Please note that this is the original version of the Science Friction talk, which was originally delivered on multiple occasions between 2008 and 2016. It was heavily reworked for the WEA Member's Talk in 2020, the video for which is available here:

Science Fiction is not without its detractors. There are many who regard science fiction as little more than children’s stories, tales which are not fit and not worthy of serious consideration. I want to look now at those criticisms and to see where the fault lies.

This section is about the Good, the Bad and the Ugly of Science Fiction.

Let’s start with some good science fiction. How do we define Good science fiction?

Here's my definition.

Good science fiction uses the science we know about today, the science that is real and backed up by mathematics and experimental evidence, and weaves it into the narrative. Extrapolation from known science is permissible but should never ignore the fundamental laws of physics, laws that cannot be changed.

Conversely, Bad Science Fiction ignores science in favour of spectacle or invents some kind of implausible McGuffin to trigger a plot point.

Ugly Science Fiction? We'll come to that.

Good Science Fiction : Ringworld

Let’s start with Larry Niven’s awarding winning book Ringworld.

Ringworld is very much in the tradition of the Joseph Campbell Hero saga. There’s the hero, Louis Wu, his companion, Teela Brown, the fierce warrior in the form of a giant tabby Cat from a species called the Kzin, and so on.

What’s the premise of the Ringworld? A renegade ambassador from a species called The Puppeteers recruits Louis Wu and his rag-tag band of adventurers to explore a strange artefact which has been discovered floating in space, apparently abandoned.

The object of their curiosity is the Ringworld, an artificial structure which surrounds its parent star at a distance close enough to be comfortable right across its surface. Sounds like a load of rubbish, right? I mean, how could you possibly build something so large? What of the resources required to build such a structure? What of the energy required to set it moving?

Larry Niven, Author

Freeman Dyson, Physicist

Niven borrowed the idea from a proposal originally penned by the late physicist Freeman Dyson, who argued that any civilisation sufficiently advanced could convert all of the material in their solar system into a shell surrounding their parent star. The result would be an enclosed system where all of the energy available from the central star could be collected on the inner surface of the shell, to be used by its inhabitants as they saw fit. Such a structure would be almost completely invisible to an external observer and thus incredibly secure.

Niven thoroughly researched the physics and logistics behind this giant structure - the distance between the surface of the ring and the parent star, which had to be comfortable enough to permit human-like inhabitants to thrive. How do you stop the atmosphere from spilling off into space? How to you create patterns of night and day? What about the maths which holds this thing together? It’s actually very simple - you just treat it as a suspension bridge with no ends.

Niven worked out all of the physical parameters of his space leviathan. Mass, circumference, height of the rim walls, surface area, surface gravity, spin velocity etc. Not only that but he also added a rather engaging story too. What is the hidden truth behind the Ringworld? What happened to the Ringworld Engineers? And so on.

Unsurprisingly, Ringworld was a huge hit when it was released and Niven found himself lauded with awards. This was hard sci-fi. This was sci-fi held together by real physics, real engineering and real maths.

But all was not rosy in the Ringworld. Famously, sometime later, a group of MIT graduates caught up with Niven at a science fiction conference and set about demonstrating how the Ringworld was actually flawed. For starters, it would require some kind of active stabilisation system to stop it wobbling. Worse, the energy required to initially spin the structure up to speed in the first instance was greater than the amount of energy initially present in the system itself. How you gonna solve that one, Larry?

To his credit, rather than ignore his detractors, Niven went back to his typewriter and created a sequel which returned our luckless crew to the Ringworld for another bite of the cherry only this time, he added in a couple of additional problems for them to sort out, problems which included fixing the broken stabilisation system.

Good Science Fiction : The Martian

Science Fiction in the movies doesn’t do too well overall but one shining example of a really good science film is The Martian. The film was made by Ridley Scott and is based on Andy Weir’s book of the same name. Andy Weir used the best, most accurate, most compelling scientific information available at the time and put together a really excellent variation of the old Robinson Crusoe tale.

An astronaut trapped on Mars has to use his knowledge and ingenuity not only to stay alive but to escape from his dusty prison. Our titular Martian doesn’t have it all his own way. He makes mistakes. He blows himself up. He destroys his food but… I’m not going to give away the ending. It’s a good film. Na, it’s an excellent film. There are still a few mistakes and it’s become something of a badge of honour amongst scientists to spot a genuine mistake so watch it and see if you can spot a new mistake. (Yes, I did. It’s in the scene where he switches on the Mars Sojourner Rover. See if you can spot it too…)

The Martian, 2001: A Space Odyssey and Ringworld are the high points in Science Fiction. They represent science fiction with a double jolt of good science.

Let’s look at a lump of science fiction where the science has been ignored completely.

Bad Science Fiction : Gerry Anderson’s Space 1999

Before we begin, I have a confession to make. I used to love Space: 1999. I really did. Space: 1999 is probably why I'm writing this missive now. It was that important when I was fourteen years old.

When production began on Gerry Anderson’s live action Sci-Fi epic back in the early seventies, the premise was… frankly, a bit dodgy to begin with. The year is, you guessed it, 1999 and mankind has spread into space with bases on the Moon etc. The biggest base, Moon base Alpha, is the control hub for mankind’s dark ugly secret. In a thinly veiled stab at the nuclear industry, humanity has been dumping all of its nuclear waste on the Far Side of the Moon for decades and nobody has really bothered to monitor it all that closely. An explosion results. This is no ordinary explosion. This explosion is so big that it tears the Moon out of Earth’s orbit and sets it, and the surviving inhabitants of Moon base Alpha, on a journey into the cosmos.

The problem with Space:1999 isn’t that it looks amazing. The special effects were years ahead of their time. And it isn’t because the acting is ropey. It isn’t. It’s not half bad and the cast do a commendable job, given their source material. The problem sits squarely on the shoulders of the show’s writers and their knowledge of physics.

Let’s look at some of the more obvious problems with Space: 1999.

First off, any explosion big enough to force the Moon out of Earth’s orbit would reduce the Moon to a cloud of debris in an instant. The Moon isn’t physically that strong. We knew that way back in the seventies from the Moon Landings and from a rudimentary knowledge of geology.

Worse, an explosion on the Far Side of the Moon would push the Moon straight into the Earth. Huh? What? Did the producers not think of that? Yes, that.

Now think of Newton’s Second Law, Force equals Mass Times Acceleration. Think about the forces involved. Think about the forces acting on the inhabitants of Moonbase Alpha. They’d be squashed flat inside a millisecond.

Why store so much nuclear waste in one place? Why did nobody keep an eye on this ever-expanding mountain of radioactive mess? Wouldn't it be easier, less risky and considerably less expensive just to launch said waste on a one-way trip to the Sun?

And even if the Moon did leave orbit, it would take hundreds of years to reach the nearest star system.

Space: 1999 was a big, expensive semi-flop. It wasn’t a massive failure but neither was it a massive success. Certainly not on the same scale as Anderson’s earlier project, Thunderbirds. The initial premise was wrong on all counts although this, in itself, wouldn’t have made much difference to the final outcome and, of course, to the reaction of the viewers.

Space: 1999 was a flop because Anderson and the show’s producers used a number of thoroughly rotten writers, who seemingly knew nothing of physics or maths. To be fair, not all of the stories are bad. Some are very good indeed but too many are just silly. They actually insult the intelligence of the audience because they ask the audience to invest in something which is obvious a load of old cobblers. Not all of the shows are truly bad but some were. Worse, when the second series came around for renewal, the producers decided to drop several of the main characters, and their loss harmed what little was left of the show’s credibility.

Compare & Contrast : Contact & Armageddon

Next, let’s compare an contrast two science fiction movies from the nineties, Contact and Armageddon.

Contact is based on a book by Astronomer Carl Sagan. It’s about a radio astronomer, Ellie, who picks up a transmission from a distant star system. Code-breakers decipher the message therein and discover plans for a kind of inter-dimensional space ship, a vehicle for taking a single human occupant on a voyage to meet the species who actually sent the message.

Contact is full of good science and good astronomy. It also tackles humanity and the problems we might encounter if/when we do meet up with extraterrestrials. Given the pedigree of the author, you’d be disappointed if it wasn’t. It’s a good yardstick to measure our next candidate, the infamous Armageddon.

Armageddon : The Plot

The premise is this: Earth has been hit by a number of small asteroids which make a lot of big holes in lots of big, architecturally significant buildings all over the world. Analysis indicates that these smaller asteroids come from a bigger asteroid and this big asteroid is heading towards Earth. All but two of NASA’s shuttles have been damaged or destroyed, and all of their astronauts, in training, active or retired, are unavailable.

What are we gonna do?

Alas, humanity’s last chance of survival is... Bruce Willis and his team of Oil Rig workers. Bruce & Co are given a crash course in space flight, the sort of training that takes NASA astronauts decades to work through, and then they’re launched towards the offending asteroid carrying a big nuclear bomb. The plan is to bury the bomb under the surface of the asteroid and blow it into two pieces, such that both halves fly off and miss Earth completely.

What's wrong with Armageddon?

It isn’t that Armageddon is a rotten film. It’s actually very, very watchable.

The sixty four million dollar question is... will Bruce's plan work?

Judge for yourself.

Let’s look at some of the basic astronomical mistakes in this movie.

Firstly, we’re told that nobody saw this asteroid coming until it was too late. We’re then told that the incoming asteroid is the size of Texas.

Okay, at its widest, Texas is 1244 km across. Ceres, the largest of the asteroids in the asteroid belt, is just 970 km in diameter and we spotted that one way back in 1801.

Actually, Ceres is visible in binoculars, so long as you know when and where to look. Furthermore, Ceres is so big it was was recently re-classified as a dwarf planet.

If the Armageddon asteroid is 1244 km across then it necessarily follows that it should appear brighter than Ceres. How much brighter?

Well, we use a simple mathematical tool called the Inverse Square Law which suggests that if Armageddon is (1244 / 970) = 1.3 times the diameter of Ceres then this new asteroid is nearly double the brightness of Ceres and hence easily visible.

To date, we’ve spotted and plotted the paths and positions of a myriad of smaller asteroids. We’ve even sent space craft to visit them and, as I write this, a small Japanese probe recently returned from a visit to the surface of the asteroid Ryugu. Part of its mission was to grab a couple of samples and return them to Earth, which it did.

So the idea that we didn’t see this one coming is a bit daft but it is plausible.

Texas: width 1244 km

Ceres : An asteroid so big it was recently re-classified as a dwarf planet and yet still smaller than the asteroid in Armageddon...

Don't worry. Bruce and his team are on the case. They can save the planet. Or can they?

How fast is it moving?

Secondly, we’re told that the Armageddon asteroid is moving at 22,000 miles per hour, which is 35000 km/hour or 9.8 km per second.

That may sound like the asteroid is moving quickly but it’s actually fairly pedestrian in cosmic terms. We need to accelerate a rocket to more than 11 km / second just to escape the Earth’s gravity so this asteroid is moving quite slowly by astronomical speeds.

Next, we’re told that the asteroid arrives in just 18 days.

We know how fast it’s moving and we know that it will arrive in 18 days so we can calculate how far away the asteroid really is:

Distance = speed x time (in seconds)

So we convert 18 days into seconds = 18 days x 24 hours x 60 minutes x 60 seconds = 1555200 seconds

Speed = 9.8 km / second and so the distance = 9.8 x 1555200 = 15240960 km or 15.2 million km.

Once again, that seems like a BIG number but, in astronomical terms, it isn’t. The distance to Earth’s Moon is just 384000 km so this asteroid is actually around 40 times further away than the Moon. Put it another way. The planet Mars is 230 million km away so this asteroid is well within the orbit of Mars, and our very own Kepler Space Telescope was around 150 million kilometres away, which is ten times the distance to the Armageddon Asteroid.

So, simply put, the idea that nobody saw the asteroid coming is just ludicrous. Astronomically speaking, it’s actually in our own back yard. An amateur astronomer with a small telescope could easily see this huge lump of rock.

Digging Deeper

Let’s dig deeper, quite literally. Bruce Willis and company have a big bomb, and they plan to land on the surface of the asteroid, drill down beneath the surface and bury their bomb deep enough inside the rocky lump to split it into two pieces.

So… the $64 million question is this - if they do successfully launch from Earth, fly to the asteroid, land safely, deploy their drilling equipment, drill a big enough hole, lower the bomb into position then leave the asteroid without triggering it, and then detonate it remotely before the critical distance, will they save the Earth?

We’re told that the minimum safe distance available to split the asteroid is the "zero barrier”, which is given as 141 million km when the asteroid is only four hours from Earth. The radius of the Earth is 6380 km. Mr. Willis needs to be able to split the rock such that both halves fly apart and miss the Earth.

The maths here is a bit complicated. I’ll post the detailed analysis in a link at the end but this is what you need to know: we know the mass of the asteroid and we know the yield of Bruce’s bomb. We know how much energy the bomb will produce.

Essentially, Bruce’s bomb might just about split the asteroid in two. Might. But that’s a really small ‘might’. If it did split the asteroid then the resulting change in velocity would be… 1 mm per second.

But we’re 141 million km away? Won’t that make a difference? Is this enough to save the Earth?

Four hours = 4 x 60 x 60 seconds = 14400 seconds.

How far will the asteroid move in 14400 seconds? Just 14 meters. And Earth has a radius of 6400 km.

No.

Bruce and Co won’t save the Earth.

Earth will be destroyed.

Sorry.

Two wrongs don't make a right...

Armageddon the movie itself is riddled with basic mistakes - guns that don’t recoil, shuttles that fly in tandem, gravity on small asteroids, drills that don’t remove the material they displace, astronauts exposed to the vacuum of space with zero effects, loud explosions in space…

And that’s my point.

A viewing audience will see this movie and expect to see real physics and real mathematics at work. They don’t so they’re being misinformed. As a result, the movie ends and the viewers walk away with false expectations - that science and a team of super-brave astronauts can save the day with nothing more than a big bomb.

This is dangerous thinking. It encourages us to ignore the state of the planet and ourselves. It encourages us to act irresponsibly. This is our home. Earth is our home. We need to take care of our home. There isn’t anywhere else to live. Not for a long time.

Science Fiction: The Ugly

We’ve had the good. We’ve had the bad. Now comes the Ugly. This is my own personal choice. Your opinion may differ.

Science fiction has a major credibility problem. A lot of the time, the science on offer is just not possible or even believable. Star Trek and numerous other space-operas rely on our ability to exceed the speed of light if we’re to zip between the stars. We just don’t know how to do that right now. Albert Einstein set the upper speed limit - it’s the speed of light - and whilst there are a couple of theoretical ideas which break Albert’s rule - the Alcubierre Drive is one - as far as we know, they amount to little more than fiddling the maths.

It’s the same with Star Trek’s beloved teleportation technology. There’s a simple rule in physics called the Heisenberg Uncertainty, which goes like this - the more precisely you know where an object is in space then the less precisely you know how fast it’s moving. If you plan on moving an atom, or its component parts (the Quarks et al), then you have to know exactly where they are in space and exactly how fast they’re moving to be able to accurately recreate the original object and, sadly, we just can’t do that. In fact, it’s highly likely that we just won’t ever know how to do this. And then you have to ask the simple question “Assuming that I have successfully transported this person, have I just created a copy? Worse, did I just erase the original?”

So this science is flawed. We might have this technology by the twenty third century but don’t hold your breath.

Lord save us from Technobabble

There's one really ugly side to science fiction that I can’t ignore.

Much of modern science fiction is cradled in what has become known as Technobabble.

What’s Technobabble? Time and time again, you’re watching your favourite show and one of the actors mutters a line of dialogue which is utterly incomprehensible. You wind the stream back a little and have another listen only to find it’s just as incomprehensible. So the important point here is this - Did you fail to understand it because you’re not a scientist and therefore unable to understand the basic concept? Or was the sentence actually a load of non-sensical rubbish in the first instance?

In my opinion, there are two major offenders in this category: Doctor Who and Star Trek.

Doctor Who?

I just sit quietly and shake my head. Actually, that’s not true. I stopped watching it. I’ve not watched an episode in around three years. I just outgrew it.

"Reverse the polarity of the Neutron Flow," says the Doctor in a commanding tone.

You can’t, Doctor.

Neutrons don’t have a polarity.

Why? There’s a hint in the name. Neutrons are electrically neutral so they don’t have a polarity to reverse.

Star Trek's Geordie LaForge comes unstuck

Star Trek comes unstuck

Star Trek? Whilst I am a genuine life-long Star Trek fan, a real, time-servedTrekker, I still find it easy to ‘diss’ my favourite show. I’m saying this because … it needs saying. Just stop with the techno-babble. Please. It’s tedious. Yes, I know you’re trying to invent technology which we have yet to conceive in situations we’ve yet to fully envisage but just… Stop. Please.

The patron Saint of Techno-Babble has to be Chief Engineer of the Starship Enterprise, Geordie LaForge.

Here’s my favourite example. The crew of the Enterprise are in a fix. They really need something - a device, a chemical, a substance - to solve their problem and Geordie is riffing off a series of possibilities. In amongst this list are cyanoacrylates. Huh?

So… They don’t have any cyanoacrylates on the Star shop Enterprise? Really? I mean really?

Sounds technical, doesn’t it. Cyanoacrylates. Mmm…. I wonder what a cyanoacrylate is?

Go look it up in a dictionary. You’ll be surprised.

It’s Superglue.

You’re telling me that the Federation’s biggest and best starship, Star Fleet’s flagship, The USS Enterprise, doesn’t have a tube of superglue on board? I have a tube downstairs. And another in the garage.

Go figure.