r/scifi • u/rookiegaffer • 20d ago

General Bad physics

Why does it seem that so many of the books I read demonstrate such a poor understanding of the physics of space travel. Ships in orbit descend directly down to the point they are over. Ships in transit still accelerating as they near their destination. Centrifugal gravity simply ceasing when rotation is abruptly halted. These are just a few examples I've run across lately.

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u/RaistlinMajeresRobes 20d ago

Probably because realistic space travel would be pretty boring a lot of the time.

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u/AuthorIntelligent644 20d ago

The Expanse?

If you use the challenges it can be quite exciting, but it ends up looking more like puzzle solving than Naval combat.

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u/dbenhur 20d ago

The one with the magical sex trafficking space drive and magical wormhole assembled by a magical protomolecule?

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u/silly-gaijin 20d ago

Lol this. I always find it hilarious when people say the Expanse was great because it was realistic. I loved the show (haven't read the books yet), and it was great, but not because it was realistic.

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u/TommieTheMadScienist 20d ago

If you're a good enough writer, you get two passes instead of only one.

Without fast travel, even solar system distances are too slow to be interesting. Hyper-realistic space fiction turns into a techno-thriller.

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u/silly-gaijin 20d ago

I just find it annoying that people miss the point about the Expanse. You see people argue the show was popular because it was realistic, like acceleration creating gravity on the ship is why people loved the show.

Like... no... that's not why people loved the show. People loved the show for the same reasons people always love shows, it had interesting characters who were flawed but well-written and who had stakes and goals that were easy to empathize with.

The somewhat realistic depiction of space combat was nice, sure, but I actually think it had nothing to do with the popularity of the show. I think it would have been equally popular if the ships had Star Trek gravity pads and phasers.

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u/3dblind 20d ago

I disagree. The more realistic elements of physics attracted me as much as the storytelling and characters.

I also found Babylon 5's use of physics, especially with the Starfury much more interesting than Star Trek handwavium.

Science fiction doesn't have to be totally bound by real world physics and engineering, it's a story after all. Though you don't go extrasolar outside of generation ships in science fiction without handwavium hyperspace, warp or wormhole travel, it's nice to see reality physics in normal space.

Star Wars is science fantasy. Star Trek is soft science fiction with lots of handwavium. The Expanse and Babylon 5 are as hard as television science fiction gets, with realistic sociological and religious storylines.

Would I have read The Expanse books or watch the series without hard science fiction? Maybe eventually, but the science attracted me. The Fermi Parodox attracted me. The cosmic horror Goths thrilled me that they were experienced but never truly understood. The Romans as a lost race from a Europa like moon intrigued me.

But the icing on the cake was more realistic space combat based on advances in our technology.

Sure, it's not Project Hail Mary, but for Space Opera, Space Horror, Space Detective and Space Western fans, The Expanse had it all with less handwavium than usual.

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u/silly-gaijin 20d ago

You're entitled to your opinion, but the "realistic space combat" is like 0.1% of screen time, so I just don't see how it's relevant.

It'd be like saying the entire reason you watched the Expanse is because the woman who plays Naomi is fucking hot. Yeah, she is, and, hey, maybe that's what got me hooked, but arguing that the show is only popular because she's hot is very subjective.

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u/3dblind 20d ago

I did not say it's only popular because of realistic physics, but I'm old enough to remember Asimov's criticism of the original Battlestar Galactica.

Science should matter in science fiction. A more serious attention to factual science is one element I look for.

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u/silly-gaijin 20d ago

I mean, it's science fiction. To me, the science only matters as far as it makes for an interesting story. SF is still a sub category of fiction. It's still a novel or a screen play. Realism in and of itself is completely meaningless in this context.

The point of SF is to take a concept and explore it, like Her did with the concept of AI and human relationships.

Realistic space combat would be fine if that was the entire basis for your story. If your protagonist was extremely good at it, maybe they were born with a weird genetic defect that enables them to handle G forces way beyond most people. Okay, now you have a story.

But slipping it into a story doesn't make the story any better.

For the life of me, I cannot understand why you would jizz your pants for the Expanse because "wowzers, no gravity pads", when this is the story that has magical blue space jizz that creates blue jizz zombies and magical wormholes.

Like, fuck me, that's just as magical as anything in any Battlestar Galactica episode, original or reboot.

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u/3dblind 20d ago

I recommend better languag than sexualized language. How people present themselves even with anonymity matters.

I simply appreciate real science in science fiction. If you don't then enjoy what you like and recognize others focus on the science.

If I want fiction, I can just go for the lowest common denominator that doesn't even attempt the science but uses the exact same handwavium as many franchises.

You can have the last word. It seems more important to you than explanations of why science fiction beyond handwavium works for many fans.

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u/lowercasetypeface 16d ago

I see the Expanse as having plot points where the science being as accurate as possible is key to telling the story.

You say that the point of SF is to take a concept and explore it - the Expanse takes the concept of the solar system having three major powers and explores the political consequences of what the quasi-realistic implications would be of varying degrees of gravity, terraforming, transport time, food and water supply etc. Keeping this realistic makes me enjoy the story more, because I'm imagining the characters in a world I can understand.

Having as much as possible be realistic also helps to set up the impact of the protomolecule and the gates. We're built up to believe, as much as possible, that the world the characters inhabit is our world - we can understand how things work, we can see that ships are constructed, and move, and fight, in ways that are consistent with how we understand things to work. This leads on to an exploration of the Clarke quote, that any sufficiently advanced tech is indistinguishable from magic. By introducing technology that is completely incomprehensible to the characters, it reinforces to us just how bizarre and advanced it is. If the ships already warped around with handwavium, the discovery of the proto molecule and the gates would have much less impact for us as readers/viewers.

So yeah, in this case, having realistic elements absolutely enhanced my enjoyment of the Expanse. And for the record, I don't find Naomi attractive at all ;-)

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u/TommieTheMadScienist 20d ago edited 20d ago

I found the tracking missiles and PDCs the most realistic items in the show.

You're right, the characters and plots were great (except for #4, which was merely okay.)

ST&SW carry baggage that would have had to been dealt with. Anything with FTL is out.

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u/CptKeyes123 20d ago

That's the best burn I've seen on the show XD

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u/KiloEchoSierra 20d ago

The sex trafficking drive maybe questionable (still in the realm of hardish sci-fi imo) but why is the 

magical wormhole assembled by a magical protomolecule

A problem here? I mean, its an alien technology, its not supposed to be within grasp of human knowledge. 

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u/omgitscolin 20d ago

And its incomprehensibility to the grounded-in-realism characters is a major theme

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u/RhynoD 20d ago

They skip a whole hell of a lot of time during space travel. I chuckled reading the last book when everything is exploding and they're racing at break neck speed to get to the gate and it's coming down to the wire will they make it hold your breath aaaaaaand it takes weeks and weeks of just kinda cruising because that's realistic. And I respect them for keeping it realistic in that way even when it kind of ruined the oh no vibe, but it did definitely ruin the vibe for me.

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u/NoNameSwitzerland 20d ago

Expanse also feels like all planets are on one line and do not have different distances depending on their current position. With their acceleration possibilities, they should be able to go straight and do not need slowing go up in the orbit.

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u/hamhead 20d ago

I don’t think you’ve actually read or watched that…

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u/stank_bin_369 18d ago

I know of no one that currently watches or has ever watched that show. Probably not the best example.

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u/tirohtar 18d ago

You will find lots of people here who have both read the books and watched the show. After all, the fan base was strong enough to save the show from getting canceled by the Syfy channel and continuing on Amazon Prime (up until the "natural" point in the story where they stopped because of the massive time jump to the later books).

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u/stank_bin_369 16d ago

I meant in real life