The uses and abuses of science fiction

Interdisciplinary Science Reviews

Volumn 28, Issue 3, 2003, Pages 175-178

  Steinmüller, Karlheinz ^a,b  

^a Z punkt GmbH   (Germany)

^b NONE   (Germany)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT; IMAGE ANALYSIS; MOON; TELEVISION;

CYBERSPACE; SCIENCE FICTION (SF);

SOCIAL ASPECTS;

EID: 0344515613     PISSN: 03080188     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1179/030801803225005067     Document Type: Review

References (15)

1. See for example the entry on 'Definitions of SF' in J. CLUTE and P. NICHOLLS (ed.): The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction; 1993, London, Orbit.
2. S. MOSKOWITZ: Explorers of the Infinite. Shapers of Science Fiction, 11; 1974, Westport, CO, Hyperion Press.
3. Some SF stories by famous scientists - Otto Frisch, George Gamow, Fred Hoyle, Leo Szilard, Norbert Wiener, ... - were published in the anthologies Great Science Fiction by Scientists (1962, New York, NY. Collier Books) and The Expert Dreamers (1963, London, Gollancz).
4. In Star Trek terminology, this is the 'beaming' of one person simultaneously to two places. To my knowledge the idea was first elaborated by Norbert Wiener. More recently artificial intelligence researchers and robotics scientists such as Ray Kurzweil have speculated on means of recording the information content of the human brain - as a route to software based immortality in changing bodies.
5. D. SUVIN: Metamorphoses of Science Fiction: On the Poetics and History of a Literary Genre; 1979, London/New Haven, CO, Yale University Press.
6. It should be noted that SF constructs future scenarios in a similar way to futurology.
7. As quoted in R. LAMBOURNE, M. SHALLIS and M. SHORTLAND: Close Encounters? Science and Science Fiction, 27; 1990, Bristol/New York, NY, Adam Hilger.
8. P. WYLIE: "Science fiction and sanity in an age of crisis', in Modern Science Fiction. Its Meaning and Its Future, (ed. R. Bretnor), 230; 1953, New York, NY, Coward-McCann.
9. R. LAMBOURNE et al.: Close Encounters?, pp. 39-48 (see Note 7).
10. At that time, neutron stars were still a theoretical concept; the first astronomical observations were made in 1967.
11. From an interview with Jules Verne in T .P.'s Weekly, 9 October 1903. as quoted in P. PARRINDER (ed.): H. G. Wells. The Critical Heritage, 101-102; 1972, London/Boston, MA, Routledge and Kegan Paul.
12. From an interview with Jules Verne in T .P.'s Weekly, 9 October 1903. as quoted in P. PARRINDER (ed.): H. G. Wells. The Critical Heritage, 101-102; 1972, London/Boston, MA, Routledge and Kegan Paul.
13. SF writer L. Ron Hubbard became famous as the founder of the authoritarian pseudoreligious 'Scientology' organisation, whose teachings are concocted from various SF motifs (superman, thought control, etc.).
14. The optimistic image of a future atomic age was shared equally by many scientists, politicians, the broader public, and even futures researchers such as Herman Kahn. SF writer and futurologist Arthur C. Clarke once even insisted that a sufficiently advanced science would not be distinguishable from magic (Profiles of the Future, 1962).
15. P. PARRINDER: 'Scientists in science fiction: enlightenment and after', in Science Fiction Roots and Branches. Contemporary Critical Approaches, (ed. R. Garnett and R. J. Ellis), 62-64; 1990, London, Macmillan.