Mining Science for Science Fiction (Patreon)

Part of the fun of writing science fiction is looking at where current science is and where it's headed. At the start of Butcher, I was amazed at what a current quantum computer could do. We can't even measure how fast they are now. It was an easy step to see how an AI could generate an entire world and progress it through a billion years. Need more speed? Add one quantum circuit for 16 times the computing power.

For Tunnel Rat, I started looking at carbon fiber and graphene, things I had read about but was hazy on.  A little research gave me lots of current science to tweak and add to the story.

And today, I hit the story below. Need a material that's four times stronger than steel at only a fraction of the weight? It just got invented. Long fibers of DNA with a glass coating less than a thousand atoms wide. The next step is doing the same thing with carbon compounds and expanding the technology.

I don't have to dream up amazing fictional advances in technology; they are arriving daily.

https://scitechdaily.com/scientists-create-new-material-five-times-lighter-and-four-times-stronger-than-steel/

The danger is in getting lost in these discoveries. :) I am writing the next Tunnel Rat chapter and wondered, "Would he be using steel cables? Or is there something better?" And then I was falling down the rabbit hole.