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Regarding H.G. Wells, Leo Szilard, and the atomic bomb, is this letter something other than exactly what it looks like? https://library.ucsd.edu/dc/object/bb583

Regarding H.G. Wells, Leo Szilard, and the atomic bomb, is this letter something other than exactly what it looks like? https://library.ucsd.edu/dc/object/bb58377715/_1.pdf https://library.ucsd.edu/dc/object/bb58377715/_1.pdf More broadly, I don't buy for a second that science fiction doesn't feed back into the minds of scientists and engineers working on the next big thing. It would be strange if it didn't, and I think the burden of proof is on you to show that scientists and engineers are universally exercising the sort of perfect mental hygiene it would take to isolate themselves from the baseless speculations of writers.

light_hue_1 5y ago
> More broadly, I don't buy for a second that science fiction doesn't feed back into the minds of scientists and engineers working on the next big thing. It would be strange if it didn't, and I think the burden of proof is on you to show that scientists and engineers are universally exercising the sort of perfect mental hygiene it would take to isolate themselves from the baseless speculations of writers. You don't need to isolate yourself. The baseless speculations of writers just don't help in doing science. If you pick any discovery, you'll see that it was a consequence of a lot of work and intuition about a particular area of math, physics, engineering, or biology. Scientists aren't waiting for the next Star Trek episode hoping to find some ideas. The reason is simple: the ideas in science fiction don't work. Almost always what we get is totally different from what was predicted and usually more amazing, and it's shaped by the math/physics/engineering/biology that led us there, not b some outcome we want to match in science fiction. It's just a cognitive bias that you remember good SF predictions and forget bad ones. This whole Wells atomic bomb business is a prime example. Szilard couldn't possibly get any ideas from Wells. Because Szilard's actual contribution has nothing to do with what Wells wrote. He discovered chain reactions. And how he did so is well documented, by analogy to chemical chain reactions. Literally nothing in Wells would ever help you discover nuclear chain reactions. Nor is it obvious that what Wells wrote requires chain reactions, you can think of other fanciful mechanisms.
- caconym_ 5y ago
  I literally posted a link to what appears to be a letter written by Szilard himself (please correct me if I'm wrong), directly citing Wells' story as inspiration in an account of his own relationship with the genesis of the atomic bomb. I can't help but notice that you seem to have completely ignored it in the construction of your response. Perhaps you didn't read my comment very thoroughly.
  - ramraj07 5y ago
    Dudes hell bent on insisting that we have the greatest scientific system today, not sure there’s much to say to convince otherwise.
  - light_hue_1 5y ago
    I read it. You should read it carefully too. He says he read a book. He never says it was an inspiration. Just because I do AI research and tell someone I watched Star Trek, does that mean I'm saying that my latest NeurIPS paper is inspired by Star Trek? No way.
    - caconym_ 5y ago
      The suggestion that he'd mention it in the very first sentence of an account of how he arrived at the idea for the atomic bomb, when in fact it was totally irrelevant at the time, is absurd on its face; and your analogy is terrible. A better analogy might be somebody asking you how you developed your "latest NeurIPS paper" and you responding by describing a Star Trek episode in which a (superficially) similar technology is used, before even mentioning your own work. And later, perhaps, recounting how you exclaimed Star Trek, here we come! when you had your key insight. You've overextended your argument, and you know it. There is no use continuing this conversation if you're going to go to such absurd lengths to deny what's obvious.
- tiborsaas 5y ago
  > the ideas in science fiction don't work Like robots, flying cars, space stations, tablets, electric cars, AI...? Sci-fi lets us set impossible looking goals, until somebody comes up with something similar and practical. I'd give sci-fi more credit for shaping our current world. Writers dream, science builds which I think is a beautiful symbiosis.

light_hue_1 5y ago

> More broadly, I don't buy for a second that science fiction doesn't feed back into the minds of scientists and engineers working on the next big thing. It would be strange if it didn't, and I think the burden of proof is on you to show that scientists and engineers are universally exercising the sort of perfect mental hygiene it would take to isolate themselves from the baseless speculations of writers. You don't need to isolate yourself. The baseless speculations of writers just don't help in doing science. If you pick any discovery, you'll see that it was a consequence of a lot of work and intuition about a particular area of math, physics, engineering, or biology. Scientists aren't waiting for the next Star Trek episode hoping to find some ideas. The reason is simple: the ideas in science fiction don't work. Almost always what we get is totally different from what was predicted and usually more amazing, and it's shaped by the math/physics/engineering/biology that led us there, not b some outcome we want to match in science fiction. It's just a cognitive bias that you remember good SF predictions and forget bad ones. This whole Wells atomic bomb business is a prime example. Szilard couldn't possibly get any ideas from Wells. Because Szilard's actual contribution has nothing to do with what Wells wrote. He discovered chain reactions. And how he did so is well documented, by analogy to chemical chain reactions. Literally nothing in Wells would ever help you discover nuclear chain reactions. Nor is it obvious that what Wells wrote requires chain reactions, you can think of other fanciful mechanisms.

caconym_ 5y ago
I literally posted a link to what appears to be a letter written by Szilard himself (please correct me if I'm wrong), directly citing Wells' story as inspiration in an account of his own relationship with the genesis of the atomic bomb. I can't help but notice that you seem to have completely ignored it in the construction of your response. Perhaps you didn't read my comment very thoroughly.
- ramraj07 5y ago
  Dudes hell bent on insisting that we have the greatest scientific system today, not sure there’s much to say to convince otherwise.
- light_hue_1 5y ago
  I read it. You should read it carefully too. He says he read a book. He never says it was an inspiration. Just because I do AI research and tell someone I watched Star Trek, does that mean I'm saying that my latest NeurIPS paper is inspired by Star Trek? No way.
  - caconym_ 5y ago
    The suggestion that he'd mention it in the very first sentence of an account of how he arrived at the idea for the atomic bomb, when in fact it was totally irrelevant at the time, is absurd on its face; and your analogy is terrible. A better analogy might be somebody asking you how you developed your "latest NeurIPS paper" and you responding by describing a Star Trek episode in which a (superficially) similar technology is used, before even mentioning your own work. And later, perhaps, recounting how you exclaimed Star Trek, here we come! when you had your key insight. You've overextended your argument, and you know it. There is no use continuing this conversation if you're going to go to such absurd lengths to deny what's obvious.
tiborsaas 5y ago
> the ideas in science fiction don't work Like robots, flying cars, space stations, tablets, electric cars, AI...? Sci-fi lets us set impossible looking goals, until somebody comes up with something similar and practical. I'd give sci-fi more credit for shaping our current world. Writers dream, science builds which I think is a beautiful symbiosis.