2024 Faculty - Sushan Konar

Brief About the Session :

Science from Fiction : Projects in Astronomy

It is well known that an interest in star-gazing as a child, in many cases, transform into career aspirations in Astronomy. Perhaps not so well known, at least not outside of the academic corridors, is the connection between an interest in science fiction (SF) and choice of Astronomy as a career. The most celebrated example is, of course, Carl Sagan who wrote about the effect SF had on him as a young boy. This anecdotal link has now been established statistically when a survey (2022) conducted on the attendees at the UK National Astronomy Meeting found that about 93% of the respondents were interested in science fiction, while 69% stated that it had influenced their life or career choices.

Because Astronomy is, above all, a challenge to extract information from meagre data, faint signals at electromagnetic or (most recently) gravitational waves. There are many instances of scientists persevering for years (decades) to unravel the true phenomenon behind a certain observation, applying fundamental physical principles. The sequence of events can even outshine many a highly acclaimed whodunits. A good SF gives this flavour of Astronomy in the context of a story.

In particular, the genre of hard Science Fiction (SF) is well known for accurately predicting many aspects of future life (like, submarines, communication satellites, smart electronics etc.). What is not well known is that many of these SF stories use hard science (though in futuristic settings) and can be turned around to give young students a hands-on experience of learning science in a non-pedagogic manner. Interestingly Astronomers across generations, from Johannes Kepler to Fred Hoyle, Carl Sagan, Jayant Narlikar to the current generation of Gregory Benford, Geoff Landis, Michael Brotherton, too have added to the genre of hard SF by writing stories that do not involve fantasy, magic, or impossible elements.

For this year's Lodha Genius program, we have chosen 10 such hard SF stories, for 10 projects to be framed around them. The students would be divided into groups of 2 or 3, and each group would be working on a particular story. In half of the stories, a problem is posed in an astrophysical setting which needs to be resolved by application of fundamental physics. The students would have to formulate the method to calculate the relevant quantities, obtain the results and demonstrate whether the solutions mentioned in the story work. In the rest of the stories, the plot-line itself is not of importance, but one needs to grasp the Astronomical background. For this, the students would require to do literature survey and explain the story setting in simple terms.

Career :