Some new words and why I read SF

For along time now—longer than I can remember—I've been interested in how memory works. What is a memory? How do memories persist? How are they stored in the mind? What is stored? How do memories interact? How do memories change over time?

I am always looking for ways to improve memory or learning/uptake. As an educator, I put a lot of weight into Schmidt's noticing hypothesis. When something new is brought to one’s attention incidentally, it is an excellent opportunity to form and flesh out a long-term memory.

I’m a very curious person and I’m always asking questions. As I grow older, I try to be more tactful and show more restraint with my curiosity, but it still sometimes gets me into trouble. I try to learn and absorb as much as I can. One essential part of that process is reading. I try to read widely, regularly, and critically. This isn’t to say that I’m authoritative on anything. The most important thing I’ve realized from reading is how little I know (and how little others know). Luckily, it is this realization that keeps me reading.

One genre that I enjoy is SF. People often ask me why I read SF. For some reason, many people are unable to see the value in science fiction. They are unaware of its most important authors and themes. The best SF is a marriage of the things we value in fiction and science. SF produces some of the finest meditations on origins, reality, identity, relationships, and the future (it also provides some of the most insipid). Fiction provides a wealth of lofty ideas, abstract paintings of dimensions both foreign and familiar; Science provides the craft for ascent. Of course, many people will groan when they discover that I read science texts as well. It’s been my experience that many scientists (physicists, astronomers, etc) already read SF (some of them write it). The best SF, after all, is that which is informed by real science. It explores the future and the paths that might lead us there. It promotes interest in the science behind the fiction (SF encourages science literacy), and thus elliptically draws those of us in a (darker) more distant orbit towards the light of science.

Fiction may allow us to hallucinate, but science can teach us how to reveal the unseen world (fiction is an acid drop; science is a microscope).

Lately there has been a great deal of talk about invisible threats here in Japan. Some of it is hallucinatory fever stuff and some of it is scientific revelation. It’s essential (but at times very difficult) to be able to distinguish between the two. We’re getting snapshots of the larger picture. Unfortunately fitting them altogether is akin to fiddling with a tanagram puzzle: there are many shapes the data can take.

I read SF, so I deal with “far-out” ideas and what ifs. Recently, though, I encountered some things in the media that were a little unfamiliar…how about you? How many of these can you define without peeking?

Seivert (Sv)
Becquerel (Bq)
Neutron beam
Gray (Gy)
Iodine-131 (¹³¹I)
Iodine-134 (¹³⁴I)
Cesium-137 (Cs-137)
Radionuclide
Radiation hormesis
Spent fuel pool
Cold shutdown
Temblor
Dose fractionation
linear no-threshold model (LNT)
Radioresistance