Bear, Greg - Strikes and Spares

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STRIKES AND SPARES

"You're a science fiction writer, huh? What have you predicted?" I've been asked this many times-and

my usual reply is, "I'm not a prophet and I don't predict..." But in a way, the question is legitimate.

Science fiction is often charged with the task of modeling the future, or a variety of futures. If a writer

never scores a few strikes, why bother bowling at all?

So... a few strikes, and some spares:

QUANTUM LOGIC COMPUTERS: "HEADS" UP!

Fiction:

In my novella "Heads" (1991) (published as a separate volume by Random House U.K. under their

Legends imprint, and by Tor in the U.S.) I described Quantum Logic Thinkers in some detail. In the

future explored by Queen of Angels (1990), "Heads," Moving Mars (1993), and my next novel, Slant

(~1997), computers are differentiated from "thinkers," which use neural net processes and are sentient.

Quantum Logic thinkers, like quantum logic computers, utilize quantum processes and logic to perform

their work, bringing in unusual and sometimes spooky results. (There's actually a hint of this in my earlier

novel, "Blood Music" (1985) where I touch on using quantum processes to speed biological computers.)

Fact:

A couple of years after the publication of "Heads," articles began appearing in various science magazines

heralding the development of quantum logic processors, which use the pathways available in

undetermined multiple universes to speed computing.

No evidence yet that their results will be particularly spooky! Theorist and mathematician Steve

Selesnick, who has published a number of high level papers on quantum computing, sent congratulations

on my being ahead of the scientists...

THE BOSE-EINSTEIN CONDENSATE

Fiction:

In "Heads," researchers on the moon refrigerate a sample of a few thousand atoms to absolute zero,

creating a peculiar state of matter that behaves as if it were a single atom. In Moving Mars, this state of

matter is utilized to access the "Bell Continuum," with extraordinary results. ("Heads" was inspired in part

by an article on the search for absolute zero and the Third Law of Thermodynamics in The Sciences

magazine.)

Fact:

Scientists Carl Wieman and Eric Cornell and their colleagues recently cooled a small sample of rubidium

atoms (2000 or so) to a record low temperature, creating what is called a Bose-Einstein condensate, a

new state of matter. Some of the properties of this state are eerily similar to those of the super-cold

sample in "Heads." So far, no disastrous side effects, and no indication that there is any such thing as the

"Bell continuum"! But then-they haven't reached absolute zero.... yet.

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