Exoplanets
This article talks about exoplanets and the sense of wonder.
It's charming as far as it goes -- exoplanets are exciting and sense of wonder is important. But it also highlights some gaps.
It was only later that night, as I drifted off to sleep, that it came to me: Rainworld!
See now, just a few decades ago, we had an armada of science fiction writers who pounced on new scientific releases and wrote fiction about them. Most of the results were short stories, but some turned into novels. They took the "we found" and the "what if" from science and imagined what those places could be like, what could happen there, how the environment would affect the biosphere that evolved there or the humans who visited it. Milieu fiction at its best.
The image appeared, almost as of a dream, of landscapes eternally soaked in driving rains. Cliffsides beaten by sheets of wet wind. Plains forever topped by low-slung, scudding clouds that pelt the land with heavy drops. Oceans of heavy swells that never see the sun. For a few beautiful moments, the scientific discussions of the morning were transformed into a minds-eye view of the planetary reality. It was very beautiful.
Dude. That was Earth a while back. For 2 million years. Me being an old-fashioned SF writer, I actually did write about it.
That brief moment reminded me of what is most important when we think about exoplanets, not as scientists but just as people.
They are places!
Science serves a lot of purposes, but one of its most important is to expand the vistas of our imagination.
One of the most important things it should be doing, but apparently isn't yet, is teaching people that the universe is so weird, they shouldn't really be saying things "can't" happen. All they really have are guesses and estimates based on what they've seen so far, and some laws of science that they've only seen part of and understand even less of, because they keep making predictions about the isness of things that turn out to be totally wrong because they're trying to color inside the lines while the universe is running about with the wild abandon of Jackson Pollock. When new exoplanets are appearing all the time, and bizarre uniquities keep popping up, someone really should admit, "So it turns out we know jack about what planets can be. Let's just declare this indeterminate and spend a few decades gathering data. When we stop finding 'impossible' planets so often, then we can look at the data and try to theorize about planets again." Because hypothesizing about planets right now is like shoveling snow in a blizzard.
What exoplanet science shows us is that the Universe is full of worlds. These planets are both completely different and utterly like our own. They are different in ways that stir the imagination: worlds of only endless oceans, worlds entirely covered by ice, worlds of vast steaming jungles without any ice, worlds of rain. But they are also entirely like our own planet in that they are places you could be. They are places you can stand and look out and (in some cases) walk and (in some cases) climb and (in some cases) sail.
Yyyyeah. The fact that this came as a surprising revelation means SF writers are falling down on the job. We have shelves full of T&A, and scientists who get into a cool jam session but then don't sit down and write a story about it. If I were teaching either writing or astro-anything, I'd be assigning students to grab an article from science news and turn it into fiction or art or some other creative output. Of course they're places. Everyone used to imagine going there. And then somehow, most of that just ... stopped. Sort of faded away.
Fuck it. When I write, or read, I want to go places. T&A I can get anywhere. Why would I fool around with that when I can have eyeball planets? And while my imagination may not exceed that of the universe, it seems to be far beyond what most humans can come up with.
It's charming as far as it goes -- exoplanets are exciting and sense of wonder is important. But it also highlights some gaps.
It was only later that night, as I drifted off to sleep, that it came to me: Rainworld!
See now, just a few decades ago, we had an armada of science fiction writers who pounced on new scientific releases and wrote fiction about them. Most of the results were short stories, but some turned into novels. They took the "we found" and the "what if" from science and imagined what those places could be like, what could happen there, how the environment would affect the biosphere that evolved there or the humans who visited it. Milieu fiction at its best.
The image appeared, almost as of a dream, of landscapes eternally soaked in driving rains. Cliffsides beaten by sheets of wet wind. Plains forever topped by low-slung, scudding clouds that pelt the land with heavy drops. Oceans of heavy swells that never see the sun. For a few beautiful moments, the scientific discussions of the morning were transformed into a minds-eye view of the planetary reality. It was very beautiful.
Dude. That was Earth a while back. For 2 million years. Me being an old-fashioned SF writer, I actually did write about it.
That brief moment reminded me of what is most important when we think about exoplanets, not as scientists but just as people.
They are places!
Science serves a lot of purposes, but one of its most important is to expand the vistas of our imagination.
One of the most important things it should be doing, but apparently isn't yet, is teaching people that the universe is so weird, they shouldn't really be saying things "can't" happen. All they really have are guesses and estimates based on what they've seen so far, and some laws of science that they've only seen part of and understand even less of, because they keep making predictions about the isness of things that turn out to be totally wrong because they're trying to color inside the lines while the universe is running about with the wild abandon of Jackson Pollock. When new exoplanets are appearing all the time, and bizarre uniquities keep popping up, someone really should admit, "So it turns out we know jack about what planets can be. Let's just declare this indeterminate and spend a few decades gathering data. When we stop finding 'impossible' planets so often, then we can look at the data and try to theorize about planets again." Because hypothesizing about planets right now is like shoveling snow in a blizzard.
What exoplanet science shows us is that the Universe is full of worlds. These planets are both completely different and utterly like our own. They are different in ways that stir the imagination: worlds of only endless oceans, worlds entirely covered by ice, worlds of vast steaming jungles without any ice, worlds of rain. But they are also entirely like our own planet in that they are places you could be. They are places you can stand and look out and (in some cases) walk and (in some cases) climb and (in some cases) sail.
Yyyyeah. The fact that this came as a surprising revelation means SF writers are falling down on the job. We have shelves full of T&A, and scientists who get into a cool jam session but then don't sit down and write a story about it. If I were teaching either writing or astro-anything, I'd be assigning students to grab an article from science news and turn it into fiction or art or some other creative output. Of course they're places. Everyone used to imagine going there. And then somehow, most of that just ... stopped. Sort of faded away.
Fuck it. When I write, or read, I want to go places. T&A I can get anywhere. Why would I fool around with that when I can have eyeball planets? And while my imagination may not exceed that of the universe, it seems to be far beyond what most humans can come up with.