Many researchers acknowledge the role that science fiction has played in triggering their interest in science and inspiring breakthroughs. Indeed, there are many examples of fictional technologies ...

The current cultural fascination and frustration with artificial intelligence is nothing new. As far back as the 1921 Czech play R.U.R. — the workers-rights story that first coined the term “robot” — ...

There are well understood terms of engagement between the people who write for publication, on one hand, and the academics and critics who discuss it, on the other. Writers write. Then the academics ...

The power of words Rachel Carson’s book Silent Spring, which begins with a form of sci-fi, led to the ban on DDT in agriculture, showing how sci-fi can influence real-world science. (Courtesy: ...

Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. I cover aerospace, astronomy & hosted The Cosmic Controversy Podcast. As the recent Worldcon 2025 Convention here in Seattle ...

Science fiction (SF) influences everything in this day and age, from the design of everyday artifacts to how we—including the current crop of 50-something Silicon Valley billionaires—work. And that’s ...

The translator Ken Liu has done more than anyone to bridge the gap between Chinese science fiction and American readers. Ken Liu outside his home in Stoughton, Mass.Credit...Amani Willett for The New ...

Such a statement requires not only justification but considerable elaboration. Written science fiction is, of course, literature, although science fiction in other media (films, drama, perhaps even ...

‘Do You Compute?’ investigates how technology went from being written off as science fiction to something we engage with every day. In the years following the end of World War II, computers were just ...