SciComm with Fanfic – Further details · 9:03pm Aug 8th, 2019
It was great to see lots of interest in the proposal in my last blog post. This has convinced me this project is worth pursuing, but also highlighted a few things I need to think about. I will now work on preparing a more detailed description of what I want, a full brief of the particle physics topics (I think my abstract on antimatter was perhaps a bit too abstract an illustration). I will then invite anyone interested to pitch me a (very brief) story idea. If I manage to stick to my summer schedule, I will ‘launch’ this by the end of August.
More details to come. For now, here are a few FAQ:
What is SciComm?
Science Communication is a general term for activities aiming to promote and explain science topics to a non-specialist audience. This includes researchers promoting their research, educators looking for ways to engage their students, and journalists looking for exciting science stories. Good scicomm finds a way to engage the audience and get correct details about the science across.
What audience do you want?
MLP fanfiction fans of all ages and backgrounds. The aim to to engage as many readers as possible, especially those would not otherwise read about science.
Why Particle Physics?
Because that is the field I work in, I want to promote, and I feel confident I can explain. Also an aim of this project is to demonstrate that it is possible for a researcher to commission a writer to write about a specific research topic
What types of writers do you want?
Anyone who can write a good story. You don’t need a science background. In one way it is better if you don’t, as you will better understand how to present the science in the way a non-scientist reader will understand. Stories written by scientists sometimes throw lots of science at the reader, but not in way that will be understood. I will be available to help writers understand the science and identify a story.
Can you give an example of what you want?
I don’t want to be too prescriptive as I am open to new ideas. While I would encourage everyone to read my science stories like The Art of Rainbow Engineering, Twilight’s Sputnik, and Rock Farms and Nuclear Reactors, I don’t want writers to think they have to write like me. In those stories I aimed to weave the science into the plot. If you can create a conflict that needs the characters to learn about science to resolve, that can work very well. However trying to force an explanation of science into a story artificially can lead to a mess. I think a better strategy is for a writer to write a story in their own style, inspired by the science, but not to worry about explaining everything. I can do that in an accompanying blog post. I did something like this in Time on Their Hooves, where I added extensive author's notes to explain the background science. That is also the approach taken in the following examples.
Taking a few paperbacks off my bookshelf:
The Scientific Secrets of Doctor Who (Simon Guerrier and Dr Mark Kukula): This book has fifteen short stories about the Doctor’s adventures in time and space, each followed by an explanation and discussion on the related astrophysics and other topics.
The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage: The (Mostly) True Story of the First Computer: Sydney Padua’s brilliant graphic novel, which renders Ada Lovelace and Charles Babbage as comic book characters, sends them on fictional adventures, but is annotated with detailed footnotes to make the real mathematics, science, and history clear.
The Science of Discworld (Terry Pratchett, Ian Stewart and Jack Cohen): A similar mix of fiction followed by explanation. What is impressive is the imaginative way in which it repurposes the Discworld to explain real world science. As I wrote on an old post:
A lesser writer would have tried to produce a technobabble “theory” of magic in the fashion of the Standard Model of Particle Physics, as if it could all be explained by a different set of fundamental interactions. But that's not how magic works. Terry and his co-writers explain, “Dragons don't breath fire because they've got asbestos lungs—they breath fire because everyone knows that's what dragons do.” Discworld magic does not run on a set of rules like the laws of physics, it runs on narrative imperative—the power of story. Which is not to say that you can't use such a world to say something about real world science, or economics, or whatever. That's what thought experiments are. The Science of Discworld is a really innovative work of science communication, as well as a fun read.
When it all Changed (Geoff Ryman). A collection of science fiction short strories followed by a brief comment by a scientist. For example Global Collider Generation: an Idyll (Paul Cornell) is a surreal futuristic story about the construction of a huge circular particle accelerator going all around the Earth, followed by an afterword by a physicist explaining the Large Hadron Collider.
Moss Witch and Other Stories (Sara Maitland), as the last one, but more fantasy. The title story is about a bryologist who meets a witch in a Scottish wood and is full of little scientifically accurate details.
Now there's as good an excuse as any to re-read my Science of Discworlds. They did a bonny job of aligning the content of the Disc chapters with the corresponding science chapters, and they merit
shameless poachingdrawing inspiration from.Well, this was timely. I was talking about putting together something for this recently. Good to get some details. Can't promise when it'll come, but it's definitely on the docket.
Science of Discworld. ,2, 3, etc.
As above, so below.
Greatest theory though is Special and General Theory of L-Space. Includes the Rules of Narrativium.
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While an impressive work, I think the Science of Discworld could be hard to adapt... It does a lot of world building its own universe, which is not so easy to do in a short story.
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I'll try to get a full brief out soon
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My favourite theory is using Stonehenge as a Quantum Logic structure.
Wave interaction version of quantum theory, not particle. Lets you try All variations simultaneously instead of trying to use horribly complicated and delicate entangled particle arrays.
Trouble is, this implies holograms are quantum processors.
My other favourite theory is that because protons decay to matter and antimatte, when you add in the electrons, all the matter in the universe is made up of an equal amount of matter and antimatter. So the problem isnt where has the antimatter gone, because its there, its what caused the asymetry to flow to completion.
How about Applejack is Full of Dark Matter Squirrels?
I have the Discworld books, and I sell Lovelace and Babbage at my convention booths.
¡This will be great!
I see that there is more information. I will be following this.