In the fantasy universe of the phenomenally best-selling Discworld series, everything runs on magic and common sense. The world is flat and million-to-one chances happen nine times out of ten. Our world seems different - it runs on rules, often rather strange ones. Science is our way of finding out what those rules are. The appeal of Discworld is that it mostly makes sense, in a way that particle physics doesn't.
The Science of Discworld uses the magic of Discworld to illuminate the scientific rules that govern our world. When a wizardly experiment goes adrift, the wizards of Unseen University find themselves with a pocket universe on their hands: Roundworld, where neither magic nor common sense seems to stand a chance against logic.
Roundworld is, of course, our own universe. With us inside it (eventually). Guided (if that's the word) by the wizards, we follow the story from the primal singularity of the Big Bang to the Internet and beyond. We discover how puny and insignificant lives are against a cosmic backdrop of creation and disaster. Yet, paradoxically, we see how the richness of a universe based on rules has led to a complex world and at least one species that tried to get a grip on what was going on...
Ian Stewart, Jack Cohen and Terry Pratchett have combined talents to tell the story of the universe from outside, looking in.
Magicians and scientists are, on the face of it, poles part. Certainly, a group of people who often dress strangely, live in a world of their own, speak a specialized language and frequently make statements that appear to be in flagrant breach of common sense have nothing in common with a group of people who often dress strangely, speak a specialized language, live in ... er...
* * *
With magic, you can turn a frog into a prince. With science, you can turn a frog into a Ph.D and you still have the frog you started with.
* * *
To a scientist, a thought experiment is an argument that you can run through in your head, after which you understand what's going on so well that there's no need to do a real experiment, which is of course a great saving in time and money and prevents you from getting embarassingly inconvenient results.
* * *
The wizards are a lively bunch, always ready to open any door that has "This door to be kept shut" written on it or pick up anything that has just started to fizz.
* * *
Like the denizens of any Roundworld university, [the wizards] have unlimited time for research, unlimited funds and no worries for tenure. They are also by turns erratic, inventively malicious, resistant to new ideas until they've become old ideas, highly creative at odd moments and perpetually argumentative -- in this respect they bear no relationship to their Roundworld counterparts at all.
* * *
Wizards can put up with any amount of deprivation and discomfort, provided it is not happening to them.
* * *
"I assure you, Dean, that the chances of anyone being killed by the, er, reacting engine are even greater than the chance of being knocked down while crossing the street," he said.
"Really? Oh, well ... all right then."
* * *
Ponder had invented a little system he'd called, in the privacy of his head, Lies-to-Wizards. It was for their own good, he told himself. There was no point in telling your bosses everything; they were busy men, they didn't want explainations. There was no point in burdening them. What they wanted was little stories that they felt they could understand, and then they'd go away and stop worrying.
* * *
[Ponder] realized that he could explain thaumic fission very well, provided that the person listening already knew all about it. With the senior wizards, though, he'd need to explain the meaning of every word. In some cases this would mean words like "the" and "and".
* * *
"Well ... in the unlikely event of it going seriously wrong, it ... wouldn't just blow up the university, sir."
"What would it blow up, pray?"
"Er ... everything, sir."
"Everything there is, you mean?"
"Within a radius of about fifty thousand miles out into space, sir, yes. According to Hex it'd happen instantaneously. We wouldn't even know about it."
"And the odds of this are...?"
"About fifty to one, sir."
The wizards relaxed.
"That's pretty safe. I wouldn't bet on a horse at those odds," said the Senior Wrangler.
* * *
It so happened that Albert Einstein had already predicted this possibility on theoretical grounds, with his famous formula -- an equation which the orangutan Librarian of Unseen University would render as "Ook."
* * *
Besides, the big worry was that if the Allies didn't get nuclear fission working soon then the Germans would beat them to it. Given the chance between our blowing up the world and the enemy blowing up the world, it was obvious what to do.
That is, on reflection, not a happy sentence.
* * *
The Bursar was not, as many thought, insane. On the contrary, he was a man with both feet firmly on the ground, the only difficulty being that the ground in question was on some other planet, the one with the fluffy pink clouds and the happy little bunnies.
* * *
...by the time [early humanoids] had evolved enough intelligence to poke sticks into edible animals and to use fire, it is unlikely that they could stare at the night sky without wondering what the devil it was for (and, given humanity's traditional obsessions, whether it involved sex in some way).
* * *
The current name for what has variously been called "heresy" and "natural philosophy" is, of course, "science."
* * *
You can work out how much energy a kangaroo uses when it makes a jump, count how many jumps it makes in a day, and deduce a lower limit on its daily energy requirements. ... Do the sums, and you find that the kangaroo's daily energy requirement is about ten times as big as anything it can get from its food. Conclusion: kangaroos can't jump. Since they can't jump, they can't find food, so they're all dead.
Strangely, Australia is positively teeming with kangaroos, who fortunately cannot do physics.
* * *
Clarke's Law states that any sufficiently advanced technology looks like magic. "Advanced" here is usually taken to mean "shown to us by advanced aliens or people from the future," like television shown to Neanderthals. But we should realize that television is magic to nearly everyone that uses it now -- to those behind the camera as well as to those sitting on the couch in front of the moving picture in the funny box.
* * *
The universe into which we were born, and in which our species evolved, runs by rules -- and science is our way of trying to work out what the rules are. But the universe that we are now constructing for ourselves is one that, to anyone other than a member of the design team and very possibly even to them, works by magic.
* * *
As humans, we have invented lots of useful kinds of lie. As well as lies-to-children ("as much as they can understand"), there are lies-to-bosses ("as much as they need to know"), lies-to-patients ("they won't worry about what they don't know") and, for all sorts of reasons, lies-to-ourselves.
* * *
Every so often, you have to unlearn what you thought you already knew, and replace it by something more subtle. This process is what science is all about, and it never stops.
* * *
"You can't just stop something like this. Something bad would happen."
"The end of the world?" quavered the Senior Wrangler.
"Probably just this part of it," said Ponder.
* * *
"...it's been nice knowing you. Some of you. One or two of you, anyway..."
* * *
Later on, the wizards wondered if the new universe might have been different if the Dean had waggled his fingers in a different way. Perhaps, within it, matter might have naturally formed itself into, say, garden furniture, or one giant nine-dimensional flower a trillion miles across. But Archchancellor Ridcully pointed out that this was not very useful thinking, because of the ancient principle of WYGIWYGAINGW.
[Footnote: "What You Get Is What You're Given And It's No Good Whining."]
* * *
Our minds evolved to carry out rather specific tasks like choosing a mate, killing bears with a sharp stick, and getting dinner without becoming it.
* * *
"My hypothesis, for what it's worth," said the Lecturer in Recent Runes, "Is that since it was all started off by the Dean, a certain Dean-like tendency may have imparted itself to the ensuing ... er ... developments."
"What? You mean we've got a huge windy universe with a tendency to sulk?"
"Thank you, Archchancellor," said the Dean.
"I was referring to the prediliction of matter to ... er ... accrete into ... er ... spherical shapes."
"Like the Dean, you mean," said Archchancellor.
* * *
"Why isn't it a universe full of tapioca, say, or very large chairs? I mean, if nothing wants to be something, why can't it be anything?"
The wizards stirred their tea and thought about this.
"Because," said the Archchancellor, after a while.
"That's a good answer, sir," said Ponder, as diplomatically as he could. "But it does rather close the door on further questions."
"Best kind of answer there is, then."
* * *
Hex decided to devote part of its time to investigating this interesting thing. It wanted to know how it had developed, what kept it going ... and why, particularly, a small but annoying part of it seemed to believe that if everyone sent five dollars to the six names at the top of the list, everyone would become immensely rich.
-- Hex discovers the Internet
* * *
The big goals of alchemy were spells -- recipies -- for this like the Elixir of Life, which would make you live forever, and How to Turn Lead Into Gold, which would give you lots of money to finance your immortal lifestyle.
* * *
The Senior Wrangler stared at him, trying to remember his name. As a general rule, he avoided getting to know the students, since he felt they were a tedious interruption to the proper running of college life.
* * *
Actually, most ancient civilizations that left records seem to have worked out that the Earth has to be round. [Footnote: "Most civilizations" is admittedly not the same as "most people". "Most people" through the history of the planet have not needed to concern themselves with what shape the world is, provided it supports, somewhere, the next meal.]
* * *
Science is not about building a body of known "facts." It is a method for asking awkward questions and subjecting them to a reality-check, thus avoiding the human tendency to believe whatever makes us feel good.
* * *
Einstein published Special Relativity in 1905 ... the conclusion was that the universe is a lot weirder than common sense tells us, although they probably didn't use that actual word.
* * *
If there is an antigravity effect, then it should stem from "vacuum energy" -- a form of energy that, if it exists, is stored in empty space ... (As we write this, we can picture Ridcully's expression. We shall have to ignore it. This isn't something sensible, like magic. This is science. Empty space can be full of interest.)
* * *
He set up two balls of ice and rock, in an unused corner of the Project, and watched them bang into each other. Then he tried with balls of different sizes. Small ones drifted towards big ones but, oddly enough, the big ones also drifted slightly towards the small ones.
So ... if you thought that one through ... that meant that if you dropped a tennis ball to the ground it would certainly go down, but in some tiny, immeasurable way the world would, very slightly, come up.
And that was insane.
-- Ponder discovers Newton's Law of Gravity
* * *
Ponder Stibbons was an atheist. Most wizards were. This was because UU had some quite powerful standing spells against occult interference, and knowing that you're immune from lightning bolts does wonders for an independent mind.
* * *
The god currently gaining popularity was Om, who never answered prayers or manifested himself. It was easy to respect an invisible god. It was the ones that turned up everywhere, often drunk, that put people off.
* * *
[Thomas Malthus] said that food grows arithmetically (1-2-3-4-5), but populations grow geometrically (1-2-4-8-16). Whatever the growth rates, eventually population will outstrip food supply: there are limits to growth.
[Footnote: This rule does require some special assumptions, such as the chronic and irreversible stupidity of humanity.]
* * *
"Personally I'm glad nothing can get out of the thing, though. Call me old fashioned, but I don't intend to occupy the same room as a million miles of exploding gas."
* * *
"Poor chap looks a bit down," hissed the Senior Wrangler to Ridcully. "I don't think he's been eating properly."
"You mean ... not chewing right?"
* * *
As for the solar system being an act of special creation by a supernatural being -- why would any self-respecting supernatural being make the thing so complicated?
* * *
About 40 years later the French mathematician Pierre-Simon de Laplace came up with an alternative theory of enormous intrinsic beauty, whose sole flaw is that it doesn't actually work.
* * *
The Librarian was informally banned from the High Energy Magic building, owing to his inherent tendency to check on what things were by tasting them. ... The ban was informal, of course, because anyone capable of pulling the doorknob right through an oak door can obviously go where he likes.
* * *
A university is very much like a coral reef. It provides calm waters and food particles for delicate yet marvellously constructed organisms that could not possibly survive the pounding surf of reality, where people ask questions like "Is what you do of any use?" and other nonsense.
* * *
Ridcully: "We'll send you -- that is, your senses -- somewhere."
Rincewind: "Where?"
Ponder: "Somewhere amazing. We just want you to tell us what you see. And then we'll bring you back."
Rincewind: "At what point will things go wrong?"
Ponder: "Nothing can possibly go wrong."
Rincewind: "Oh. Could I have some breakfast first?"
Ridcully: "Of course, dear fellow. Have a hearty meal!"
Rincewind: "Yes, I thought that'd probably be the case."
* * *
Whole religions have been inspired by the sight of a figure emerging, miraculously, from the sea. It would be hard to guess at what strange cult might be inspired by the thing now trudging out of the waves, although avoidance of strong drink and certainly of seafood would probably be high on its list of "don'ts".
* * *
The senior wizards were puzzled again, and demonstrated this by prodding Ponder while he was trying to talk. The wizards were great ones forthe prod as a means of getting attention.
* * *
In April 1969, Neil Armstrong stepped down on to the surface of the Moon, fluffed his lines, and made history.
* * *
...money is like air or love -- unimportant if you've got enough of it, but desperately important if you haven't.
* * *
It is curious that the strongest believers in the soul tend to be people who denigrate material things; yet they then turn their own philosophy on its head by insisting that when an evident process -- life -- comes to an end, there has to be a thing that continues.
* * *
Ridcully: "All right, let's play by the rules. What do you have to move around to get people?"
Dean: "Well ... bits of other people, my father told me."
* * *
"Up in Nothingfjord they believe that all life was created when the god Noddi cut off his ... unmentionables and hurled them at the sun, who was his father," said the Senior Wrangler.
"What, you mean his ... underwear?" said the Lecturer in Recent Runes, who could be a bit slow.
"First of all we can't physically exist inside the Project, secondly that sort of thing is unhygenic, and thirdly I doubt very much if you'll find a volunteer," said the Archchancellor sharply.
* * *
"Where am I exactly?"
"Er ... a sort of magical world with no one in it but yourself."
"Oh, you mean the sort everyone lives in," said Rincewind bitterly.
* * *
"We don't need a machine for being confused. We're entirely capable of confusin' ourselves."
* * *
"Did they try to communicate with you in any way?"
"They just flailed away with great big whiskers! It was worse than watching wizards arguing!"
"Yes, I doubt if they are very intelligent."
"Well, nor are the rock pool creatures."
* * *
It may be that we're now defining life in the same way that "science fiction" is defined -- it's what we're pointing at when we use the term.
* * *
Triploblasts played a crucial role in evolution, precisely because they did have internal organs, and in particular they could ingest food and excrete it. Their excreta became a major resource for other creatures; to get an interestingly complicated world, it is vitally important that shit happens.
* * *
Even the human race was evolving, by means of education and other benefits of civilization; it had begun with rather bad-mannered people in caves, and it had now produced the Faculty of Unseen University, beyond which it was probably impossible to evolve further.
* * *
[The picture] showed, on the left, a rather hunched-up, ape-like figure. As it crossed the page, it gradually arose and grew considerably less hairy until it was striding confidently towards the edge of the page, perhaps pleased that it had essayed this perilous journey without at any time showing its genitals.
* * *
Thomans Huxley is said to have remarked, on reading [The Origin of Species]: "How extremely stupid not to have thought of that."
* * *
Herbert Spencer ... coined the phrase, "survival of the fittest" to describe [evolution]. The phrase had the advantage of convincing everybody that they understood what Darwin was saying, and it had the disadvantage of convincing everybody that they understood what Darwin was saying.
* * *
...["Survival of the fittest"] deceives many critics of evolution to this day, causing them to aim at a long-disowned target, besides giving a spurious "scientific" background to some extremely stupid and unpleasant political theories.
* * *
"Ah, I've got an idea!" said the Dean, beaming. "We can get Hex to reverse the thaumic flow in the cthonic matrix of the optimized bi-direction octagonate, can't we?"
"Well, that's the opinion of four glasses of sherry," said the Archchancellor briskly, to break the ensuing silence. "However, if I may express a preference, something that isn't complete gibberish would be more welcome next time."
* * *
"There still are lots of blobs in there," said the Dean. "There's just lots of other things, too."
"Any of it lookin' intelligent?" said Ridcully.
"I'm not certain how we'd spot that at this stage..."
"Simple. Is anything killing something it doesn't intend to eat?"
* * *
"Ah, imaginary numbers again," said the Dean. "That's the one he says should come between three and four."
"There isn't a number between three and four," said Ridcully.
"He imagines there is," said the Dean.
* * *
Look for signs of intelligence, the Archchancellor had said. As far as Rincewind was concerned, anything really intelligent would be keeping out of the way of the wizards. If you saw a wizard looking at you, Rincewind would advise, then you should walk into a tree or say "dur?".
* * *
The wizards are torn between evidence that a planet is the last place you'd choose to create life, and evidence that life doesn't agree.
* * *
Scientists, especially, tend to underestimate the propensity of people to lie.
* * *
"That which does not kill you can give you a really bad headache."
* * *
Recent Runes: "When they come to write the history of this world, this is the page everyone will skip. Terribly dull lizards, they'll be called. You mark my words."
Rincewind: "They have stayed around for a hundred million years, sir."
Recent Runes: "And what have they done? Is there a single line of poetry? A building of any sort? A piece of simple artwork?"
Rincewind: "They've just not died, sir."
Recent Runes: "Not dying out is some kind of achievement, is it?"
Rincewind: "Best kind there is, sir."
* * *
Myths, not least Jurassic Park itself, have suggested that dinosaurs are not "really" extinct at all. ... Significantly, no one has made a film bringing back dodos, moas, pygmy elephants, or mosasaurs -- only dinosaurs and Hitler are popular for the reawakening myth. Both at the same time would be a good trick.
* * *
Ridcully: "Y'know, it seems to me that the most sensible thing any intelligent lifeform could do on that little world would be to get off it. ... There's a big moon. And there's other balls floating around this star."
Ponder: "All too hot, too cold, or completely without atmosphere."
Ridcully: "People would just have to make their own entertainment. Anyway ... there's plenty of other suns, isn't there?"
Ponder: "All too far away. It would take ... well, lifetimes to get there."
Ridcully: "Yes, but being extinct takes forever."
* * *
Darwin's detractors objected to having apes as their ancestors: heaven knows what they would have thought about bug-eating egg-laying shrews.
* * *
"Y'know, I thought, all you had to do is get a world working, and before you could say 'creation' there'd be some creature who'd stand up, getting a grip on its surroundings, gaze with a certain amount of intelligence and awe at the infinite sky and say--"
"'--that thing's getting bigger, I wonder if it's going to hit us,'" said Rincewind.
* * *
According to Daniel Dennett, [neutral modules are] like a collection of demons, operating by "pandemonium." They all shout, and at any given instant, whoever shouts loudest wins (quite a lot of the Internet has borrowed this design).
* * *
"'Live and let live,' you know that's always been my motto. Well, 'let me live,' really, but that's almost the same thing."
* * *
The apemen had taken to fire quite quickly, after a few misdirected attempts to eat it or have sex with it, and several of them had progressed to setting fire to themselves.
* * *
On the Internet, the full diversity of views is, or at least can be, represented. It is quite democratic; the views of the stupid and credulous carry as much weight as the views of those who can read without moving their lips.
* * *
"I mean, don't get me wrong, if you pick the right time, yes, sure, it's a great world for a holiday, ten thousand years, even a few million if you're lucky with the weather but, good grief, it's just not a serious proposition for anything long term. It's a great place to grow up on, but you wouldn't want to live here."
-- Rincewind describing life on Earth
* * *
We think the planet's a great place. We grew up here. We were made for it, and it's just right for us ... at the moment.
Tell that to the dinosaurs.
* * *
But even the United States Congress is beginning to wonder just how safe our planet really is, and politicians are not usually known for taking long-term views.
* * *
We'd better say right now that none of this is science fiction. ... Ice Ages happen. Big, big rocks come screaming out of the sky, and you need rather more than Bruce Willis flying the Space Shuttle was if it was the Millenium Falcon to stop them.
* * *
All religions are true, for a given value of "truth."
* * *
Alien microbes are unlikely to find us edible. So are alien tigers, although they might do us quite a lot of damage in finding out.
* * *
The Archchancellor had explained at length to him that although he would be called the Egregious Professor of Cruel and Unusual Geography, this was only because that was cheaper than repainting the title on the door. He was not entitled to wages, or to teach, or to express any opinions on anything, or order anyone around, or wear any special robes, or publish anything. But he could turn up for meals, provided he ate quietly.
To Rincewind, it sounded like heaven.