Skip to main content

The Science of Doctor Who – Paul Parsons ****

Science fiction is the flirty, flighty, naughty cousin of popular science. Although purists will tell you the only decent SF is in books, there have been some exceptions on TV, and two shows stand out like beacons. One is Star Trek, for the way it has become an integral part of modern culture. The other is Doctor Who. This British programme has driven its way ahead of the rest both because of its longevity – in 2006 it was about to start a new season 43 years after the first episode, which was broadcast the day after Kennedy’s assassination – and because of its refreshing originality. This hasn’t always been evident in its long run, but was clearly there when it captured audiences back in 1963 as something new and different, and has been evident again in its latest incarnation, started in 2005, where it took on not only modern production values, but has also inherited the slick wit of Buffy the Vampire Slayer – as is obvious from the delightful quotes in Paul Parson’s book.
I have to take the risky step of arguing with science fiction’s very own sage, Arthur C. Clarke, who wrote the introduction to the book. He suggests that Dr Who might really be considered fantasy rather science fiction, as some of the “science” is very far fetched. I think this misses the point – much science fiction, particularly TV science fiction, rather skimps over elements of the science: in the end, important though the science is, the plot must generally come first. (James Blish famously wrote some SF that was purely idea driven, such as his short story Beep, and wasn’t alone in this, but most popular SF needs a good plot.) The distinction between SF and fantasy can’t really be “is it likely?” or you rule out faster than light travel, matter transmitters, time travel, interstellar travel – practically everything that makes SF interesting. Instead the distinction has to be something like “are any special capabilities intended to be based on science and techology or something else?” – and on the whole Dr Who remains firmly in science fiction.
This is born out when you get into Parsons’ book proper. He may occasionally have to stretch the improbables a long way, but it’s only rarely that he has to announce something is out-and-out wrong rather than very, very unlikely. Whether it’s time travel itself, the Tardis being bigger on the inside than the outside, or the Doctor’s two hearts, Parsons can deliver an answer. Along the way as we meet wild aliens, strange robots and even a virtual reality world called the Matrix (years before the feature film of the same name), Parsons keeps the reader intrigued and entertained. You do have to have seen Doctor Who to get the most out of this book, but certainly don’t have to be a fan. If you haven’t come across the most recent incarnation of the show (at the time of writing, those featuring Christopher Eccleston and David Tennant), it’s worth trying to catch an episode or two, as the book makes frequent reference to the newer episodes (with good reason).
This isn’t the first “science of Doctor Who” book. Michael White got there first with his much more intriguingly titled A Teaspoon and An Open Mind. But White’s book had significant flaws. In particular, it failed to tie in closely enough to Dr Who itself. It took a basic concept from the show – time travel, say – then went off on a long riff on time travel. This misses the point of the “Science of” genre. We don’t want to know all there is to know about time travel, we want to know how the Tardis, the Doctor’s travel device, could work. Where Michael White failed, Paul Parsons delivers much more effectively. Although he may just occasionally go too far, going into the details of too many obscure aliens for all but the most ardent fan, mostly he gets the balance right. The science is good, the fit to Doctor Who is good and the writing is good – the result is one of the better ventures into the concept of “Science of”. If you like Doctor Who (whether a traditionalist or one of the army of new fans from the latest version) or just want to explore some weird and wonderful science, this is a must-have.

Paperback:  
Using these links earns us commission at no cost to you
Review by Brian Clegg
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

It's On You - Nick Chater and George Loewenstein *****

Going on the cover you might think this was a political polemic - and admittedly there's an element of that - but the reason it's so good is quite different. It shows how behavioural economics and social psychology have led us astray by putting the focus way too much on individuals. A particular target is the concept of nudges which (as described in Brainjacking ) have been hugely over-rated. But overall the key problem ties to another psychological concept: framing. Huge kudos to both Nick Chater and George Loewenstein - a behavioural scientist and an economics and psychology professor - for having the guts to take on the flaws in their own earlier work and that of colleagues, because they make clear just how limited and potentially dangerous is the belief that individuals changing their behaviour can solve large-scale problems. The main thesis of the book is that there are two ways to approach the major problems we face - an 'i-frame' where we focus on the individual ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Introducing Artificial Intelligence – Henry Brighton & Howard Selina ****

It is almost impossible to rate these relentlessly hip books – they are pure marmite*. The huge  Introducing  … series (a vast range of books covering everything from Quantum Theory to Islam), previously known as …  for Beginners , puts across the message in a style that owes as much to Terry Gilliam and pop art as it does to popular science. Pretty well every page features large graphics with speech bubbles that are supposed to emphasise the point. Funnily,  Introducing Artificial Intelligence  is both a good and bad example of the series. Let’s get the bad bits out of the way first. The illustrators of these books are very variable, and I didn’t particularly like the pictures here. They did add something – the illustrations in these books always have a lot of information content, rather than being window dressing – but they seemed more detached from the text and rather lacking in the oomph the best versions have. The other real problem is that...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Laws of Thought - Tom Griffiths *****

In giving us a history of attempts to explain our thinking abilities, Tom Griffiths demonstrates an excellent ability to pitch information just right for the informed general reader.  We begin with Aristotelian logic and the way Boole and others transformed it into a kind of arithmetic before a first introduction of computing and theories of language. Griffiths covers a surprising amount of ground - we don't just get, for instance, the obvious figures of Turing, von Neumann and Shannon, but the interaction between the computing pioneers and those concerned with trying to understand the way we think - for example in the work of Jerome Bruner, of whom I confess I'd never heard.  This would prove to be the case with a whole host of people who have made interesting contributions to the understanding of human thought processes. Sometimes their theories were contradictory - this isn't an easy field to successfully observe - but always they were interesting. But for me, at least, ...
Post a Comment
Read more