interview
Interview with key figures in the world of science and science fiction.
Interview with 'Floaters' Creator Jeremy Solterbeck
Space: the Final Frontier. Or... is it? While space travel has consistently been depicted in science fiction and popular culture as an exclusivity attainable by elite scientists, engineers, and air force pilots, Floaters poses an interesting predicament: what if ordinary people went to space?
By Natasha Sydor9 years ago in Futurism
Science Journalist Lee Billings On Life Beyond the Solar System
The history of science can be read as a series of brusque reality checks. Once, we imagined ourselves the center of a small and harmonious universe, gifted with a sun content to revolve placidly around the Earth. In time, however, our real estate was relegated from the center of everything to a hum-drum corner of an unimportant galaxy in a much bigger and more tumultuous universe. Upon closer inspection, our sun was revealed to be just another star, born from a nebula, fated for eventual collapse. At the same time, we came to understand the spark of life, transforming in the process from the mini-gods of a pedantic little empire into nothing more than a consequence of biological randomness.
By Claire Evans9 years ago in Futurism
Interview With Ralph Barnaby
In October of 1910, when he was just 17 years old, Ralph Stanton Barnaby played hooky from high school and went to the Second International Gordon Bennett Air Race at Belmont Park, Long Island. His older brother was at the park, working on the engine of one of the planes entered in the race. The plane was the Baby Grand–owned and designed by Wilbur and Orville Wright. For a week before the race, young Ralph helped his brother and the Wrights put the final touches on Baby Grand.
By Futurism Staff9 years ago in Futurism
To Preserve a Demon
Writer/editor Jason Davis has a special ambition -- to catalog, digitize, edit, correct, annotate and re-publish (or publish for the first time, in some cases) all of Harlan Ellison's writings. Twenty-six four-foot-wide drawers of typescripts, over 100 feet of paper if stacked, the lifework of a man who is easily one of the most influential and cantankerous authors of the 20th century. Jason is spearheading the Harlan Ellison Books Preservation Project, a grand undertaking "To create definitive versions of all Harlan Ellison's writings, fiction and non-fiction, to preserve in print for posterity."
By Joshua Sky9 years ago in Futurism
Interview with Martin Shoemaker
Omni had the opportunity to speak with Martin L. Shoemaker, multi-award winning author and professional programmer. His short story Today I Am Paul was nominated for a Nebula Award and he has won much accolade in the span of his six year career. Martin has written for publications such as Analog, Galaxy’s Edge and Clarkesworld. He has a number of upcoming projects, including several novels.
By Joshua Sky9 years ago in Futurism
Robert Helms 'Guinea Pig Zero'
Our country’s pharmaceutical industry demands rigorous testing of potential drug agents, human trials that sometimes drag on for weeks or months. Test subjects must often monotonously return to get blood drawn, abstain from normal activity, or keep meticulous notes about their side effects. But, at the end of the trial, it’s a quick couple thousand dollars in your pocket. This is precisely the kind of work that draws those on the margins of society, those who are willing to dose themselves with the latest psychiatric concoction and live in a confined clinic for a few weeks. And we need them—these guinea pigs. Without reliable test subjects, America doesn’t get its drugs.
By Kelly Bourdet9 years ago in Futurism
Interview with Larry Niven
OMNI had the opportunity to sit down with LA native, and legendary author, Larry Niven. He is the recipient of five Hugos, one Nebula, and four Locus awards. Larry has written and co-written such works as Ringworld, Mote In G-d’s Eye,Lucifer’s Hammer, Footfall and much more.
By Joshua Sky9 years ago in Futurism
David Brin on Science Fiction, Fact, and Fantasy
David Brin is one of the “10 authors most-read by AI researchers.” Naturally, he's the guy to consult before Terminators take over the planet. With an extensive resume and years of research experience under his belt, Brin has become the go-to authority on all things science.
By Natasha Sydor9 years ago in Futurism
Morris Kline Interview
Morris Kline was a slender man, soft-spoken, polite, cultured. For most of his lifetime he was a mathematician, in pursuit of what Alfred North Whitehead called "a divine madness of the human spirit." Yet Kline did not display the madness so often paraded by his fellow mathematicians. He was a champion of common sense, but, as Lord Kelvin put it, "Mathematics is merely the etherealization of common sense." That connection eluded many of Kline's colleagues.
By Futurism Staff9 years ago in Futurism
Astronaut Gordon Cooper Interview
Which would you consider the greatest challenge: steering a racing car to victory? Piloting an experimental aircraft? Whirling in a centrifuge to find out your body's ultimate limits? Keeping in mind the hundreds of intricate details a spacecraft checkout requires while waiting to be hurled into orbit? Astronaut Gordon Cooper took all those challenges. And that was only the first career for a man who then put the future to work.
By Futurism Staff10 years ago in Futurism
E.O. Wilson Interview
The publication of E.O. Wilson's Sociobiology in 1975 was to use a cliché—a landmark event in the history of biology. This enormous volume (697 oversize pages) is a truly remarkable compendium of a vast, widely dispersed literature on the relationship between biology and social behavior throughout the animal kingdom. It ranges from Homo sapiens to the social insects (Wilson is by trade an entomologist; his speciality—he calls them his "totem animal"—is ants). He intended it to be a scientifically respectable, thorough review, so it is full of tables and charts and extensively referenced. On the other hand, it is well written and handsomely illustrated.
By Futurism Staff10 years ago in Futurism
