Hacker News Reader

Comment by kyriakos | Hacker News Reader

Very interesting take on this in the novel Death's End by cixin lu

I found these parts of the book completely fascinating, but also the most "scientifically hand-waved" stuff in the whole series. I've never been a big stickler for "hardness" in my sci-fi, but I'd have liked to see the ideas expanded on more. Death's End is a hell of a book, really goes places.

At some point the technology and physics described are so far from our levels that I don't think the author could go into much detail. Really though just when you thought the story's scale has reached its maximum the next one comes up.

Yeah, that's what made it such a fun read to me, like you said it just continually gets more and more out there. It explores some really interesting ideas that I haven't seen touched on in much of the sci-fi I've read. Another personal favorite is Iain M. Banks Culture series, which is much different than Liu's work but does the same thing - exploring these really interesting ideas of a far future society and how humans fit into that world.

If you want universes that run on alternate topologies taken seriously, I mean, like, the maximum level of serious possible, you want Greg Egan.

For instance, Greg Egan seriously considering the nature of 2+2 universe, that is, two space, two time dimensions: https://www.gregegan.net/DICHRONAUTS/DICHRONAUTS.html (Don't miss the interactive simulation: https://www.gregegan.net/DICHRONAUTS/02/Interactive.html )

He's got a few others, too.

He's first name is Liu.

Isn't it customary to put a Chinese person's family name first?

He's just correcting a misspelling

I think this is pointing out a typo rather than prescribing an ordering.

typo sorry

Isn't Liu his family name?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com