Science fiction writers put characters into a world with arbitrary rules and work out what happens.

Electronic distribution is more of a fall-back strategy for putting out a book that isn't deemed profitable enough to print. You hardly make any money publishing an electronic book.

What is the shape of space? Is it flat, or is it bent? Is it nicely laid out, or is it warped and shrunken? Is it finite, or is it infinite? Which of the following does space resemble more: (a) a sheet of paper, (b) an endless desert, (c) a soap bubble, (d) a doughnut, (e) an Escher drawing, (f) an ice cream cone, (g) the branches of a tree, or (h) a human body?

It's tedious to watch something very obvious being worked out, like a movie that's not particularly good and after about half an hour you know how it's going to end.

The hard fact is that not everyone does get published.

Traditional science is all about finding shortcuts.

If we suppose that many natural phenomena are in effect computations, the study of computer science can tell us about the kinds of natural phenomena that can occur.