Let’s connect chemistry with SF!

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I have not read enough SF stories regarding aliens, or outer space life forms that are not human beings to realize that a lot of authors believe they are silicon-based creatures? Human beings, we live in a very carbon-based planet. Our energy and building blocks of life are made with carbons! Yet, why couldn’t silicon be the base for another life form? A chemist wishes to give you the answer to this!

Could silicon be the basis for alien life forms, just as carbon is on Earth?

I can not stress how happy I am to come across this article which links chemistry (at the level I understand) to SF stories. Thanks to Prof. Takematsu, who is currently teaching a course called Chemistry for the Common Good, she introduced me to this article.

I will be updating this page to use my chemical knowledge to explain some of the jargon in this article to help my fellow classmates in SF class understand this article more. Meantime, if any terms in this article seem interesting to you, please comment and I will consult my chemistry book to give you an explanation!

A little confession?!

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OsLY7DXWsF4

A little confession?..

I was extremely nervous about this class before we started.. why? Because I thought I am not familiar with the field of SF at all. To myself, my friends, and advisors, I constantly said, “Oh my, I have never seen SF before, I don’t know what to do!” Yet, our first class together, I realized that, oh wait a minute, I think I had a very wrong understanding of what counts as SF!?

 

Here we go, so apparently, one of my favorite anime turned out to be classified as SF??!! (I guess the other part of this confession is, I did watch a decent amount of animes growing up.) About that, anime was/still is big in China, or in Asia in general. Until today, I still would not mind watching anime in general. But I stopped after I have arrived in the States. Why? Because I am so not used to watching Japanese animes with English subtitles! To me, my childhood consisted of Japanese animes with CHINESE subtitles. However, when I arrived here, I could only find animes with English subtitles, that really messed up my watching rhythm!

In short, Sword Art Online (SAO), big thumbs up! I want to say this is one of my favorites! It is also on Netflix! Go watch it, people!