4 ms·

I keep seeing Three Body being called "hard sci-fi", and I can't understand why. In my vocabulary, that term means scientifically plausible or at the very leas

by T-A 10y ago

I keep seeing Three Body being called "hard sci-fi", and I can't understand why. In my vocabulary, that term means scientifically plausible or at the very least not manifestly impossible. But core elements of Three Body are just that: impossible. Even without going into the bizarre dimensional unfolding of protons (which are not even fundamental particles) to nice 2D membranes on which circuits are etched using meson beams (...), the resulting sophons are then used to communicate instantaneously over interstellar distances, courtesy of quantum entanglement. And no, that's not how quantum entanglement works; you can't use it to transfer information at superluminal speeds. The "science" in Three Body is at the level of Star Trek technobabble. It might sound sciency to laymen, but it is really just magic with a modern coat of paint.

klipt 10y ago
It's difficult to write galaxy spanning fiction without some form of FTL communication. Even Isaac Asimov uses "ultrawave relays" in Foundation. If Foundation isn't hard sci-fi anymore, what's left? Only books like The Martian that don't leave our solar system?
- sbierwagen 10y ago
  The Foundation also had psychic powers, pocket-sized nuclear reactors, and people accurately predicting political events occurring hundreds of years in the future. Just because Clarke wrote it doesn't mean it's hard SF.
  - neaden 10y ago
    Does hard sci-fi change over time though? I'm not sure but I would imagine that pocket-sized nuclear reactors for instance were at one time plausible, if the story was written when that was a case is it hard sci-fi? Or does it cease to be hard sci-fi as our understanding of the universe changes?
  - mcguire 10y ago
    Asimov wrote Foundation. To tell the truth, I don't personally consider any SF Asimov wrote to be particularly "hard".
    - sbierwagen 10y ago
      Whoops.
- eridius 10y ago
  You can handwave some sort of FTL communication based on undiscovered physics if you want, but if you do that you need to avoid trying to explain it in a way that violates current scientific understanding. For example, you can't just declare that it works because of quantum entanglement.
  - lfowles 10y ago
    Hypothetically, would you extend this to say that if current scientific understanding changes then a book could transition out of "hard science fiction"? I'd have to say it's more about intent than reality. I've heard of Brandon Sanderson's novels described as "hard magic fantasy", because even though the magic is made up it's largely consistent with the established world.
    - eridius 10y ago
      I think it's reasonable to say whether it's "hard" as determined at the point of publication. If you're reading old hard sci-fi, it may include things that were consistent with the scientific understanding at the time it was written but which were subsequently found to be incorrect.
- lmm 10y ago
  Alastair Reynolds does it. There are levels of hardness. The mark of hard SF is a small number of breaks from reality, used effectively. If you use a different break from reality every time, you might as well be writing fantasy.
- T-A 10y ago
  It's been a long time since I read Foundation, but I'm pretty sure Asimov was too smart to explain how those "ultrawave relays" worked. As a reader I am therefore free to assume that they are based on future physics discoveries (maybe involving wormholes?). That's fine as long as there is no obvious contradiction of known physics. The really hard way though is to do what Robert Forward did in "Flight of the Dragonfly [1]: it includes 30+ pages and 12 figures with technical details. He worked it all out at the level of a real mission proposal. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocheworld https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocheworld
- farright 10y ago
  FTL is a big problem for hard sci fi. What we know about the physical world is amazing and beautiful, and it's hard to see novels butcher it by adding in FTL. On the other hand, without FTL the theme of every novel becomes "I travelled to another star and now everyone I know is dead", or the light-speed limit otherwise ends up dominating the plot and squeezing out everything else.

by T-A 10y ago

klipt 10y ago

It's difficult to write galaxy spanning fiction without some form of FTL communication. Even Isaac Asimov uses "ultrawave relays" in Foundation. If Foundation isn't hard sci-fi anymore, what's left? Only books like The Martian that don't leave our solar system?

sbierwagen 10y ago
The Foundation also had psychic powers, pocket-sized nuclear reactors, and people accurately predicting political events occurring hundreds of years in the future. Just because Clarke wrote it doesn't mean it's hard SF.
- neaden 10y ago
  Does hard sci-fi change over time though? I'm not sure but I would imagine that pocket-sized nuclear reactors for instance were at one time plausible, if the story was written when that was a case is it hard sci-fi? Or does it cease to be hard sci-fi as our understanding of the universe changes?
- mcguire 10y ago
  Asimov wrote Foundation. To tell the truth, I don't personally consider any SF Asimov wrote to be particularly "hard".
  - sbierwagen 10y ago
    Whoops.
eridius 10y ago
You can handwave some sort of FTL communication based on undiscovered physics if you want, but if you do that you need to avoid trying to explain it in a way that violates current scientific understanding. For example, you can't just declare that it works because of quantum entanglement.
- lfowles 10y ago
  Hypothetically, would you extend this to say that if current scientific understanding changes then a book could transition out of "hard science fiction"? I'd have to say it's more about intent than reality. I've heard of Brandon Sanderson's novels described as "hard magic fantasy", because even though the magic is made up it's largely consistent with the established world.
  - eridius 10y ago
    I think it's reasonable to say whether it's "hard" as determined at the point of publication. If you're reading old hard sci-fi, it may include things that were consistent with the scientific understanding at the time it was written but which were subsequently found to be incorrect.
lmm 10y ago
Alastair Reynolds does it. There are levels of hardness. The mark of hard SF is a small number of breaks from reality, used effectively. If you use a different break from reality every time, you might as well be writing fantasy.
T-A 10y ago
It's been a long time since I read Foundation, but I'm pretty sure Asimov was too smart to explain how those "ultrawave relays" worked. As a reader I am therefore free to assume that they are based on future physics discoveries (maybe involving wormholes?). That's fine as long as there is no obvious contradiction of known physics. The really hard way though is to do what Robert Forward did in "Flight of the Dragonfly [1]: it includes 30+ pages and 12 figures with technical details. He worked it all out at the level of a real mission proposal. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocheworld https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocheworld
farright 10y ago
FTL is a big problem for hard sci fi. What we know about the physical world is amazing and beautiful, and it's hard to see novels butcher it by adding in FTL. On the other hand, without FTL the theme of every novel becomes "I travelled to another star and now everyone I know is dead", or the light-speed limit otherwise ends up dominating the plot and squeezing out everything else.