Speaker:	Charles Adler (St. Mary's College of Maryland)
Title:	Where is the Science in all that Fiction?
Date (JST):	Tue, Apr 22, 2025, 15:30 - 17:00
Place:	Seminar Room B
Abstract:	When you hear the words "science fiction", you feel that there should be some science in the fiction. However, a lot of books, TV shows and movies throw in "bolognium" which looks and sounds "scientific” but is in fact just nonsense. How can we sort through the baloney to find the good stuff? I'm going to talk about some basic scientific principles, especially the law of conservation of mass-energy, and review some fictional works that have good science, some that have bad, and one or two which are just plain awful. Short bio: Dr. Charles Adler is professor of Physics and chair of the department of Physics and Materials Science at St. Mary's College of Maryland. His research is mainly in the field of optics and light scattering but he has written 42 papers in several different areas of physics and mathematics. He is on the organizing committee of the "Light and Color in the Open Air" conferences, and was chair of the 2012 conference. He is the author of the popular science book Wizards, Aliens and Starships: Physics and Math in Fantasy and Science Fiction(Princeton University Press, 2014), and the presenter of the Great Courses lecture series "How Science Shapes Science Fiction" in 2019. Links Wizards, Aliens and Starships: Physics and Math in Fantasy and Science Fiction(Princeton University Press, 2014) https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691147154/wizards-aliens-and-starships?srsltid=AfmBOoruEcW6kXgq56-rC0rN3vkACg9FrU3Gbe4okxb389JH-YerVvyN
Remarks:

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