The Science of Doctor Who
The Scientific Facts Behind the Time Warps and Space Travels of the Doctor
Published on 26. January 2021
264 pages
978-1-5107-5787-5 (ISBN)
Description
Geek out over the TARDIS, aliens, alternate timelines, parallel worlds, and all your favorite characters from the Doctor Who Universe!
Doctor Who arrived with the Space Age, when the Doctor first began exploring the universe in a time-traveling spaceship. Over half a century since, the Doctor has gone global. Millions of people across this planet enjoy Doctor Who in worldwide simulcast and cinema extravaganzas. Doctor Who has infused our minds and our language and made it much richer.
What a fantastic world we inhabit through the Doctor. The program boils over withballsy women, bisexual companions, scientific passion, and a billion weird and wonderful alien worlds beyond our own. The show represents almost sixty years' worth of magical science-fiction storytelling. And Doctor Who is, despite being about a thousands-of-years-old alien with two hearts and a spacetime taxi made of wood, still one of our very best role models of what it is to be human in the twenty-first century.
In The Science of Doctor Who, we take a peek under the hood of the TARDIS and explore the science behind questions such as:
So welcome to The Science of Doctor Who, where the Doctor steps smoothly in and out of different realities, faces earthly and unearthly threats with innovation and unpredictability, and successfully uses science in the pay of pacifist resistance!
Doctor Who arrived with the Space Age, when the Doctor first began exploring the universe in a time-traveling spaceship. Over half a century since, the Doctor has gone global. Millions of people across this planet enjoy Doctor Who in worldwide simulcast and cinema extravaganzas. Doctor Who has infused our minds and our language and made it much richer.
What a fantastic world we inhabit through the Doctor. The program boils over withballsy women, bisexual companions, scientific passion, and a billion weird and wonderful alien worlds beyond our own. The show represents almost sixty years' worth of magical science-fiction storytelling. And Doctor Who is, despite being about a thousands-of-years-old alien with two hearts and a spacetime taxi made of wood, still one of our very best role models of what it is to be human in the twenty-first century.
In The Science of Doctor Who, we take a peek under the hood of the TARDIS and explore the science behind questions such as:
- What does Doctor Who tell us about space travel?
- Could the TARDIS really be bigger on the inside?
- In what ways does the Doctor view the end of our world?
- Is the Doctor right about alternate timelines and parallel worlds?
- Will intelligent machines ever rule the earth?
- Is the earth becoming more like Doctor Who's matrix?
- Is the Doctor a superhero?
- How do daleks defecate?
So welcome to The Science of Doctor Who, where the Doctor steps smoothly in and out of different realities, faces earthly and unearthly threats with innovation and unpredictability, and successfully uses science in the pay of pacifist resistance!
More details
Person
Mark Brake developed the world's first science and science fiction degree in 1999. He also launched the world's first astrobiology degree in 2005. He's communicated science through film, television, print, and radio on five continents, including for NASA, Seattle's Science Fiction Museum, the BBC, the Royal Institution, and Sky Movies. He was one of the founding members of NASA's Astrobiology Institute Science Communication Group. He has written more than a dozen books, including Alien Life Imagined for Cambridge University Press in 2012. Mark also tours Europe with Science of Doctor Who, Science of Star Wars, and Science of Superheroes road shows.
Content
- Front Cover
- Half-Title Page
- Title Page
- Copyright Page
- Contents
- Introduction
- Part I: Space
- Introduction
- What Does Doctor Who Tell Us about Space Travel?
- What Spaceships Are "Fit" to Sail the Whoniverse?
- Could the TARDIS Really Be Bigger on the Inside?
- What Has Doctor Who Done with Darwin's Natural Selection?
- Which Doctor Who Aliens Should Never Have Made the Science Cut?
- How Does Doctor Who Use the Science of Exoplanets?
- Questions for the Doctor: What's It Like Waking Up on a Space Station?
- Are There Baby Universes Too?
- Is Doctor Who Right: Will There Be Space Vacations?
- What If Doctor Who Stories Fell like Cinema Rain?
- Part II: Time
- Introduction
- Questions for the Doctor: How Do You Travel through Time?
- What Are the Definitive Time Machines of Doctor Who?
- Anyone Heard of the Blinovitch Limitation Time Effect?
- Questions for the Doctor: What Are Your Best Stories of Traveling in Time?
- In What Ways Does Doctor Who View the End of Our World?
- Sure, Time Passes
- But How Does It Do So on The TARDIS?
- Could the Doctor Wormhole through Our Universe?
- What's the History of Doctor Who in Ten Objects?
- Is There a Problem with the Doctor Traveling Faster Than Light?
- Is the Doctor Right about Alternate Timelines and Parallel Worlds?
- In What Way Do Humans Regenerate like Time Lords?
- What Would Really Happen If You Lived as Long as the Face of Boe?
- Part III: Machine
- Introduction
- Questions for the Doctor: What Kind of Machine Is the TARDIS?
- What Are Doctor Who's Most Memorable Vehicles?
- Will Intelligent Machines Ever Rule the Earth?
- Is the Earth Becoming More like Doctor Who's Matrix?
- Are Daleks and Cybermen Cyborgs?
- What Are Doctor Who's Most Memorable Robots?
- Do Androids Dream of Doctor Who?
- What's the Most Deadly Doctor Who Superweapon?
- What Are Doctor Who's Best Inventions?
- What Are the Peaks of the Doctor Who Soundscape?
- Part IV: Monster
- Introduction
- Is He a "Mad" Doctor?
- Questions for the Doctor: Will Humans Evolve into Daleks?
- Is the Doctor a Superhero?
- How Do Daleks Defecate?
- How Does Doctor Who Foresee a Future of Villainy?
- Has the Silence Visited the Human Past?
- What's the Doctor Who Meme-Plex?
- Do Sontarans Have Clone Girlfriends?
- Has the Doctor Ever Been Dolittle?
- Are Humans Becoming Cybermen?
- Do Whoniverse Earthlings Carry Cybermen Organ Donor Cards?
- Index
