Science Fiction Physics

From the stars they came to study us. Instead, they discovered what it truly means to be human. When five advanced alien scientists crash-land on Earth, their mission of passive observation becomes a desperate year-long struggle to understand humanity's true nature. Disguised as humans and embedded in key positions across society—a political consultant, an environmental researcher, a university professor, a military contractor, and a hospital doctor—they discover that Earth's inhabitants are far more complex than their data suggested. Led by Captain Zara, the youngest commander in her ...

This audiobook’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.

The Skolian Empire rules a third of the civilized galaxy through its mastery of faster-than-light communication. But war with the rival empire of the Traders seems imminent, a war that can only lead to slavery for the Skolians or the destruction of both sides. Destructive skirmishes have already occurred. A desperate attempt must be made to avert total disaster.

In the apocalypse, the first weapon Adrian will have to upgrade is himself. The end of the world as we know it couldn’t come at a worse time for him. One minute, he’s an operations manager who’s overseeing a construction job in the wilderness. The next, an unknown energy force changes the very nature of life itself, from the smallest organism to the top of the food chain. The Earth’s surviving inhabitants, its environment, and the very laws of physics have all undergone fundamental transformations. Many of those changes aren’t pretty.

The acclaimed Science of Discworld centred on an original Pratchett story about the Wizards of Discworld. In it they accidentally witnessed the creation and evolution of our universe, a plot which was interleaved with a Cohen & Stewart non-fiction narrative about Big Science. In The Science of Discworld II our authors join forces again to see just what happens when the wizards meddle with history in a battle against the elves for the future of humanity on Earth. London is replaced by a dozy Neanderthal village.

What if reality isn't what we think it is—and someone found a way to prove it? When brilliant physicist Dr. Marcus Emerson demonstrates a technology capable of altering the fabric of reality itself, he feels he has invented humanity's next big leap forward. However, as test subjects begin to experience vivid other worlds that refuse to remain contained in the laboratory, perception psychologist Dr. Aria Vance learns a horrifying truth: the machine isn't simply altering how people perceive the world; it's fragmenting existence itself. Following the strange disappearance of their most ...

The third and final book in the "Team Quantum" trilogy of superhero adventures! Now married, Mira Verborgen and Giancarlo Colombo have a problem. Turns out, there will be no honeymoon, not yet. And maybe not ever. After all, they'd just been informed that they will be going nuclear in three months. Literally. Their bodies are turning on them, and the more "super" they become, the faster they will explode. But maybe, just maybe there's an answer. It's a long shot, but it just might work. Then, the newlyweds can finally be alone... But first, they must stop the madman who caused this mess. ...

When an overworked team of government physicists unwittingly invites something catastrophic into the world, rising young New York lawyer Cal Griffin is forced into a strange new role in a world of nightmare and wonder.

A dying man stumbles into a police station and collapses. In his fist is a mysterious coin with strange markings. He tells the police he's from the future, and when they uncover the coin's hidden message, they're inclined to believe him. Daniel Rice never asked for fame, but his key role in Earth's first contact with an alien civilization thrust him into a social arena where any crackpot might take aim. When the FBI arrives at his door and predictions of the future start coming true, Daniel is dragged into a mission to save the world from nuclear holocaust.

Life isn’t so terrible for newly-coined physicist Mira Verborgen when she’s chosen for a cushy internship at CERN, located at the France-Switzerland border. After all, she gets to work side by side with dreamy physicist, Giancarlo Colombo, and be on the cutting edge of the latest particle accelerator experiments... That is, until she inadvertently becomes part of Dr. Orlov’s bonkers plan for world domination. Instead of exploring her budding relationship with Giancarlo, their relationship is cut short—along with their material existence. Indeed, the pair develop a startling and ...

In The Several Adventures of Muon Mimi, the laws of physics meet the chaos of one young woman’s extraordinary life. Megumi “Mimi” Anderson—a self-described nerd with a nuclear engineering degree and a knack for sharp sarcasm—always suspected she was a little different. But nothing could prepare her for the revelation that her body is a living particle accelerator, emitting high-energy muons under circumstances no scientist can fully explain. When an incident at a remote Serbian reactor draws global—and clandestine—attention, Mimi is thrust into a whirlwind of intrigue that ...

Based on the newly released personal letters of Albert Einstein, Walter Isaacson explores how an imaginative, impertinent patent clerk, a struggling father in a difficult marriage who couldn't get a teaching job or a doctorate, became the mind reader of the creator of the cosmos, the locksmith of the mysteries of the atom and the universe. His success came from questioning conventional wisdom and marveling at mysteries that struck others as mundane.

Watch out - the Earth just fell into a dark sun's orbit! Or maybe you'd rather visit a theme park called Hell? These are just two of the strange and unnerving tales you'll find in this collection of great science fiction and fantasy stories.

Our brains evolved to solve the survival problems of our Stone Age ancestors, so when faced with modern-day situations that are less extreme, they often encounter a mismatch. Our primitive brains put us on the wrong foot by responding to stimuli that - in prehistoric times - would have prompted behaviour that was beneficial. If you've ever felt an anxious fight-or-flight response to a presenting at a board meeting, equivalent to facing imminent death by sabre-toothed tiger, then you have experienced a mismatch.

People are used to seeing "fake physics" in science fiction - concepts like faster-than-light travel, antigravity, and time travel to name a few. The fiction label ought to be a giveaway, but some SF writers - especially those with a background in professional science - are so adept at "technobabble" that it can be difficult to work out what is fake and what is real. To confuse matters further, Isaac Asimov's 1948 piece about the fictitious time-traveling substance thiotimoline was written, not as a short story, but in the form of a spoof research paper.

When a cosmic anomaly disrupts the championship baseball game between Earth and Mars, reclusive trillionair Xan Ruiz-Harlow takes the bold step of shifting the contest into an artificial "Infinite Plane" existing outside of normal space-time. Now the elite players of the Earth Raptors and Mars Thunderbolts must adapt to playing in a dimension where the laws of physics are constantly warped in bizarre ways - balls defying gravity, trajectories altering inexplicably, and the very fabric of reality threatening to unravel with each pitch. As the greatest stars from both worlds employ innovative...

In this highly original book, Russell Blackford discusses the intersection of science fiction and humanity’s moral imagination. With the rise of science and technology in the 19th century, and our continually improving understanding of the cosmos, writers and thinkers soon began to imagine futures greatly different from the present. Science fiction was born out of the realization that future techno-scientific advances could dramatically change the world.

Dream Breach: First Contact (The Dream Breach Series, Book 0) 🔹 What if your dreams weren’t just dreams? What if they were the key to unlocking the deepest mysteries of existence? Dr. Sandra Chen believes in facts, data, and logic. But when her sister Emily vanishes after working on a classified consciousness experiment, Sandra is forced to confront a terrifying possibility—what if reality isn’t what we think? At Greenstone Medical Center, coma patients exhibit impossible brainwave patterns—as if their minds are communicating across dimensions. As Sandra investigates, she ...

The Science of Superheroes takes a lighthearted but clear-headed look at the real science that underlies some of the greatest superhero comic books of all time, including Spider-Man, Batman, Fantastic Four, and many more. Each chapter presents the story of the origin of one or more superheroes and asks intriguing questions that lead to fascinating discussions about the limits of science, the laws of nature, and the future of technology.

From the world's leading expert in forensic cyberpsychology - a discipline that combines psychology, forensics and technology - comes a groundbreaking exploration of the impact of technology on human behaviour. The average person now checks their phone over 200 times a day. That's a serious addiction - but because we're all doing it all the time, it doesn't seem quite so scary. And, like all addicts, we have avoided thinking about the implications of the cyber effect.