Robert J. Sawyer

Hugo and Nebula Award-Winning Science Fiction Writer

Archive for the 'Science' Category

Hyping the dubious Homo naledi

Sunday, September 20th, 2015

The lede is buried in this excellent article by Ray Hartley from South Africa’s Rand Daily Mail. The meat begins with the tenth paragraph, which starts, “There was only one moment during the press event when the giant bubble of hype was threatened by a sharp question.” Read from that point down, at least, then […]

Curiosity and the Olympics

Monday, August 6th, 2012

Of course, I’m thrilled that Curiosity is now safe on the surface of Mars. And I’m by no means a sports fan. But I’ve been a bit dismayed by all the comments — almost de rigueur it seems among those who self-identify as geeks — to the effect that Curiosity‘s triumph is more important than, […]

Mood-tracking apps work … sort of

Tuesday, November 9th, 2010

Interesting article here about a little app that helps you monitor your mood. As the article says, there’s no sophisticated psychological model at work — but I think that doesn’t really matter. As a science-fiction writer who often explores artificial intelligence (for instance in Wake, Golden Fleece, and Factoring Humanity), it seems to me the […]

The End of Science?

Tuesday, November 9th, 2010

My novel FlashForward, the basis for the ABC TV series of the same name, is set at CERN, so I’m always interested when scientists associated with CERN speak up about the fundamental nature of reality. And Russell Stannard does that today in the Huffington Post. I’ve posted a comment there, but here’s a longer version […]

Habitable Planets for Man

Wednesday, July 18th, 2007

Holy crap! Just discovered that the Rand Corporation has made its landmark 1964 study Habitable Planets for Man by Stephen H. Dole available for free as PDF (scroll down to the link to the free download, of just click here). This is it, folks, the world-building bible; I paid a fortune years ago for a […]