In general relativity, a naked singularity is a hypothetical gravitational singularity without an event horizon.
Gregory Benford is an American science fiction author and astrophysicist who is professor emeritus at the department of physics and astronomy at the University of California, Irvine. He is a contributing editor of Reason magazine.
A future history is a fictional conjecture of the future used by authors of science fiction and other speculative fiction to construct a common background for stories. Sometimes the author publishes a timeline of events in the history, while other times the reader can reconstruct the order of the stories from information provided. The term can also be used to describe the subgenre of science fiction that uses this framework.
George Alec Effinger was an American science fiction author, born in Cleveland, Ohio.
Stephen Baxter is an English hard science fiction author. He has degrees in mathematics and engineering.
Vacuum Diagrams is a collection of science fiction short stories by British writer Stephen Baxter. The collection connects the novels of the Xeelee Sequence and also shows the history of mankind in the Xeelee universe, and ultimately the universe. While each short story in the collection is self-contained, the stories are presented as being contained in the context of the first story, "Eve", about a man who is forced to witness the events in the short stories by a god-like being. "Eve" acts as a structure for the short stories, with an introduction at the beginning of Vacuum Diagrams, short scenes occurring between each "era", and an ending that wraps up the plot for the "Eve" story itself. Vacuum Diagrams won the Philip K. Dick Award in 1999.
"Blue Shift" is the tenth story chronologically to appear in Stephen Baxter's collection of linked stories anthology novel Vacuum Diagrams. "Blue Shift" was originally published in Writers of the Future volume 5 in 1989.
"Nightfall" is a 1941 science fiction short story by the American writer Isaac Asimov about the coming of darkness to the people of a planet ordinarily illuminated by sunlight at all times. It was adapted into a novel with Robert Silverberg in 1990. The short story has appeared in many anthologies and six collections of Asimov stories. In 1968, the Science Fiction Writers of America voted "Nightfall" the best science fiction short story written prior to the 1965 establishment of the Nebula Awards and included it in The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume One, 1929–1964.
Timelike Infinity is a 1992 science fiction book by British author Stephen Baxter. The second book in the Xeelee Sequence, Timelike Infinity introduces a universe of powerful alien species and technologies that manages to maintain a realistic edge because of Baxter's physics background. It largely sets the stage for the magnum opus of the Xeelee Sequence, Ring.
Exultant is a science fiction novel by British author Stephen Baxter. It is part two of the Destiny's Children series. The book was published by Victor Gollancz Ltd in September 2004.
Ring is a 1994 science fiction novel by British author Stephen Baxter. The novel tells the story of the end of the universe and the saving of mankind from its destruction. Two parallel plots are followed throughout the novel: that of Lieserl, an AI exploring the interior of the Sun, and that of the Great Northern, a generation ship on a five-million-year journey.
Flux is a 1993 science fiction novel by British author Stephen Baxter. It is the third book in Baxter's Xeelee Sequence.
Resplendent is an English language science fiction collection by British writer Stephen Baxter, published in 2006. It is the fourth and final book in the Destiny's Children series.
Destiny's Children is a science-fiction series by Stephen Baxter. It takes place within his larger series, the Xeelee Sequence. Like his previous Manifold Trilogy, the books are not direct sequels to one another, but are instead thematically linked by the appearance of concepts, themes, and sometimes characters in multiple books. Examples of this include:
The Xeelee Sequence[a] is a series of hard science fiction novels, novellas, and short stories written by British science fiction author Stephen Baxter. The series spans billions of years of fictional history, centering on humanity's future expansion into the universe, its intergalactic war with an enigmatic and supremely powerful Kardashev Type V alien civilization called the Xeelee, and the Xeelee's own cosmos-spanning war with dark matter entities called Photino Birds. The series features many other species and civilizations that play a prominent role, including the Squeem, the Qax, and the Silver Ghosts. Several stories in the Sequence also deal with humans and posthumans living in extreme conditions, such as at the heart of a neutron star (Flux), in a separate universe with considerably stronger gravity (Raft), and within eusocial hive societies (Coalescent).
Black holes, objects whose gravity is so strong that nothing—including light—can escape them, have been depicted in fiction since at least the pulp era of science fiction, before the term black hole was coined. A common portrayal at the time was of black holes as hazards to spacefarers, a motif that has also recurred in later works. The concept of black holes became popular in science and fiction alike in the 1960s. Authors quickly seized upon the relativistic effect of gravitational time dilation, whereby time passes more slowly closer to a black hole due to its immense gravitational field. Black holes also became a popular means of space travel in science fiction, especially when the notion of wormholes emerged as a relatively plausible way to achieve faster-than-light travel. In this concept, a black hole is connected to its theoretical opposite, a so-called white hole, and as such acts as a gateway to another point in space which might be very distant from the point of entry. More exotically, the point of emergence is occasionally portrayed as another point in time—thus enabling time travel—or even an entirely different universe.
Ark is a 2009 hard science fiction novel by English author Stephen Baxter. It is a sequel to his 2008 novel Flood. Ark deals with the journey of the starship Ark One, and the continuing human struggle for survival on Earth after the catastrophic events of Flood. The series continues in three pendant stories, which are described in the plot summary below.
Negative energy is a concept used in physics to explain the nature of certain fields, including the gravitational field and various quantum field effects.
This is the complete bibliography of British science fiction author Stephen Baxter.
Neutron stars—extremely dense remnants of stars that have undergone supernova events—have appeared in fiction since the 1960s. Their immense gravitational fields and resulting extreme tidal forces are a recurring point of focus. Some works depict the neutron stars as harbouring exotic alien lifeforms, while others focus on the habitability of the surrounding system of planets. Neutron star mergers, and their potential to cause extinction events at interstellar distances due to the enormous amounts of radiation released, also feature on occasion. Neutronium, the degenerate matter that makes up neutron stars, often turns up as a material existing outside of them in science fiction; in reality, it would likely not be stable.
