I am not sure of that dangerous part. I just see it at each point of reference as the summation of the radiation from the visible Universe. That does not have a direction, just as in a charged spherical shell the EM field is 0 until there is motion in giving a force on the body, the zero point radiation would have a force to a moving body. In the Casimir effect the solid metal plates shield the space between them from the longer wave radiation and so that radiation exerts a force to drive the together.
I am just winging it here because I was just a lowly physical chemist and mathematician. It sure would be nice to be able to shield one side of a body from part of the radiation but does not look like that would be possible. Same for gravity if it is particle driven, otherwise not possible to shield gravity and get rid of inertia, if inertia is due to all the sources of gravity in the Universe.

Hillary and rational thinking are strangers. Her world view centers around her and she views everyone and everything as nothing more than a means to an end. As far as central planning goes the alternative is spontaneous order. the collectivists hate that idea because it makes them superfluous.

and Heinlein

FYI - That Hiliary quote is from a satire piece.

I read that Hillary Clinton described it as "a boyish fantasy," or something like that. Obviously, she does not want to understand it's obvious lessons on economics and the main theme of John Galt's speech, which was why "Central Planning" does not work.

I didn't have to suspend belief too much for the book or movies to accept people could invent some energy that seem to me like magic on first hearing about it.

In the movie AS1, Dagny points out that the motor uses the Casimir effect which is thought to be caused by zero point or vacuum energy. She then drifts off into atmospheric static electricity which is completely unrelated. That was not in the book so it is clear that whoever wrote the screen play had no idea of the real science. Rand did not try to make the science plausible because that was not the point of the book. What she wanted to show was that great ideas are hard to come by and are always targets of moochers and parasites. That she did quite well.
Zero point energy is part of my specialty as a physicist and it serves quite well as the mechanism behind Galt's motor. It is poorly understood but if the models are even remotely close to to reality its potential as an energy source is astronomical. It is also likely to be quite dangerous.

Or in one of the Whole Earth Catalogs, Brand(?) said it was preposterous but full of gold. Probably got some of those early dropouts to read it.
What I find interesting is how Paul Ryan, who loved AS, could take so long to detect that the philosophy was atheistic and thus not to be recommended to his staff any longer.

Atmospheric electric potential is hundreds of volts per a few thousand feet, but is only enough to run very small little electric charge run engines. Had Rand written a few decades later she might have had the engine using power from zero point energy which may or may not be much more energetic than atmospheric electricity. If lightning were constant in some area, then the atmospheric electric engine could work well.

I have no definitive answer, maybe a theory. A lot of science fiction is pro-Liberty, or anti-authoritarian, like 1984 and Fahrenheit 451. One possibility.

But as a major in Economics and minor in Philosophy, AS is definitely more realistic and predictive than science fiction. For God's sake, it's coming true just as written, and clearly to me has been since my first of many readings in 1969.

My other theory is that the people who fear it being read call it science fiction in order to marginalize the truth in it, and minimize the profound lessons to be found in both the novel and her incomparable leap forward in Rationist Philosophy

1984, which is definitely social and economic commentary, is also usually grouped in science fiction. Technically, novels of this type are in the subtype of alternate history.

"What's in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;"

It is science fiction that is social and economic commentary with a strong hunk of morality and ethics thrown in. The science part is to provide a vehicle for the philosophical backbone of the story.

I think you are right. I suspect that the science fiction label was intended to suppress the book and movie but it has had the opposite effect.

I hardly ever hear Atlas Shrugged labeled as science fiction. Most critiques center on its political and philosophical content. However, I discovered that a major science fiction magazine published two reviews of Ayn Rand's novel in 1958:
http://www.troynovant.com/Franson/Ran...

Happier that it is SciFi. Attractive to larger audience.

Really I usually hear it called a philosophical novel, or a thriller, or literary fiction.

Four elements of the plot of Atlas Shrugged qualify as science-fiction plot devices. They are:

1. John Galt's electrostatic motor,

2. Rearden Metal,

3. Project X, and

4.John Galt's refractor-ray camouflage screen.

Of these, I'd pick the electrostatic motor as the main element.

Years ago, for a project to discuss Atlas Shrugged on Conservapedia, I researched each of these four elements, to decide whether and how well I could explain them. The electrostatic motor was a staple of the science fiction of Jules Verne. Captain Nemo's Nautilus (Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea) had an electrostatic power plant, and so did Robur's Albatross (Master of the World, Robur the Conqueror). (The film adaptation of Twenty Thousand Leagues changed the electrostatic power plant to a nuclear power plant. But the adaptation of the Robur story kept the electrostatic power plant for Albatross. Considering the latter was a multi-rotor helicopter, it made sense.)

People have tried to build the electrostatic motor, but have achieved no success beyond a student-level project. Rearden Metal remains a dream of metallurgy: a substitutionary alloy of iron and copper, with interstitial carbon to harden it. The refractor-ray screen frankly needed a microprocessor to run it. But Project X, in view of the coherent sound beam project at Leeds University, now becomes a feasible project in present day.

Having said all that, I did not regard Atlas Shrugged as science fiction. The inventions seemed to me to be the kind of thing one would expect in a few years from a contemporary setting. And most of the story took place in the setting of contemporary inventions. So whoever labeled it science fiction, probably didn't want to believe some of the other future-history elements. Like the runaway Constitutional convention that is the only thing that could have produced a generically named "Head of State," and a unicameral Legislature that could grant such sweeping powers to the quasi-legislative and quasi-judicial bodies we saw in Directive 10-289 and the Railroad Unification Plan.

Say what?? I first read AS more than 40 years ago, and this is the first time I've ever seen the "Science Fiction" label on it. Most of what I read is science fiction, and I've been haunting that section of bookstores since the ink was barely dry on the first printing of AS. I've never once seen it on the shelves there.

Well, fair point.

But as "1984" and "Brave New World" are also often classified as Science Fiction, I do not think it is dismissive to include "Atlas Shrugged" in this category.

Science Fiction often has that predictive element, as it imagines what the world could be like. Atlas Shrugged does have that "20 minutes Into The Future" aspect to it, wouldn't you agree?

NOTE: I may be biased in that I first found Rand in the Sci Fi section of my library in the 70's. After reading Atlas Shrugged" and "Anthem", I was pleasantly surprised to discover her other novels and essays.

Perhaps I never questioned the category where they were to be found via the "Dewey Decimal System", because other (Great) dystopian novels were placed there as well?

Good Question +1

I agree completely. I am re reading "Stranger" for about the fifth time. It is a brilliant piece of work. The "science" in AS is only a vehicle that Rand uses to make a larger point. As far as the actual science goes it's pretty thin but that doesn't matter because it does not detract from what Rand was saying.

That is very likely back in the 50s but much less so now. I can't think of a more pointed social commentary than Heinlein's "Stranger in a Strange Land" if you grok it. Shoving "Atlas Shrugged" under the SF rubric was an attempt to bury it as inconsequential. The attempt failed, of course.

In all fairness, Karl Marx's "Capital" should be called un-scientific fiction.

Me dino had never heard of Ayn Rand when AS1 came out.
Fortunately for old dino, I like speculative science fiction about the near future.
The "labeling" led me in.
I found the social and economic commentary fascinating.
Thus I became exposed the Ayn Rand's philosophy and discovered the Gulch doing research.

Think Star Trek~
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vi7QQ...