ota+@ANDREW.CMU.EDU (Ted Anderson) (01/26/89)
In much the same way that Eskimos have many words for what English speakers call
"snow", Robert Forward has many words for what more conventional scientists and
engineers call "impossible". For most "impossible" is the end of the line;
where you stop and give up. For Dr. Forward "impossible is where he starts, and
naturally he imbues the concept with a richness of texture and detail that most
people miss entirely.
In the 1988 Avon book "Future Magic", Forward fills in and describes the fine
structure he sees in the spectrum of the impossible. He covers the range
starting from near "impossibly difficult" to just short of "clearly
theoretically impossible". Along the way he explains much of the relevant
physics quite lucidly, including special and general relativity, antimatter, and
other fun stuff. One or two if his ideas are quite practical, such as using
masses to reduce the tidal forces for microgravity experiments in LEO. And a
few ideas seem fairly ridiculous, like using gravity waves for communication.
Overall I thought the book was pretty good. I had just finished Hawking's "A
Brief History of Time" (another excellent book), so perhaps that is why the
physics seemed a bit elementary. But, consequently, readers shouldn't be scared
away if their physics background is a bit weak or rusty. Several of the recent
questions asked here about relativity were clearly explained, so I'd recommend
it on that basis alone. If you always like to look for loopholes in the rules,
or just want to have a better idea how much science there is in your science
fiction, check it out.
Ted Anderson