This book provides a fascinating look at the science behind the Emmy and Peabody Award-winning show "Battlestar Galactica". "Battlestar Galactica" (BSG) has been called the best show on television, and as real as science fiction gets. It has dealt with issues of religious freedom, patriotism, terrorism, genetic engineering, and the ultimate science fiction question: what does it mean to be human? While the re-imagined BSG may not be packed with cool techie tools (the bad guys don't even have laser guns for frank's sake!), this book shows that the science in the series has a lot to say about the use of science and technology in our lives today. How might the ship's FTL drive work? How are humanoid Cylons able to interface with computers? By tackling these and other intriguing questions, "The Science of Battlestar Galactica" takes us billions of miles away from Earth so that we can turn around and see ourselves from a different perspective. The book explores the full spectrum of science issues in the show, from planetary science to physics to life science. It takes a behind-the-scenes look at the show, with lots of trivia for BSG fans. It tackles your most pressing BSG questions, from how Gaius Baltar's Cylon-detector works to whether a dwindling population of 39,000 people is genetically viable for the human race to survive. Packed with must-know details and scientific background, this thought-provoking book will help you see "Battlestar Galactica" as never before.

Table of Contents

Foreword by Jane Espenson. Acknowledgments. Introduction: Moore's Law. PART ONE: Life Here Began Out There. 1 Are You Alive? 2 The Cylons: Man or Machine? 3 Are We Creating Our Own Cylons? 4 Cylon Intelligence and the Society of Mind. 5 How Can Cylons Download Their Memories? 6 A Dialogue between a Smartass Fanboy and a Real Scientist, viz: The "Silica Pathways" into the Cylon Head. 7 Colonial + Cylon + Natives = Human? 8 The Colonial Pharmacopeia. Part Two: The Physics of Battlestar Galactica. 9 Energy Matters. 10 E = mc2. 11 Special Relativity. 12 General Relativity and Real Gravity (or the Lack Thereof). 13 The Wonderful World of Radiation. 14 The Effects of Nuclear Weapons, or How the Cylons Can Reoccupy Caprica after a Few Days but Not Dead Earth after Two Thousand Years. PART THREE: The Twelve Colonies and the Rest of Space. 15 Our Galaxy. 16 A Star Is Born. 17 The Many Different Types of Planets. 18 Black Holes. 19 There's No Sound in Space, and No Color, Either. 20 Water. PART FOUR: Battlestar Tech. 21 The Rocket's Blue Glare: Sublight Propulsion. 22 Faster Than Light: Galactica's Jump Drive. 23 Artificial Gravity. 24 Navigation. 25 Battlestars, Vipers, and Raptors. 26 Toasters and Jam: The Complexities of Electronic Warfare. 27 How Did the Cylons Infi ltrate the Colonial Computer Infrastructure? 28 So Where Are They? Afterword by Richard Hatch. Notes. Credits. About the Authors. Index.

About the Author

PATRICK DI JUSTO is a contributing editor for Wired and has written for Popular Science, Scientific American, New York Magazine, and the New York Times Circuits. KEVIN R. GRAZIER is the scientific advisor to Battlestar Galactica. He currently works at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory on the Cassini/Huygens Mission to Saturn; teaches astronomy, planetary science, and cosmology at UCLA and Santa Monica College.