In This Edition

Language and Literature

Part 1: Literature and Writing

Part 2: The Medium of Language

Part 3: Language Sciences and Science Languages

Questions & Answers

Prof. Isabelle de Courtivron Head of Foreign Languages and Literatures

Prof. Steven Pinker Author of The Language Instinct and Words and Rules

Prof. Anita Desai Award-winning novelist and writing instructor

Geoffrey A. Landis '80 NASA scientist and science fiction writer

Jade Wang '01 President of the MIT Science Fiction Society

Kelly Clancy '03 Prize winning short story author

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Geoffrey A. Landis

Geoffrey Landis

Geoffrey A. Landis '80, is a scientist at the NASA John Glenn Research Center working on advanced concepts for space flight. He has published over 250 scientific papers in the fields of photovoltaics and astronautics, and holds four patents on photovoltaic device designs. Dr. Landis, who has won the Hugo and Nebula Awards for his writing, published his novel Mars Crossing in 2000 and recently published a short-story collection Impact Parameter (and Other Quantum Realities).

How does your current work at NASA feed into your science fiction writing?

The nice thing is that I have two homes for all my crazy ideas. If an idea is something that can be workable today or tomorrow, I can work on it at NASA; if it's something that can't work today, I can put it into science fiction. Sometimes a thought leads to something that can be used for both--my story "A Walk in the Sun," for example, was stimulated by an idea that I had while writing a paper for the Princeton Space Development Conference, "Solar Power for the Lunar Night." And, of course, a lot of the fascination with Mars that went into writing Mars Crossing came from the enthusiasm about geology that I picked up from other scientists on the Mars Pathfinder mission.

What science fiction themes interest you the most?

I have a weakness for "sense of wonder" stories about space flight, like (for example) Larry Niven's original Ringworld novel. It's getting harder and harder to find something new to write about, though--and lately the real world has been outstripping science fiction in imagination and expanse. Who would have envisioned larger-than-Jupiter worlds in orbits closer to their star than Mercury? Or a mysterious fifth force that makes the universe expansion accelerate? Lately I've been fascinated by Greg Egan's far-future speculations about the life, the universes, and cyberspace.

What can scientists learn from science fiction?

We can be reminded that the universe is huge and wonderful, and always full of surprises. Let's explore!

Prof. Isabelle de Courtivron "Learning a language is learning about a culture, about how people live, function, think; it is learning about their history, their values." more...

Prof. Steven Pinker "The rate of vocabulary growth in one-year-olds seems to depend more on how much language they hear, whereas the point at which they start combining words into microsentences like "sweater chair" and "allgone outside" depends more on their genes." more...

Prof. Anita Desai "To be a writer, one must spend one's life at one's desk by one's self." more...

Geoffrey A. Landis '80 "A lot of the fascination with Mars that went into writing Mars Crossing came from the enthusiasm about geology that I picked up from other scientists on the Mars Pathfinder mission." more...

Jade Wang '01 "[The MIT Science Fiction Society] does its best to get a copy of every new science-fiction and fantasy book as it comes out, if not before. We also try to maintain a reasonable library for scholarship and research." more...

Kelly Clancy '03 "I write to tell the secrets I couldn't speak aloud. Paper is brave like I could never be." more...