Science Writing

In this week’s ABR Podcast, Robyn Arianrhod considers the state of popular science writing in the Australian literary landscape. She argues that in-depth science writing with popular appeal and literary value is increasingly hard to find in Australia. And where exemplary works of this kind are published, they are rarely recognised with reviews or literary prizes. Robyn Arianrhod is an Affiliate in Monash’s School of Mathematics and her new book is Vector: A surprising story of space, time, and mathematical transformation, published by NewSouth Books. Listen to Robyn Arianrhod with ‘Beyond the mundane: Popular science writing in our literary landscape’.

After Netflix’s intriguing sci-fi thriller 3 Body Problem streamed into Australia earlier this year, readers rushed out in droves to buy the book on which the series is based: Liu Cixin’s The Three-Body Problem (2008), which was first translated into English in 2014. Most reviews have focused on the philosophical, literary, and cultural aspects of the book – and they are, indeed, fascinating. But the thing that interests me here is the accurate scientific detail that Liu uses to drive the story. Of course, this is sci-fi, so ultimately he presses real concepts into unreal (but imaginative) service. Still, much more physics and maths appear in his book than in the Netflix series, which, according to Tara Kenny’s review in The Monthly (April 2024), ‘offers a welcome workaround’ the science through visual effects. In the book, by contrast, ‘Lengthy passages are spent dutifully explaining physics theories and technological functionality, which is likely to deter readers who haven’t thought about science since they dissected a rat in high-school biology.’