Featured Interview With Rodney Bartlett
Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
I was born and raised in Stanthorpe, Queensland, Australia. At age 14, my family moved to the nearby city of Warwick where I finished High School. Then we returned to Stanthorpe where I became a printer at the local newspaper, and later a teacher’s aide at the primary school. About this time, I developed a great interest in reading and writing about science (mainly cosmology, physics, and even mathematics) – these things culminated in my book “OUT OF TIME: Predicting the Science of Future Centuries and Millennia”. This passionate curiosity and endless desire to learn would have been handy in school
At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
I think my fascination with books began when I was less than ten years old. I had a diary when I was a young boy in which I wrote things like “Designing an X-ray machine”. My parents gave me a set of World Book Encyclopedias when I was 11 (many years later, they’re still useful). I didn’t become extremely serious about writing until 2006, when my first paperback was published.
Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
My favourite genre is science-fiction. I love science-fact but it seems to have such a limited outlook. Science fiction lets the imagination soar and dream of what may be possible in the far future. Combine this with real science and you can write about the unimaginable wonders that might truly be waiting for us tomorrow.
Tell us a little about your latest book?
Looking back to when books first fascinated me, then looking forward to this present book I’ve written, you could say it took me around 50 years to write it. This is what it’s about –
This book adopts the view that the universe is infinite and eternal – but scientifically created. This paradox of creating eternity depends on the advanced electronics developed by future humanity. Those humans will develop time travel, plus programs that use “imaginary” time and infinite numbers like pi. They’ll also become the El or Elohim (names used by various religions to mean “God” or “the gods”). As astronomer Carl Sagan wrote in “Pale Blue Dot”, “Many religions teach that it is the goal of humans to become gods.” (I think that Elohim would be termed supernatural today, though their infinite abilities are actually natural outcomes of progress.)
A look through the book will tell you that some ideas are frequently repeated. This is because each article is meant to be understood without reading the others … so the same ideas show up in more than one. I’ve tried to stay away from jargon and equations unless they’re necessary (I find that they often make a subject harder to understand, not easier). All objects and events on Earth, in space, and in time (including the inevitability of world peace and immortality) are just one thing – strings of electronics’ binary digits 1 and 0.