Titlebook: New Light Through Old Windows: Exploring Contemporary Science Through 12 Classic Science Fiction Tal; Stephen Webb Book 2019 The Editor(s)

口味

Stephen WebbIntroduces and reprints 12 classic SF short stories (1858-1934).Examines the latest thinking surrounding each story’s main theme.Provides many suggestions for further reading

杂色

Pandemic,re decided the most humane way of dealing with the aftermath was simply to ignore it—to pretend the disease had not happened. Could a new pandemic possibly be worse than the Black Death or the Spanish Flu? Could it be as bad as the Scarlet Plague of Jack London’s story?

CHAFE

Artificial Intelligence,ved to be better than Kasparov at calculating moves in chess, a human still had to physically make the moves for the program: some tasks we find trivial remain difficult for computers (and vice versa). As computers continue to become more powerful, however, might we be entering an age in which they can do everything better than humans?

Fresco

Faster than Light Travel,ifficult to identify a theoretical reason why his method was flawed. In 1905, however, Einstein published his special theory of relativity; this new way of thinking clarified why the tachypomp cannot work as described.

悲观

晚来的提名

Matter Transmission,tter described in Milne’s story would of course not work as advertised, but physicists are working on a quantum version of a matter transmitter—a quantum teleporter. Quantum teleportation isn’t quite the equivalent of Milne’s device, or Star Trek’s more famous Transporter, but the technology is sure to change our world in the coming decades.

COLIC

容易懂得

Impact Events,ome from the skies? H.G. Wells considered the possibility more than a century ago. We now know this particular scenario is unlikely, but other equally destructive events are almost certain to happen. The question is: when? And: what can we do about it?

COUCH

Transmogrification,Advances in nanotechnology and biotechnology hold the promise of a brave new world, but also one in which threats to humanity could be of a uniquely terrible kind. Hodgson’s famous story provides the modern reader with a hint of the sort of horror that biotechnology could unleash.

Alopecia-Areata

Life on Mars,It’s one of the most interesting open questions in science: is there now, or has there ever been, life on Mars? Robotic rovers will surely someday give us the answer. Whatever that answer turns out to be, though, one thing is certain: the Mars of reality will be no match for the Mars of Weinbaum’s imagination.