All the Wonder that Would Be (eBook)

Exploring Past Notions of the Future

(Autor)

eBook Download: PDF
2017 | 1st ed. 2017
XIII, 344 Seiten
Springer International Publishing (Verlag)
978-3-319-51759-9 (ISBN)

Lese- und Medienproben

All the Wonder that Would Be - Stephen Webb
Systemvoraussetzungen
26,74 inkl. MwSt
  • Download sofort lieferbar
  • Zahlungsarten anzeigen

It has been argued that science fiction (SF) gives a kind of weather forecast - not the telling of a fortune but rather the rough feeling of what the future might be like. The intention in this book is to consider some of these bygone forecasts made by SF and to use this as a prism through which to view current developments in science and technology.

In each of the ten main chapters - dealing in turn with antigravity, space travel, aliens, time travel, the nature of reality, invisibility, robots, means of transportation, augmentation of the human body, and, last but not least, mad scientists - common assumptions once made by the SF community about how the future would turn out are compared with our modern understanding of various scientific phenomena and, in some cases, with the industrial scaling of computational and technological breakthroughs.

A further intention is to explain how the predictions and expectations of SF were rooted in the scientific orthodoxy of their day, and use this to explore how our scientific understanding of various topics has developed over time, as well as to demonstrate how the ideas popularized in SF subsequently influenced working scientists.

Since gaining a BSc in physics from the University of Bristol and a PhD in theoretical physics from the University of Manchester, Stephen Webb has worked in a variety of universities in the UK. He is a regular contributor to the Yearbook of Astronomy series and has published an undergraduate textbook on distance determination in astronomy and cosmology as well as several popular science books.



Since gaining a BSc in physics from the University of Bristol and a PhD in theoretical physics from the University of Manchester, Stephen Webb has worked in a variety of universities in the UK. He is a regular contributor to the Yearbook of Astronomy series and has published an undergraduate textbook Measuring the Universe - The Cosmological Distance Ladder (1999) as well as several popular science books, among them  Out of this World - Colliding Universes, Branes, Strings, and Other Wild Ideas of Modern Physics in 2004, New Eyes on the Universe - Twelve Cosmic Mysteries and the Tools We Need to Solve Them in 2012, and, in 2015, the second edition of If the Universe Is Teeming with Aliens ... WHERE IS EVERYBODY? Seventy-Five Solutions to the Fermi Paradox and the Problem of Extraterrestrial, published as part of Springer's Science and Fiction series.

Since gaining a BSc in physics from the University of Bristol and a PhD in theoretical physics from the University of Manchester, Stephen Webb has worked in a variety of universities in the UK. He is a regular contributor to the Yearbook of Astronomy series and has published an undergraduate textbook Measuring the Universe - The Cosmological Distance Ladder (1999) as well as several popular science books, among them  Out of this World - Colliding Universes, Branes, Strings, and Other Wild Ideas of Modern Physics in 2004, New Eyes on the Universe - Twelve Cosmic Mysteries and the Tools We Need to Solve Them in 2012, and, in 2015, the second edition of If the Universe Is Teeming with Aliens ... WHERE IS EVERYBODY? Seventy-Five Solutions to the Fermi Paradox and the Problem of Extraterrestrial, published as part of Springer’s Science and Fiction series.

Preface.- Introduction.- Antigravity.- Space travel.- Aliens.- Time travel.- The Nature of Reality.- Invisibility.- Robots.- Transportation.- Immortality.- Mad Scientists.- Epilogue: a New Default Future?.- Index

Erscheint lt. Verlag 3.5.2017
Reihe/Serie Science and Fiction
Science and Fiction
Zusatzinfo XIII, 344 p. 80 illus., 71 illus. in color.
Verlagsort Cham
Sprache englisch
Themenwelt Sachbuch/Ratgeber Natur / Technik Naturwissenschaft
Naturwissenschaften Biologie
Naturwissenschaften Physik / Astronomie Allgemeines / Lexika
Naturwissenschaften Physik / Astronomie Astronomie / Astrophysik
Technik
Schlagworte Antigravity • Augmentation of the human body • Fermi Paradox • History of Science Fiction • Mad scientists • Nature of reality • Space Travel • Time Travel
ISBN-10 3-319-51759-7 / 3319517597
ISBN-13 978-3-319-51759-9 / 9783319517599
Haben Sie eine Frage zum Produkt?
PDFPDF (Wasserzeichen)
Größe: 6,1 MB

DRM: Digitales Wasserzeichen
Dieses eBook enthält ein digitales Wasser­zeichen und ist damit für Sie persona­lisiert. Bei einer missbräuch­lichen Weiter­gabe des eBooks an Dritte ist eine Rück­ver­folgung an die Quelle möglich.

Dateiformat: PDF (Portable Document Format)
Mit einem festen Seiten­layout eignet sich die PDF besonders für Fach­bücher mit Spalten, Tabellen und Abbild­ungen. Eine PDF kann auf fast allen Geräten ange­zeigt werden, ist aber für kleine Displays (Smart­phone, eReader) nur einge­schränkt geeignet.

Systemvoraussetzungen:
PC/Mac: Mit einem PC oder Mac können Sie dieses eBook lesen. Sie benötigen dafür einen PDF-Viewer - z.B. den Adobe Reader oder Adobe Digital Editions.
eReader: Dieses eBook kann mit (fast) allen eBook-Readern gelesen werden. Mit dem amazon-Kindle ist es aber nicht kompatibel.
Smartphone/Tablet: Egal ob Apple oder Android, dieses eBook können Sie lesen. Sie benötigen dafür einen PDF-Viewer - z.B. die kostenlose Adobe Digital Editions-App.

Buying eBooks from abroad
For tax law reasons we can sell eBooks just within Germany and Switzerland. Regrettably we cannot fulfill eBook-orders from other countries.

Mehr entdecken
aus dem Bereich
Kaleidoskop der Mathematik

von Ehrhard Behrends; Peter Gritzmann; Günter M. Ziegler

eBook Download (2024)
Springer Berlin Heidelberg (Verlag)
24,99