Etymology

rubber science

Today it means: Convincing quasi-scientific explanations used in science fiction to aid the suspension of disbelief. Full definition →

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The story

Coined by Norman Spinrad in his essay "Rubber Sciences", published in The Craft of Science Fiction (1976). He defined it as "pseudo-science […] made up by the writer with literary care that it not be discontinuous with the reader's realm of the possible."

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.