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You've encountered technobabble when Doc Brown is shouting about flux capacitors in Back To The Future, or when Isaac Asimov writes about positronic brains. Astrophysicist Katie Mack and NASA JPL technologist Manan Arya discuss how science fact relates to science fiction.
This episode is a collaboration with Eric Molinsky of Imaginary Worlds; listen to his episode about technobabble here.
ADDITIONAL MATERIALS:
Really, though: listen to the Imaginary Worlds episode in which we talk a lot more about technobabble, especially how it works in science fiction.
So many damn acronyms! Need to tell the NFL (National Football League) from the NFL (No Fun League)? Acronym Finder has you covered.
Star Trek technobabble generator.
NASA's Juno mission and the goddess Juno.
The Oxford Dictionary of Science Fiction is the technobabble technobible.
Jennifer Ouellette, who appears on Eric's Technobabble episode, on being a Hollywood science consultant.
The transcript of this episode is at theallusionist.org/transcripts/technobabble.
YOUR RANDOMLY SELECTED WORD FROM THE DICTIONARY:
fogou
CREDITS:
Eric Molinsky makes the terrific podcast Imaginary Worlds. Find it at imaginaryworldspodcast.org, and on Twitter @ImaginWorldsPod. He also wrote the new episode of Radiotopia's The Truth, 'Brain Chemistry'.
Katie Mack is a theoretical astrophysicist. Find her at astrokatie.com and on Twitter @astrokatie.
Manan Arya is a technician and 'space origami artist' (seriously!) at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. He's on Twitter @spacemanan and his website is mananarya.com.
This episode was produced by me, Helen Zaltzman; the music is by Martin Austwick.
Find me at facebook.com/allusionistshow, twitter.com/allusionistshow, twitter.com/helenzaltzman and instagram.com/helenzaltzman.
Want to contribute to a future episode? Here is your mission, should you choose to accept it...
- HZ
