'That's not real hard sci-fi.'

That awkward feeling when you accidently invent a new Grand Unified Theory of physics for the sole purpose of making your novel more scientifically accurate. #justwriterthings am I right?

Also, to be clear, I mean no disrespect to hard sci-fi fans. I actually love hard sci-fi, and these characters are all straw men. (If you look closely, you can see the hay poking out from under their sleeves.)

Music:
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

#booktube #scifi

[sosasoseante]

My favorite sci fi are retracted scientific papers

[jeffonetoxd]

you aren't reading hard sci-fi unless the book itself is rated 10 on the mohs hardness scale

[clickpause]

“So how does the warp drive work?”
“Quite well, thank you.”

[deadman]

_The Martian_ qualifies as genuine science fiction, as it takes place in a bizarre alternate reality in which NASA is funded.

[lamidene]

Hardest sci fi possible is just writing what you think you’ll be doing in your research lab next week

[tartoflan]

Turns out that the hardest scifi was fantasy all along

[Aryeh-o]

I just want authors not to abuse FTL, not ignore energy and AI while making the characters behave plausibly for whatever world they are in.

[WasatchWind]

Solution, write a fantasy novel with hard magic about realistic space exploration. Boom. Hard sci fi.

[Volvith]

"I do have a String Theory textbook as well."
_"Okay, that done does actually count..."_

I laughed harder than i should have.

[Merovius]

Lol, when you took out the QT textbook, I thought "he should've used string theory, then it would actually be SF" and then you made that joke =D

[the_third_edition]

Thank you for the string theory joke. XD

[DefaultProphet]

Hard scifi is when you need water as reaction mass and also radiation shielding

[engineer-of-souls]

Trying to figure out what "hard science fiction" even means is one of my favourite conversation topics with other sci-fi nerds because there's no real answer. Can FTL travel be considered "hard" if it's applied rigorously within the book? How about using real theories, but misusing them? Endless arguments! I don't even need another person, I can argue about this topic among myself...

[jbca]

For what it’s worth I found Schild’s Ladder to be a pretty humane book on some level because the ending always leaves me with a feeling of regret for all of the experiences they missed while chasing the science. Or maybe I’m mixing it up a bit with Diaspora. Both great books in any case, even without much undergrad in my case

Great video but maybe the last guy should have been holding The Road to Reality 😂

[SimonClarkstone]

I once encountered (but didn't read) a sci-fi series (_Orthogonal_, by Greg Egan) whose premise is "what if space-time used the Riemann Metric instead of the Lorentz Metric", and this produces a universe where many of the equations of basic physics go backwards. (e.g. time contracts rather than dilating at high speeds, and more generally the difference between timelike and spacelike world-lines is a local convention rather than a universal one).
The story is told from the point of view of inhabitants of the world so it's not immediately clear what is going on. Fortunately there is a whole load of pages on the author's own website to explain it.

[OverlyAverageBen]

Science Fiction is the Monster to Mary Shelley as Frankenstein

[oshua]

I've had hard sci-fi described to me as being "any story in which technical minutiae is given greater importance than anything else."

[jamesantonisenior]

-You can't have the sci without the fi and still call it sci-fi
(...)
-I have a string theory textbook
-ok, that one would actually count
LMAO

[Jalae]

the next day in the news: quantum mechanics and newtonian dynamics have just been unified by three up and coming novelists who just wanted a better framework for their new fantasy novel "einstein was wrong"

[RelativelyBest]

"You can't have science fiction without the fiction!"
"I hate to admit it, but he has a point."

Lol.