The dictionary defines science fiction as a narration based on imagined future scientific or technological advances. As we all know, such stories are totally fantastic, utterly impossible, if we base our judgment on the knowledge that is presently available to us.
I, personally, am a big fan of “good” science fiction, although most of my friends are not. But this does not deter me from enjoying a well conceived fantastic story, either in a book or on the screen. I believe that the natural curiosity that human beings are endowed with makes them rightly wander about the reasons why things are the way they are and also about what the cause of such things might be. Imagination is a useful tool that makes the mind create possibilities which, according to logic or to the current knowledge, are considered impossible. After all, wasn’t also Einstein among those who praise such faculty? His quote “Imagination is more important than knowledge” is universally known. Okay, I am getting to the point.
Sir Arthur Eddington was a British astrophysicist of the early 20th century. Talking about the then new theory of the Expanding Universe, where scientists hypothesized the possibility that galaxies are increasingly expanding till they might become simple puffs of smoke, he said: “I sometimes wonder if a greater scale of existence exists where they (the galaxies) truly are a puff of smoke”. Intriguing idea, isn’t it? Then Donald Wandrei, an American science fiction writer of the olden days (the ‘30s) wrote a short story that has always fascinated me. Its title is “Colossus” and it narrates of Duane, a young astronaut who, for a series of circumstances, finds himself traveling alone in a spaceship that keeps flying faster and faster till it reaches the speed of light. At this point, when it has become incredibly expanded, a kind of shaking takes place and Duane realizes that he “had actually pierced space”, and finds himself in another, larger dimension, of which our Universe is just an atom.
Are you scoffing? I don’t blame you. If you are one of those individuals who love to keep their feet firmly grounded on the Earth surface and don’t appreciate a bit of fantasy here and there, you are right in assuming a despising attitude and dispose of such a subject as idiotic. On the other hand, if you know a bit of history, you might remember that, till a few centuries ago, anyone who fantasized about our planet being round, or not being at the center of the Universe was considered insane. Also the scientists who hypothesized the existence of other galaxies beside ours were not, at first, hailed as smart guys. And we have quite recently talked about the boson (God’s particle): Same story.
Therefore, why not admit that any imagined thing “could” become a possibility and it might even, eventually, show itself to be a reality. If you know the books of renowned French writer Jules Verne, you might understand what I am talking about. He wrote “science-fiction” stories, back in the 19th century, where he described a journey to the moon by means of a spaceship very much alike the actual 1969 Apollo. His imagination also made him visualize an underwater vessel, the famous Nautilus (almost identical to a submarine of our days), conned by the unforgettable Captain Nemo (“Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea”).
Such considerations bring me to a thought that intrigues me a lot. You have certainly heard about the theory of the Big Bang, upon which it seems that - fortunately - all scientists seem to agree, at least till now. They have given lots of descriptions and explanations of what it is, how and when it happened etc. One thing no one is able to even suggest a possibility about, though, is where did the infinitesimal grain of energy that exploded creating our Universe came from. At this point I wonder: could that tiny “grain” be something like Duane’s spaceship, springing up from a smaller dimension after having pierced the space of its own Universe? Again, I leave it at that.
— Elsa Franco Al Ghaslan, a Saudi English instructor and published author (in Italy), is a long-time scholar of positive thinking.
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Creative Thinking: An ‘apologia’ of science fiction
