The programming at science-fiction conventions always seems to offer a few delights beyond the expected panels and presentations focused on writing, publishing, and things fanish, and the two OryCons I've attended have been rich with these. At last year's convention, for example, I attended memorable presentations on archery, the dynamics of violence, caring for horses, living off the land, and of course selected science topics. These are all subjects of potential interest to writers of SF and fantasy (readers hate it when writers get basic stuff about horses or physics wrong). This year's programming also contained a bunch of sessions on this sort of "background information," but I only had time for a few. Here, listed randomly, are some highlights gleaned from various panels:
>I heard the discrepancies between the Voyager probes' predicted and actual course described as possible "rounding error in the floating point processor that's simulating the universe."
> Someone said that, according to all the current models of plate tectonics, the Rocky Mountains shouldn't exist.
> Much talk about the inadequacies of the
Drake Equation, which purportedly calculates the potential number of extraterrestrial civilizations in our Milky Way galaxy, for example:
- It only considers the possibility of carbon-based life forms. What about other forms?
- Galactic centers are now known to be inhospitable to carbon-based life like us; so that rules out a bunch of stars.
- What about Europa-type planets and other possible abodes of life like planetary crusts that may exist outside the so-called Goldilocks zone?
- Just what is intelligence, anyway?
> At a very interesting panel on metallurgy, the discussion turned to the possibility of refining metals without using heat. Someone mentioned that Brazil nut trees draw radium from the soil and concentrate it in the nuts, making them register significantly higher than the background level on detectors.
I love these little nuggets. I go home and look them up. Ah, sure enough, that's true about Brazil nuts! The Rocky Mountains -- you can check it out if you want.
2 comments:
"Someone said that, according to all the current models of plate tectonics, the Rocky Mountains shouldn't exist."
If the models and the mountains don't match
and the mountains won't go away
it is, as Mohammed realized when the mountain
would not come to him
that he would have to go to the mountain,
easier to modify the models
than to move the mountains,
as the law of aerodynamics must accommodate
the flight of the bumblebee,
and the Grand Inquisitors, even with Galileo silenced
could not make the sun spin 'round the Earth.
must accomodate
(oops: delete last line: is typo)
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