Science Fiction Technology

Glossary of Terms

centrifugal force

An intertial force directed away from an axis of rotation.

extrasolar planet

Any planet outside the Milky Way galaxy.

field

A physical quantity which occupies space, contains energy, and prevents the occurance of a vacuum.

general theory of relativity

A unified description of gravity, formulated by Albert Einstein, as a property of spacetime. It particularly applies to the curvature of space.

gravity

The weakest of the four fundamental forces of physics, gravity is a phenomenon by which all things with energy or mass are pulled toward one another. The average force of gravity on the Earth's surface is 9.8 meters per second per second.

observer effect

The theory that the act of observing a phenomenon changes the phenomenon.

Proxima Centauri b

The closet known extrasolar planet to Earth, located in the Andromeda galaxy.

Heisenberg's uncertainty principle

Often confused with the observer effect, Werner Heisenberg's uncertainty principle states that there is a limit to the precision that certain pairs of particle properties can be known.