Research Catalog

Title

The science of Doctor Who / Paul Parsons.

Author

Parsons, Paul, 1971-

Publication

Baltimore, Md. : Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

xv, 307 p. : ill.; 24 cm.

Summary

Almost fifty years after he first crossed the small screen, Doctor Who remains a science fiction touchstone. His exploits are thrilling, his world is mind-boggling, and that time travel machine -- known as the Tardis -- is almost certainly an old-fashioned blue police box, once commonly found in London. Paul Parsons's plain-English account of the real science behind the fantastic universe portrayed in the Doctor Who television series provides answers to such burning questions as whether a sonic screwdriver is any use for putting up a shelf, how Cybermen make little Cybermen, where the toilets are in the Tardis, and much more. Taking the show as a starting point -- episode-by-episode in some cases -- Parsons dissects its scientific concepts. In addition to explaining why time travel is possible and just how that blue police box works, Parsons discusses who the Time Lords are and how we may one day be able to regenerate just like them ponders the ways that the doctor's two hearts might work and introduces us to a terrestrial animal with five details the alien populations and cosmology of the Whovian Universe and relates them to what we currently know about our universe compares the robotics of the show with startlingly similar real-world applications.

Subjects

• Trivia and miscellanea
• Science > Miscellanea

Genre/Form

Trivia and miscellanea

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references and index.

Processing Action (note)

• committed to retain

Contents

Doctor in the Tardis. Who is the Doctor? ; Time and Relative Dimension in Space, or Tardis ; Into the vortex ; Regeneration ; One giant leap for DIY ; Partners in time -- Aliens of London and beyond. Other worlds ; Carnival of monsters ; The cybermen ; The Daleks ; The Slitheen ; The Autons ; The Silurians and the Sea Devils ; The Sontarans ; Martians, go home! ; The Krynoid ; Stupid apes ; Exile to Earth ; The human empire ; Invasion Earth -- Robot dogs, psychic paper, and other celestial toys. Scanning for alien tech ; Just what the Doctor ordered ; K-9 and company ; Psychic paper ; Space-flight ; Space stations and moonbases ; Bombs, bullets, and death rays ; Force fields ; The Matrix -- Mission to the unknown. Event One ; The eye of harmony and other black holes ; Journeys through e-space ; Strange stars and mirror planets ; The more things change ; The end of time -- List of episodes by Doctor.

ISBN

• 9780801895609 (hardcover : alk. paper)
• 080189560X (hardcover : alk. paper)

LCCN

^^2009037381

OCLC

• 441945216
• SCSB-10838499

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library