universe, and Everything will inevitably be questioned or disproven in the future. Therefore, when a scientific theory used widely in speculative fiction gets Jossed by new scientific discoveries, it's because Science Marches On.
And that's not to mention changes in scientific terminology, which are particularly jarring if a story set Twenty Minutes into the Future uses names that were widespread a few years ago, but are obsolete now, and are likely to remain so. For example, the word "atomic" has been mostly supplanted by "nuclear".
As a result, what seems like Did Not Do the Research in older fiction (in particular Space Does Not Work That Way and You Fail Biology) is actually this: They did do the research; it's just that said research is now outdated. Technology Marches On is a subtrope. Zeerust may be considered a sub-trope of this, as the old ideas of "futuristic" look dated now due to new advances in unforeseen directions. For instances where the change is in the historical record, see History Marches On. And when it's in society itself, see Society Marches On.
This can also include cases where writers predicted an advance in engineering that never happened for practical reasons, such as having our entire civilization powered by nuclear reactors by 1990, or having cities on the Moon in 2000. It's at least conceivable that such a thing could have happened in hindsight, but it would have been so expensive and unrewarding that it seems as absurd as things that have been actively contradicted by new scientific discoveries.
TvTropes Topic: SCIENCE MARCHES ON- http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ScienceMarchesOn
So in school today we where reading a play out loud and this is a sci-fi one written in the early fifties. Wait! Fifties?! You probably see where this is going. Since I missed two weeks of school due to a throat infection I was working on my missed assignments during this time but I clinged onto a few important details.
1. An inhabited alien planet is discovered smack dab between Mars and Jupiter.
2. It is 1/50th the size of Earth (about 254.84 Kilometers) but has an atmosphere of the same consistency and density.
3. And even though the story takes place in the year 2000 or so it was only discovered in the last couple of years despite constant radio emissions.
4. The aliens are intelligent and have a humanoid appearance.
Now even if you only have a rudimentary understanding of science there are several major issues with this that are blantantly obvious.
1. Being so far away from the sun outside of the goldylocks zone it would be frigging cold.
2. Being so small it would not have the gravity to support a dense atmosphere nor a strong enough magnetosphere to protect it from solar winds and stellar radiation.
3. Giving off radio communication waves it would have no doubt been discovered between the sixties and eighties easily.
4. While the asteroid belt is so sparse that your chances of being hit by one if you were to fly through it are next to nill, something the size of a moon would no doubt be struck far too many times over its life to hope to properly sustain life on its surface.
Some some lesser known facts.
1. Jupiter releases a metric fucktonne of radiation. While I do not know how far out it travels it would no doubt bombard the planet with deadly radiation since it cannot sustain a proper/if any magnetosphere.
2. Being so small there is a good chance that during its development that it would have been plucked out of orbit by either Jupiter or Mars and thus made a moon long before Earth supported life.
If life did develop on this planet it it would not be carbon based, nor have anything resembling humanoid inhabitants.
There are numerous other issues with a habitable planet so small existing where it is but I am not going to go out of my way and research but I must admit that for anybody in the last thirty years that would have been painful to read. Now the story itself is not tooooooo terribly bad, just scientificly ignorant.
Oh don't give me that look. There is no way in hell you have gone through life without something trivial insulting your intelligence. Hell thirty years from now Mass Effect and Deus Ex:HR are going to be laughing-stocks of the next generation for their scientific errors. Midnight at the Well of Souls was a fantastic book with some grand scientific truth but at the same time some of the science was so blantantly wrong it made you drool.
So enough about that when have you ever read something sci-fi written a LONG time ago that has already been proven scientifically false as science marches on?
P.S. Being not even close to an astronomer I have no doubt about scientific errors in my analysis but don't be a douche about it. Let me know and I will correct. Be a douche and I will ignore you.
EDIT: Yo! For those complaining that my inability to "just go with it" prevents me from enjoying media, so not true. The Mythbusters proved that I can still enjoy something that insults my intelligence.
? Isaac Asimov, on A.E. van Vogt's Enchanted Village
Speculative Fiction often uses the real-world scientific knowledge that was actually available when it was written. There is nothing wrong with that, and indeed powering and justifying your world with Hard Science is, to many people, preferable to Applied Phlebotinum and Techno Babble. Basing your fictional science off of real world science is an excellent way to create Willing Suspension of Disbelief.
There's one problem with this approach, however: Science evolves. Five hundred years ago, some cultures thought that the sun revolved around the earth. One hundred years ago, there still were scientists who openly questioned the existence of atoms. And many of our current assumptions about Life, the Universe, and Everything will inevitably be questioned or disproven in the future. Therefore, when a scientific theory used widely in speculative fiction gets Jossed by new scientific discoveries, it's because Science Marches On.
And that's not to mention changes in scientific terminology, which are particularly jarring if a story set Twenty Minutes into the Future uses names that were widespread a few years ago, but are obsolete now, and are likely to remain so. For example, the word "atomic" has been mostly supplanted by "nuclear".
As a result, what seems like Did Not Do the Research in older fiction (in particular Space Does Not Work That Way and You Fail Biology) is actually this: They did do the research; it's just that said research is now outdated. Technology Marches On is a subtrope. Zeerust may be considered a sub-trope of this, as the old ideas of "futuristic" look dated now due to new advances in unforeseen directions. For instances where the change is in the historical record, see History Marches On. And when it's in society itself, see Society Marches On.
This can also include cases where writers predicted an advance in engineering that never happened for practical reasons, such as having our entire civilization powered by nuclear reactors by 1990, or having cities on the Moon in 2000. It's at least conceivable that such a thing could have happened in hindsight, but it would have been so expensive and unrewarding that it seems as absurd as things that have been actively contradicted by new scientific discoveries.
TvTropes Topic: SCIENCE MARCHES ON- http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ScienceMarchesOn
So in school today we where reading a play out loud and this is a sci-fi one written in the early fifties. Wait! Fifties?! You probably see where this is going. Since I missed two weeks of school due to a throat infection I was working on my missed assignments during this time but I clinged onto a few important details.
1. An inhabited alien planet is discovered smack dab between Mars and Jupiter.
2. It is 1/50th the size of Earth (about 254.84 Kilometers) but has an atmosphere of the same consistency and density.
3. And even though the story takes place in the year 2000 or so it was only discovered in the last couple of years despite constant radio emissions.
4. The aliens are intelligent and have a humanoid appearance.
Now even if you only have a rudimentary understanding of science there are several major issues with this that are blantantly obvious.
1. Being so far away from the sun outside of the goldylocks zone it would be frigging cold.
2. Being so small it would not have the gravity to support a dense atmosphere nor a strong enough magnetosphere to protect it from solar winds and stellar radiation.
3. Giving off radio communication waves it would have no doubt been discovered between the sixties and eighties easily.
4. While the asteroid belt is so sparse that your chances of being hit by one if you were to fly through it are next to nill, something the size of a moon would no doubt be struck far too many times over its life to hope to properly sustain life on its surface.
Some some lesser known facts.
1. Jupiter releases a metric fucktonne of radiation. While I do not know how far out it travels it would no doubt bombard the planet with deadly radiation since it cannot sustain a proper/if any magnetosphere.
2. Being so small there is a good chance that during its development that it would have been plucked out of orbit by either Jupiter or Mars and thus made a moon long before Earth supported life.
If life did develop on this planet it it would not be carbon based, nor have anything resembling humanoid inhabitants.
There are numerous other issues with a habitable planet so small existing where it is but I am not going to go out of my way and research but I must admit that for anybody in the last thirty years that would have been painful to read. Now the story itself is not tooooooo terribly bad, just scientificly ignorant.
Oh don't give me that look. There is no way in hell you have gone through life without something trivial insulting your intelligence. Hell thirty years from now Mass Effect and Deus Ex:HR are going to be laughing-stocks of the next generation for their scientific errors. Midnight at the Well of Souls was a fantastic book with some grand scientific truth but at the same time some of the science was so blantantly wrong it made you drool.
So enough about that when have you ever read something sci-fi written a LONG time ago that has already been proven scientifically false as science marches on?
P.S. Being not even close to an astronomer I have no doubt about scientific errors in my analysis but don't be a douche about it. Let me know and I will correct. Be a douche and I will ignore you.
EDIT: Yo! For those complaining that my inability to "just go with it" prevents me from enjoying media, so not true. The Mythbusters proved that I can still enjoy something that insults my intelligence.
