“Science fiction these days is only half a step ahead of science. Astrophysicists and scientists are working in the same way as science fiction writers. They’re working things out in their imagination based on the slim scientific facts that they know. Hawking imagines a black hole and then discovers the mathematics that support his theory, and new possibilities come to light. That’s the imaginative flair that scientists have to have. For me as a sci-fi writer, spinning those ideas in your mind brings you to the point where you dream in science fiction. Suddenly you think of something in the middle of the night, and it’s so vivid you don’t need to write it down because you know you’ll remember it in the morning. That’s what these books, Zero G, reflect: a vivid imagination.”

— William Shatner

"William Shtner on Sci-Fi, Aging and the Environment" http://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2017/08/22/in-the-magazine/shatner.html as interviewed by Jeanne Wolf, Saturday Evening Post, September/October 2017

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William Shatner 11

Canadian actor, musician, recording artist, author, and fil… 1931

Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) American fiction writer

Locus interview (1998)
Context: The only people who have the long view are some scientists and some science fiction writers. I have always lived in a world in which I'm just a spot in history. My life is not the important point. I'm just part of the continuum, and that continuum, to me, is a marvelous thing. The history of life, and the history of the planet, should go on and on and on and on. I cannot conceive of anything in the universe that has more meaning than that.

“A writer should have the precision of a poet and the imagination of a scientist.”

Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977) Russian-American novelist, lepidopterist, professor

“No matter how various the subject matter I write on, I was a science-fiction writer first and it is as a science-fiction writer that I want to be identified.”

Isaac Asimov (1920–1992) American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, known for his works of science fiction …

In Joy Still Felt (1980), pp. 286-287
General sources

“In the face of all this, many of the standard ideas of science fiction seem to me to pale by comparison. I see the relative absence of these things and the distortions of scientific thinking often encountered in science fiction as terrible wasted opportunities. Real science is as amenable to exciting and engrossing fiction as fake science, and I think it is important to exploit every opportunity to convey scientific ideas in a civilization which is both based upon science and does almost nothing to ensure that science is understood.”

Carl Sagan book Broca's Brain

Source: Broca's Brain (1979), Chapter 9, “Science Fiction—A Personal View” (p. 166)

“Imagination is the key to my lyrics. The rest is painted with a little science fiction.”

Jimi Hendrix (1942–1970) American musician, singer and songwriter

“Many scientists deeply involved in the exploration of the solar system (myself among them) were first turned in that direction by science fiction. And the fact that some of that science fiction was not of the highest quality is irrelevant. Ten-year-olds do not read the scientific literature.”

Carl Sagan book Broca's Brain

Source: Broca's Brain (1979), Chapter 9, “Science Fiction—A Personal View” (p. 172)

“Science should be distinguished from technique and its scientific instrumentation, technology. Science is practised by scientists, and techniques by ‘engineers’ — a term that in our terminology includes physicians, lawyers, and teachers. If for the scientist knowledge and cognition are primary, it is action and construction that characterises the work of the engineer, though in fact his activity may be based on science. In history, technique often preceded science.”

Hans Freudenthal (1905–1990) Dutch mathematician

Hans Freudenthal (1978). Weeding and Sowing. Preface to a Science of Mathematical Education; As cited in: Ben Wilbrink (2013) " Hans Freudenthal Aantekeningen bij zijn publicaties http://www.benwilbrink.nl/literature/freudenthal.htm".

“Like most science-fiction writers, Trout knew almost nothing about science.”

Kurt Vonnegut book Breakfast of Champions

Breakfast of Champions (1973)

“Science fiction offers its writers chances of embarrassment that no other form of fiction does.”

Isaac Asimov (1920–1992) American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, known for his works of science fiction …

Robot Dreams (1986), introduction
General sources

“I am not a science fiction writer. I am a fantasy writer. But the label got put on me and stuck.”

Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) American writer

Ray Bradbury interview http://lists.topica.com/lists/gsn-newsday-list/read/message.html?sort=t&mid=911788456 March 23, 2005

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