Why

[james_davis_nicoll]

Do SF authors make up new elements? The elements don't seem to be in Seaborg's island of stability, either.

Actually, what I really mean is why would the sort of person who can't be bothered to look at a table of elements or think about the general decline in half-lives as atomic mass increases past a certain point bother with SF? What's the attraction for them?

Comments

[anton-p-nym.livejournal.com]

Because the border between soft SF and "future fantasy" is incredibly blurred anyway, many SFnal tropes are now mainstream so you get more SF written by non-experts/non-enthusiasts in scientific fields, modern sciences advance much more quickly than Joe Layman can readily keep up given the generally crappy job education systems do teaching science, Google-fu has replaced research skills and interview skills, and the public keeps buying the stuff by the bushel.

-- Steve's probably missed some points, plus there's still a kitchen sink he hasn't thrown in somewhere around here.