Rudolf von Bitter Rucker is an American mathematician, computer scientist, science fiction author, and one of the founders of the cyberpunk literary movement. The author of both fiction and non-fiction, he is best known for the novels in the Ware Tetralogy, the first two of which both won Philip K. Dick Awards. Until its closure in 2014 he edited the science fiction webzine Flurb.
John Walker is a computer programmer, author and co-founder of the computer-aided design software company Autodesk. He has more recently been recognized for his writing on his website Fourmilab.
ChalkZone is an American animated television series created by Bill Burnett and Larry Huber for Nickelodeon. The series follows Rudy Tabootie, an elementary school student who discovers a box of magic chalk that allows him to draw portals into the ChalkZone, an alternate dimension where everything ever drawn on a blackboard and erased turns to life. Rudy is joined in his adventures by Snap, a wisecracking superhero Rudy once drew with chalk, and Penny Sanchez, Rudy's academically intellectual classmate and personal friend.
Ralph William Gosper Jr., known as Bill Gosper, is an American mathematician and programmer. Along with Richard Greenblatt, he may be considered to have founded the hacker community, and he holds a place of pride in the Lisp community. The Gosper curve and the Gosper's algorithm are named after him.
Mondo 2000 was a glossy cyberculture magazine published in California during the 1980s and 1990s. It covered cyberpunk topics such as virtual reality and smart drugs. It was a more anarchic and subversive prototype for the later-founded Wired magazine.
Ant-Man is the name of several superheroes appearing in books published by Marvel Comics. Created by Stan Lee, Larry Lieber and Jack Kirby, Ant-Man's first appearance was in Tales to Astonish #35. The persona was originally the brilliant scientist Hank Pym's superhero alias after inventing a substance that can change size, but reformed thieves Scott Lang and Eric O'Grady also took on the mantle after the original changed his superhero identity to various other aliases, such as Giant-Man, Goliath, and Yellowjacket. Pym's Ant-Man is also a founding member of the super hero team known as the Avengers. The character has appeared in several films based on the Marvel character, such as Ant-Man (2015), Captain America: Civil War (2016), Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018), Avengers: Endgame (2019) and upcoming Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.
White Light is a work of science fiction by Rudy Rucker published in 1980 by Virgin Books in the UK and Ace books in the US. It was written while Rucker was teaching mathematics at the University of Heidelberg from 1978 to 1980, at roughly the same time he was working on the non-fiction book Infinity and the Mind.
In computer science, a turmite is a Turing machine which has an orientation in addition to a current state and a "tape" that consists of an infinite two-dimensional grid of cells. The terms ant and vant are also used. Langton's ant is a well-known type of turmite defined on the cells of a square grid. Paterson's worms are a type of turmite defined on the edges of an isometric grid.
Spaceland is a science fiction novel by American mathematician and computer scientist Rudy Rucker, and published in 2002 by Tor Books.
The Ware Tetralogy is a series of four science fiction novels by author Rudy Rucker: Software (1982), Wetware (1988), Freeware (1997) and Realware (2000).
Transrealism is a literary mode that mixes the techniques of incorporating fantastic elements used in science fiction with the techniques of describing immediate perceptions from naturalistic realism. While combining the strengths of the two approaches, it is largely a reaction to their perceived weaknesses. Transrealism addresses the escapism and disconnect with reality of science fiction by providing for superior characterization through autobiographical features and simulation of the author's acquaintances. It addresses the tiredness and boundaries of realism by using fantastic elements to create new metaphors for psychological change and to incorporate the author's perception of a higher reality in which life is embedded. One possible source for this higher reality is the increasingly strange models of the universe put forward in theoretical astrophysics.
Mind uploading, whole brain emulation, or substrate-independent minds, is a use of a computer or another substrate as an emulated human brain. The term "mind transfer" also refers to a hypothetical transfer of a mind from one biological brain to another. Uploaded minds and societies of minds, often in simulated realities, are recurring themes in science-fiction novels and films since the 1950s.
Machinesmith is a supervillain appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics, most notably as a regular enemy of Captain America. He specializes in robotics, and is able to make convincing robotic doubles of other superhumans. His own mind was ultimately transferred to a robotic body.
Mundane science fiction (MSF) is a niche literary movement within science fiction that developed in the early 2000s, with principles codified by the "Mundane Manifesto" in 2004, signed by author Geoff Ryman and "The Clarion West 2004 Class". The movement proposes "mundane science fiction" as its own subgenre of science fiction, typically characterized by its setting on Earth or within the Solar System; a lack of interstellar travel, intergalactic travel or human contact with extraterrestrials; and a believable use of technology and science as it exists at the time the story is written or a plausible extension of existing technology. There is debate over the boundaries of MSF and over which works can be considered canonical. Rudy Rucker has noted MSF's similarities to hard science fiction and Ritch Calvin has pointed out MSF's similarities to cyberpunk. Some commentators have identified science fiction films and television series which embody the MSF ethos of near-future realism.
Software is a 1982 cyberpunk science fiction novel written by Rudy Rucker. It won the first Philip K. Dick Award in 1983. The novel is the first book in Rucker's Ware Tetralogy, and was followed by a sequel, Wetware, in 1988.
Wetware is a 1988 biopunk science fiction novel written by Rudy Rucker. It shared the Philip K. Dick Award in 1988 with Four Hundred Billion Stars by Paul J. McAuley. The novel is the second book in Rucker's Ware Tetralogy, preceded by Software in 1982 and followed by Freeware in 1997.
Zanesville is a science fiction novel written by Kris Saknussemm and published by Villard Books, an imprint of Random House in 2005.
Wetware is a term drawn from the computer-related idea of hardware or software, but applied to biological life forms.
Hacking is the name of a tactic in the early forms of football that involved tripping an opposing player by kicking their shins. A dispute among clubs over whether to ban the tactic eventually led to the split between the sports of association football and rugby football. Despite this split, rugby clubs banned the tactic soon after.
Virtual reality in fiction describes fictional representations of the technological concept of virtual reality.
