Re: Hard Sci-fi?

: Ben Crowell <crowell08@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
: I guess it depends on what you mean by "possible." My definition of
: hard SF would be that it has to be possible in the sense that it
: doesn't violate those laws of physics that have already been thoroughly
: verified within their realm of applicability. The FTL in Contact is
: "possible" in this sense.

Hm.  Don't think so.  The widget used to create a wormhole endpoint
(or at least... that's' what I remember it doing) is nowhere near
massive or energetic enough.   It seems squarely within the realm
of applicability of newtonian/maxwellian physics, but it went and
produced a wormhole anyways.  Unless it really *was* a fake.
In which case it really wasn't FTL at all, and all it had to do
was mess with the memories of people falling through it, etc.

Or maybe I'm conflating the movie version.  Sigh.

Wayne Throop   throopw@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
   http://sheol.org/throopw