商品簡介
Schmidt is best known as the long time editor of Analog the more science oriented of the science fiction magazines. He also has a doctorate in physics. Both these facts make him a perfect person to explain how advances in science and technology have altered our lives, how they will continue to do so and why we should understand the process. Schmidt reminds us that computers, CAT scans, cell phones and gene therapy were all just fiction fifty years ago. Nanotechnology is now being used in industry. Cloning is a fact. So we should expect other ideas that sound preposterous to become a reality. But Schmidt also points out that the convergence of technologies can give results the inventors never imagined. Wilbur Wright lived to see an airplane deliver an atom bomb. Changes we make to our own bodies to cure disease or prevent birth defects could change the way we define who is human. Schmidt warns us that we can't be complacent and that it is our responsibility to understand the ramifications and be prepared to deal with them. Annotation c2008 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
作者簡介
Stanley Schmidt, PhD has served as editor of Analog: Science Fiction and Fact for twenty-five years. With a doctorate in physics from Case Western Reserve University, he has been a member of the Foresight Institute since its inception, has participated in a think tank with the Advanced Concepts Group at Sandia National Laboratory, and is a member of the Board of Advisers of the National Space Society. He has published both science fiction novels and nonfiction works on the future, and has edited or coedited many anthologies.
