World forces - H.G. Wells

Photograph by George Charles Beresford

As Wells looked back from the vantage point of 1934:

World forces were at work tending to disperse the aristocratic system in Europe, to abolish small traders, to make work in the retail trades less independent and satisfactory, to promote industrial co-ordination, increase productivity, necessitate new and better informed classes, evoke a new type of education and make it universal, break down political boundaries everywhere and bring all men into one planetary community. The story of my father and mother and all my family is just the story of so many individual particles in the great mass of humanity that was driving before the sweep of these as yet imperfectly apprehended powers of synthesis.... An outburst of discovery and invention in material things and of innovation in business and financial method, has, we realize, released so much human energy that, firstly, the need for sustained toil from anyone has been abolished, secondly, practically all parts of the world have been brought into closer interaction than were York to London three centuries ago and, thirdly, the destructive impulses of men have been so equipped, that it is no longer possible to contemplate a planet in which unconditioned war is even a remote possibility. 

We are waking up to the fact that a planned world- state governing the complex of human activities for the common good, however difficult to attain, has become imperative, and that until it is achieved, the history of the race must be now inevitably a record of catastrophic convulsions shot with mere glimpses and phases of temporary good luck. We are, as a species, caught in an irreversible process. No real going back to the old, comparatively stable condition of things is possible; set-backs will only prolong the tale of our racial disaster. We are therefore impelled to reconstruct the social and economic organization until the new conditions are satisfied.

Social Cohesion

Image: Public Domain, Bertrand Russell 1936

It is clear that each party to this dispute – as to all that persist through long periods of time – is partly right and partly wrong. Social cohesion is a necessity, and mankind has never yet succeeded in enforcing cohesion by merely rational arguments. Every community is exposed to two opposite dangers: ossification through too much discipline and reverence for tradition, on the one hand; on the other hand, dissolution, or subjection to foreign conquest, through the growth of an individualism and personal independence that makes co-operation impossible. In general, important civilizations start with a rigid and superstitious system, gradually relaxed, and leading, at a certain stage, to a period of brilliant genius, while the good of the old tradition remains and the evil inherent in its dissolution has not yet developed. But as the evil unfolds, it leads to anarchy, thence, inevitably, to a new tyranny, producing a new synthesis secured by a new system of dogma. The doctrine of liberalism is an attempt to escape from this endless oscillation. The essence of liberalism is an attempt to secure a social order not based on irrational dogma, and insuring stability without involving more restraints than are necessary for the preservation of the community. Whether this attempt can succeed only the future can determine.

From History of Western Philosophy

Ultra-Intelligent Machines - James Gunn

Erewhon (1872) attacks what The Coming Race idealizes. Samuel Butler's narrator finds in the interior of New Zealand an advanced civilization which has discarded machinery because by a process of evolution machinery would develop consciousness, enslave man, and finally supersede him. In this connection we might compare Arthur Clarke's speculation that man is the organic, evolutionary bridge between the inorganic and the ultra-intelligent machine which may well be man's successor.

From Alternate Worlds

Zero Point - A Quantum Story

Currently, I am writing a story called Zero Point. Some of the science in the story is based on the pilot-wave theory that Louis de Broglie first proposed in the 1920s, when he also proposed that particles had wave-like features. Basically, the theory says that a particle such as an electron is associated with a wave (pilot) which influences its physical properties, such as momentum. Since each particle has a guiding wave then experiments such as the famous double-slit experiment of quantum mechanics can be explained (that is, an interference pattern is generated by particles traveling through two closely spaced slits, not what would be expected classically.

Now, there is a lot of development in a physics discipline called Hydrodynamic Quantum Analogs which are macro-experiments that show quantum-like behaviors. I'll let John Bush of MIT, who is a leading researcher in the field explain it:

In 2005, Yves Couder and Emmanuel Fort discovered that droplets walking on a vibrating fluid bath exhibit features previously thought to be peculiar to the quantum realm. Since 2010, this hydrodynamic system has been the focus of my group’s research. Particular attention has been given to identifying new hydrodynamic quantum analogs in the laboratory, and to rationalizing the emergent quantum-like behaviour theoretically. We have also developed and explored theoretically a broader class of pilot-wave systems that provide a mathematical bridge between the walking-droplet system and the dynamics proposed by Louis de Broglie and others for the microscopic, quantum realm. For an overview, I suggest reading the reviews on the subject, especially the most recent one, Hydrodynamic Quantum Analogs, as appeared in 2020 in Reviews of Progress in Physics.

(From his website: https://thales.mit.edu/bush/index.php/4801-2/)

So, what am I doing with pilot-waves in the story?

Hard Science Fiction - Old School

D.W. Patterson here, writer of Hard Science Fiction - Old School.

I write two types of hard science fiction. The first uses lightly extrapolated science, usually in a near-term setting, and includes such titles as my novel L4 Station, and the novella series MarsX.

The second uses highly extrapolated science, which I will call speculative hard science fiction, usually in a distant time, and includes the Mach Series, the Null Infinity Series, and the Time Series.

They are both based on current science research or technology that I’ve read about, but with a different emphasis on the degree of difficulty in implementation. Extrapolated hard science fiction needs only the engineering, though that may be years/decades away. Speculative hard science fiction needs more research, maybe further development of theory and might be decades/centuries away.

My style of writing could be considered big idea and adventure with a touch of romance (sometimes). One reviewer compared my writing to Isaac Asimov’s writing. I love Asimov, and I think that’s a fair comparison in the scope of the work, importance of ideas, and general optimism, but I do think I handle characterization differently, maybe because it interests me more.

My latest (12/25) extrapolated hard science fiction releases are L4 Station, and the MarsX series.

My latest (12/25) speculative hard science fiction releases are the Brane World series and the novel Zero Point.