{"id":562,"date":"2019-05-25T09:04:36","date_gmt":"2019-05-25T09:04:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/andrew-may.com\/blog\/?p=562"},"modified":"2019-05-25T09:08:53","modified_gmt":"2019-05-25T09:08:53","slug":"fake-physics-spoofs-hoaxes-and-fictitious-science","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/andrew-may.com\/blog\/2019\/05\/fake-physics-spoofs-hoaxes-and-fictitious-science\/","title":{"rendered":"Fake Physics: Spoofs, Hoaxes and Fictitious Science"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Fake<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Out now \u2013 my third contribution to Springer\u2019s \u201cScience and Fiction\u201d series, after Pseudoscience and Science Fiction<\/a> (2017) and Rockets and Ray Guns<\/a> (2018). Those two were based around pet subjects of mine \u2013 the two-way interaction between SF and pseudoscience in the first case, and genuine Cold War science in the second. In contrast, this new book came out of a suggestion by the series editor, who drew my attention to a large number of spoofs \u2013 often vey funny \u2013 produced by professional scientists and presented in the form of serious academic papers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These papers tend to fall into two categories \u2013 spoofs written purely for entertainment, such as April Fool jokes, and hoaxes designed to make a serious point \u2013 of which Alan Sokal\u2019s nonsensical paper on quantum gravity, which was accepted by the editors of a professional journal simply because it pandered to their preconceptions, is the best-known example. I\u2019ve combined these with more familiar examples of science-fictional \u201cfake physics\u201d, particularly when perpetrated by writers who were also professional scientists \u2013 such as Isaac Asimov, whose \u201cEndochronic Properties of Resublimated Thiotimoline\u201d (1948) bridges both genres: t\u2019s a spoof science paper as well as an SF story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The result is Fake Physics: Spoofs, Hoaxes and Fictitious Science<\/em> \u2013 on sale now from all the usual places, including Amazon.com<\/a> and Amazon UK<\/a>. Here are some words from the back cover:

People are used to seeing \u201cfake physics\u201d in science fiction \u2013 concepts like faster-than-light travel, antigravity and time travel to name a few. The fiction label ought to be a giveaway, but some SF writers \u2013 especially those with a background in professional science \u2013 are so adept at \u201ctechnobabble\u201d that it can be difficult to work out what is fake and what is real. The boundaries between fact and fiction can also be blurred by physicists themselves … examples range from hoaxes aimed at exposing poor editorial standards in academic publications, through \u201cthought experiments\u201d that sound like the plot of a sci-fi movie to April Fools\u2019 jokes. This entertaining book is a joyous romp exploring the whole spectrum of fake physics \u2013 from science to fiction and back again.<\/blockquote><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Out now \u2013 my third contribution to Springer\u2019s \u201cScience and Fiction\u201d series, after Pseudoscience and Science Fiction (2017) and Rockets and Ray Guns (2018). Those two were based around pet subjects of mine \u2013 the two-way interaction between SF and pseudoscience in the first case, and genuine Cold War science in the second. In contrast, … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Fake Physics: Spoofs, Hoaxes and Fictitious Science”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[21,51,39,7],"class_list":["post-562","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-my-books","tag-physics","tag-popular-science","tag-science-fiction"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/andrew-may.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/562","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/andrew-may.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/andrew-may.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/andrew-may.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/andrew-may.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=562"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/andrew-may.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/562\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":568,"href":"https:\/\/andrew-may.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/562\/revisions\/568"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/andrew-may.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=562"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/andrew-may.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=562"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/andrew-may.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=562"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}