Science Fiction Physics

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.

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 ...

Since the fall of the Soviet Union, long-suppressed information has emerged on Heisenberg’s role in the Nazi atomic bomb project. In Beyond Uncertainty, Cassidy interprets this and other previously unknown material within the context of his vast research and tackles the vexing questions of a scientist’s personal responsibility and guilt when serving an abhorrent military regime.

Discovery & Destruction In the electrifying second installment of the Galactic Travelers series, Frank Bryant returns to his home planet, now a bustling urban center transformed by human expansion. As a key figure in the Wormhole Initiative, Frank is immediately thrust into turmoil when his team comes under attack on their research station. Frank’s homecoming is bittersweet. While he reconnects with family and revisits his childhood haunts, he cannot escape the looming crisis. Powerful corporations and government agencies vie for control of the Initiative’s groundbreaking discoveries, ...

Lighthearted, quirky, and upbeat, this book explores the portrayal of science and technology on both the big and little screen - and how Hollywood is actually doing a better job of getting it right than ever before. Grounded in the real-word, and often cutting-edge, science and technology that inspires fictional science, the authors survey Hollywood depictions of topics such as quantum mechanics, parallel universes, and alien worlds.

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.

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.

Our relentless drive to create makes us unique among living creatures. What is special about the human brain that enables us to innovate? Why don't cows choreograph dances? Why don't squirrels build elevators to their treetops? Why don't alligators invent speedboats? Weaving together the arts and sciences, neuroscientist David Eagleman and composer Anthony Brandt explore the need for novelty, the simulation of possible futures, and the social components that drive the inventiveness of our species.

A desperate voyage across the galaxy to save the human race... What could go wrong? "Like Hitchhiker's Guide... but they have no Guide!" "What's crazier than Alice jumping down the rabbit hole? Zaggar and Robbins' journey through a Wormhole! "Full of original ideas!" Will Ziegfeld Zaggar and his reluctant sidekick, Jack Robbins, finally get a few minutes to relax after their journey across parallel worlds trying to save the Multiverse from a bad case of accelerated entropy? Or will they be interrupted by a dirty rotten alien invasion? In their second outing, our mismatched duo will be ...

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.

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.

More than 50 years after publishing his first story, Hugo Award-winning author Asimov remains one of the great names in science fiction. Almost single-handedly he transformed the field from the romantic and Gothic legacy of Jules Verne and Edgar Rice Burroughs into the rational, clear-minded genre that exists today. This selection of some of Asimov's most enduring and unforgettable stories is read by the author himself. These vintage tales encompass the full range of Asimov's versatility, while displaying his puckish sense of humor.

They survived the accident that made them superhuman. Now they’re racing to stop the one that will end the world. Mira Verborgen and Giancarlo Bianchi never asked to become living physics anomalies—able to shapeshift, heal instantly, and defy the laws of matter. But the same catastrophic experiment that gave them their powers also turned them into ticking time bombs. With just weeks before they detonate like nuclear weapons, they’re desperate to find a cure. The only chance? Repeating the experiment in a working particle collider. But their old enemy Dr. Orlov—insane, equally ...

Did NASA really spend millions creating a pen that would write in space? Is chocolate poisonous to dogs? Does stress cause gray hair? These questions are a sample of the urban lore investigated in this audiobook, Fact or Fiction: Science Tackles 58 Popular Myths. Drawing from Scientific American’s “Fact or Fiction” and “Strange But True” columns, we’ve selected 58 of the most surprising, fascinating, useful, and just plain wacky topics confronted by our writers over the years.

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.

String Theory.Quantum Mechanics.Joey Ramone.Zoe Stanton’s life used to be normal. Which is to say normal, but by no means average. Then her mother died and with her passing came the era of the new normal; one that was anything but.And now her father was gone too.Zoe arrived home from school one afternoon to discover her father missing and his basement office in ruin. What’s more, there was a curious new addition to the Stanton family home. An old utility closet had mysteriously transformed into a portal to the infinite. Zoe was about to venture deep into the weird world of quantum theory.

Sometime in the not-too-distant future...unbeknownst to Earth, the galaxy is home to a number of spacefaring societies. This confederation enforces a strict protocol forbidding any contact with civilizations that have not yet achieved both a substantial spacefaring capability and sufficient maturity to control the technology explosion before triggering their own extinction.

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.

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.

In this SF Short Story, Cosmologist Miranda inherits the quest to find the equation for everything. From two dead men. She knows she can solve it. She's afraid her predecessors did, too. She's scared enough to ask Walter, adrift since they split, to be there when she succeeds.