Nucleation Review

Nucleation by Kimberly Unger Overall Thoughts: For a science fiction tale, this book not only impressed me with its use of physics, specifically entanglement of particles, but blew me away with its scope of imagination. The characters leapt off the page with such personality, and the book kept twisting and turning with surprises every step… Continue reading Nucleation Review

Thought Experiment: Habitable Moon Around a Gas Giant

This year I hope to write a few thought experiments, and from these come up with plausible science fiction stories. I’ll start with one I’ve been thinking about for awhile: habitable moons. First off, the orbit of the moon is absolutely critical. It cannot be too close to the gas giant, because of the gravity… Continue reading Thought Experiment: Habitable Moon Around a Gas Giant

Review: Time Travel And Warp Drives

As a science fiction writer, I find examining science’s current stance on futuristic ideas, such as time travel, warp drives, and other possible technological advances to be fascinating and insightful. This book by Allen Everett and Thomas Roman takes the reader on an incredibly thorough examination of the science of time travel, the paradoxes of… Continue reading Review: Time Travel And Warp Drives

World-building Part 5 – Geomorphology (planetary features)

Note this is a series: Part One, Part Two, Part Three, and Part Four. A note for my readers, especially those interested in my paper mache planet project: This post in particular describes how I created my own tectonic plate maps, determined the geological features of my own planet including major rivers and lakes; I’ve… Continue reading World-building Part 5 – Geomorphology (planetary features)

World-building Part 4 – Atmospheres and Natural Cycles

Note this is a series: Part One, Part Two, and Part Three. In order to have a planet house life, an atmosphere is absolutely essential, unless the sentient species is capable of enclosed domes, which even then they’d still have an atmosphere within that enclosed dome. This brings us to the fourth part of building… Continue reading World-building Part 4 – Atmospheres and Natural Cycles

Planet Geology – World-building Part 3

Note this is a series: Part One and Part Two. Now that you have a sketch of your solar system, we can focus on the individual planets. Terrestrial Planets First, planets made of rock – terrestrial planets.  They are largely powered by geological processes such as hot spots, volcanism, and plate tectonics.  Rocky planets tend… Continue reading Planet Geology – World-building Part 3

Physics of a World

Since I study physics at my university, I often will read articles of new experiments in the field. I like to start with Scientific American, and from there access the original papers of the researchers. Recently, I came across this article: http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~robins/Is_Space_Digital.pdf and this article: how-the-hippies-saved-physics-science-counterculture-and-quantum-revival-excerpt The second article is about Bell and his theorem,… Continue reading Physics of a World

Effects of Environment

When world-building, the effects an environment has on a culture is fairly profound. For example, if the world has a fairly small star, the planet has to be fairly close to this sun in order to even be habitable. However, if the star is not particularly massive (a small star generally wouldn’t be), then the… Continue reading Effects of Environment