Science Fiction Physics

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.

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 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.

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.

In Zoom, Bob Berman explores how motion shapes every aspect of the universe, literally from the ground up. With an informative and entertaining style and a knack for distilling the wondrous, Berman spans astronomy, geology, biology, meteorology, and the history of science, uncovering how clouds stay aloft, how the earth's rotation curves a home run's flight, and why a mosquito's familiar whine resembles a telephone's dial tone.

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 ...

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 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.

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.

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.

He loved her. Then lost her. Now time rewrites the story. Shockwave—AI with a rubber soul. Reality under siege. Can love survive the quantum storm? A Science Fiction epic story about how little shockwaves from outer space impact our lives every day and how the biggest shockwave of all time may be just around the corner. Watch the News at 11. The story begins nearly three hundred years into the future where humans have solved most of our problems except for one of the biggest ones – whether or not God exists and why we should care to know the definitive and final answer. The answer to ...

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.

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.

Four sci-fi short stories where you'll find good computers, people who regret their past, and an explanation for something you're familiar with.

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.

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.

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.

Embark on a gripping journey to the edges of the known universe with "The Prometheus Protocol." When the starship Astarte arrives at Kepler-186f, Captain Zara Vega and her team find more than an alien landscape—they discover a mysterious artifact pulsing with otherworldly energy. As they delve into its secrets, the artifact unlocks a power that transforms one crew member and forces them to confront the boundaries of human morality, knowledge, and survival. Racing against time, the crew faces a pivotal choice: harness the artifact’s power to elevate humanity or risk annihilation. In this...

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.

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.