BAD SCIENCE in science fiction.
Jan. 23rd, 2008 12:51 amSo, the short story, Slow Life by Michael Swanwick - as found in The Mammoth Book of Best New SF 16 - has some egregious scientific mistakes. I don't know whether it's the author, or the editor, or the typesetter to blame - but one of these people has a fecking awful understanding of some basic concepts, to the extent the story made me angry. Get this: (by the way, I don't know how to do superscripts in livejournal, so superscripted stuff is typed as ^)
There are two things definitely wrong with that section of book, and a third possibly wrong.
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Still tugging at the ropes in the sequence uploaded by the engineers in Toronto, she scrolled up the chart of hydrocarbons dissolved in the lake.
Solute Solute mole fraction Ethyne 4.0 x 10^-4 Propyne 4.4 x 10^-5 1,3-Butadiyne 7.7 x 10^-7 Carbon Dioxide 0.1 x 10^-5 Methanenitrile 5.7 x 10^-6
There are two things definitely wrong with that section of book, and a third possibly wrong.