Where to get help with the correct science???? HELP!!!!

Science background isn't something you just pick up with some light casual reading.

I'm not (really) a scientist by trade, but I've taken all the relevant course at a university level and have been "into science" from a young age to begin with. I do currently work in a field that gives me access to published journals, so I tend to read a lot of papers, and I make it a point to stay on top of science-related news and topics with a geek-tastically high number of RSS feeds.

Also, the best thing is just to surround yourself with people that really are scientists. The rec.arts.sf.science newsgroup (well, Google group now) has a ton of smart people that are willing to answer speculative questions with informed guesses, and the Bad Astronomy/Universe Today forum is pretty similar. There's other more topical niche forums out there for physics, chem, bio, etc., if you go looking.

You don't have to know everything, but you will need a good foundation of basics in order to really understand some of the more complex material. At the very least you'll want to have some grounding in basic physics (kinematics, optics, thermodynamics), chemistry, and biology. A good ability with math is always, always a bonus, but if you suck at it like I do you can work around it to a degree. If you're sound with the basics there you'll be able to understand most everything else.

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Howdy. Card-carrying scientist here, and glad to help if I can, but I'm not sure what exactly you need help with. I study Mars and know mostly about physical sciences (geology, astro/physics, chemistry). I can't help much with biological sciences. Sorry!

What specific questions do you have?

My blog about science and space exploration - http://martianchronicles.wordpress.com

I'm no scientist, I just tend to BS my way through stuff and entirely not bother to detail how my spaceships work. :) I keep telling myself to worry if I've got anything I _have_ mentioned right in December, but I keep worrying about it anyway.

Another 'card carrying' scientist. Like NOVA up there, physical sciences -- phys/chem/earth/atmospheres. Ecology, somewhat, but not much astronomy unless you count planetary geology. Energy issues, nuclear/radiochemistry overlap with my research interests, which are a bit.... esoteric. Climate's another one I know pretty well.

Yeah, DarkHorse is right, I've been doing science a long time, and still find that non-scientist geeks can out-know me on many things. You don't just get it by reading an article or asking a question.

Suggest that you choose your writing projects in such a way that they stretch you _a little bit_ in the "I need to learn something new" direction, but you aren't going to come up with a really technically detailed story if you don't have a solid background already. Most of my favorite SF authors are trained in science, btw.

Not saying you shouldn't write scifi, just saying stick with tried and true ideas and expand on how humans behave in these situations. That's basically what Star Trek does, after all.

Lots of people write Science fiction without being scientists. And lots of people do lots of researching for non-science fiction novels.

There is not one spot ANSWERSTOEVERYQUESTIONYOUEVERHAD.com Researching is about clarifying in your mind what your questions are and then finding the appropriate places to find the answers to those questions and following up your questions with other questions.

"To practice any art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow. So do it." - Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

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I'm not a scientist (though in a different life where science wasn't something that only the boys did I really would have been one!) but I do love it and do all the geeky (podcasting), nerdy (rssing), insanely dorky (going to seminars) things that I can to try to keep up and understand so what I write has a shadow of science.

As for questions the best thing to do is make sure you are coming up with a good clear question. Spend a little bit of time trying to figure it out on your own. (Start with google and wikipedia.) Some of the forums and spots (BA forums!) are good places to reach out. The forums here have been very helpful and give you a different kind of answer than a straight up science forum would.

But mostly...don't stress the science. Come back to the science AFTER Dec 1 when it's editing time. Focus on your story and making sure your plot and characters are good. The better they are the easier it is to get your reader to chuck disbelief out the window and jump off the top of the building. Science can be fixed, bad plot...well that can be fixed too. But if you don't put either down you won't even have something to fix. Gogogogo!!!

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I haven't formally studied science since upper secondary school (though opting for the Natural Science program did give me a very good understanding of the basics in the various fields) but I'm still a tech geek / science nerd. I find New Scientist very useful for keeping up-to-date on sci/tech developments, and they are good at properly referencing journals so you can do further research on specific items of interest. Of course, it helps if you have access to digital journals through a university.

I'm not a scientist, and I don't play one on TV, but I am a geek-hearted amateur scientist who probably knows enough to be dangerous but not enough to be useful. Okay I just had to say that for no good reason.

This is NaNoWriMo, not Scientific Weekly, so don't worry about your science right now. Your goal is word count that somewhat resembles a story and plot.

Thousands of SF genre novels and stories have nothing to do with science anyway. Speculative fiction lets you kind of make up your own rules. Good SCIENCE fiction will at least attempt to stick to most of today's known natural laws, with some extrapolation and often a bit of fantasy. Undead caused by virus rather than supernatural powers, space travel that has artificial gravity on board, finding lots of 1-g planets... it's plausible, right? Also, if your story takes place in the future, you have some more freedom, because science changes rapidly! It was only 15 years ago we were wrapping our minds around birds being dinosaurs, now it's standard fare; and it's only now that we're delving into dark matter and dark space and learning things about supernovae we''ve never known before, right? And there's still no REAL theory of everything - yet.

If you want to get general info, you can start by reading Scientific American and Discover magazines, though it's just basic popular science and not always multi-viewed; you can read scientific journals like Nature and however many others there are (lots), and there's a book on physics/space related things I bought recently which is amazingly succinct, I will post it separately because I can't for the life of me remember it now, and there are Dummies books if you're feeling intimidated, and if you just stand in the phsyics section of a large bookstore you're bound to find lots of interesting theories and things to chew on (keeping in mind many are more speculation than fact, including a recent infusion of Intelligent Design being presented as scientific fact by non-scientists with fancy titles), and so forth. There are comic strip type science books that give rough overviews of concepts, and so on. I love science! There's just too much to keep up with it all!

And if you just have a specific question, feel free to ping me or any other sciency-geeky-types you have access to, because (a) I/they might enjoy helping you research it, and (b) I/they might be able to point you somewhere useful to do your own research.

UPDATE: Adding some books.

100 Most Important Science Ideas

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2009 Goal: Get out and meet people.

I am a scientist, a rather terrible one, actually. I received my undergrad in astrophysics and astronomy, and I really enjoy learning about the utter queerness that our universe offers. Reading a lot is a good way to broaden your knowledge base, and there is a ton of stuff online that you can find. Just make sure you get the information from a reputable site, because there is unfortunately also a lot of misinformation out there as well.

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