Gregory Benford
Gregory Benford
Gregory Benfordis an American science fiction author and astrophysicist who is on the faculty of the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of California, Irvine. He is also a contributing editor of Reason magazine...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth30 January 1941
CountryUnited States of America
attraction both fans invented knows major net nobody proximity utterly
Virtuality - connection without proximity - is a major attraction in both fandom and the Net. Nobody knows you're a dog through the U.S. mail, either. Fans could be utterly different in their fanzine persona, which may be why both fandom and the Net were invented by individualistic Americans.
avoid bodily closed develop genuine harm nasa needed required science truly useful
Very little useful science got done in the space station. NASA never did the experiments needed to develop the technologies required for a genuine interplanetary expedition: centrifugal gravity to avoid bodily harm and a truly closed biosphere.
bubbles extremely fine form large pockets seen smooth tiny waves
To us large creatures, space-time is like the sea seen from an ocean liner, smooth and serene. Up close, though, on tiny scales, it's waves and bubbles. At extremely fine scales, pockets and bubbles of space-time can form at random, sputtering into being, then dissolving.
both built people program readers science
The people who built the space program - both Soviet and U.S. - were readers of science fiction.
workers
They will do anything for the worker, except become one.
loss information structure
Disintegration of structure equals information loss.
self people identity
People fear their hidden selves, afraid that they will burst out.
suicide space risk
Space travel leading to skylife is vital to human survival, because the question is not whether we will be hit by an asteroid, but when. A planetary culture that does not develop spacefaring is courting suicide. All our history, all our social progress and growing insight will be for nothing if we perish. No risk of this kind, however small it might be argued to be, is worth taking, and no cost to prevent it is too great. No level of risk is acceptable when it comes to all or nothing survival.
technology doe
Any technology that does not appear magical is insufficiently advanced.
technology magic
Any technology that is distinguishable from magic is not sufficiently advanced.
giving-up people acting
In a tough situation, don't avoid acting just because it's easier or comfortable. Don't lapse into a passive state. People who give up, die.
doubt teach
Religions do not teach doubt.
pain ignorance everyday
You had to form for yourself a lucid language for the world, to overcome the battering of experience, to replace everyday life's pain and harshness and wretched dreariness with - no not with certainty but with an ignorance you could live with. Deep ignorance, but still a kind that knew its limits. The limits were crucial.
real matter wells
No matter how much you plan for it, the real thing seems curiously, well, unreal.