I ranted, so here's the actual question: Where can I find/rent smart people to ask science questions? -=- I dunno, maybe this doesn't go in research per se, but I'm looking for people who did research at some point, so let's see what happens. I'm writing a thing that requires some light sciencing done. What-if scenarios mostly. There are, and will be, some things I can't bullshit my way out of, so I'd need a scientist to bounce ideas off of. Now, I could go to Fiverr, but my experiences with getting people outside of book-related things are spotty at best. For the purpose of this post I'll disrespectfully refer to Fiverr as the slums. The other end of the spectrum had the Neil DeGrasse Tysons and Bill Nyes of the world, in the villas, but I'm sure just getting them to answer my call will put me over budget. Where does a guy go to get science done on a budget? I'll accept forums as an answer, but the two science forums I've tried are like bringing nerds to nightclub. They'll look, and look again, but not one is going to talk to the girls. All those forums have done so far is make me believe they think I'm the cool guy the could never talk to. No. You don't have to burst that bubble, thanks.
This might be stupid, but try asking the questions on a place like Quora? Supposedly the people who answer there are often experts or highly versed in their fields. I've seen some really good answers there, though also a lot of bad ones.
I mentioned this in another thread, but $9.99 a month for Amazon Kindle Unlimited will let you read, for free, all the books you can handle. The Science and Math category has 400 pages, around 16 books to a page.
I mean, besides forums or books, I feel like maybe reaching out to professors of the field of research you're interested in might work? E-mail them, explain you're writing a book and if they would be interested in doing a back and forth, and if not, is there anyone in your class or a colleague that would be interested in it. Go to a nearby college. Put up a bulletin ad. College kids need money. If that fails... I guess, try Reddit? There's a reddit for everything.
In my experience, Quora almost always has an answer -- and it's almost always wrong. The Internet has -- or provides access to -- a vast array of information about just about any topic imaginable. Use the search engine of your choice, read the links provided by the search results ... and be prepared to find conflicting information, which you then get to sort out. Reach out to friends. I don't know how old you are or how wide your circle of acquaintances is. Perhaps I'm uniquely blessed, but I have a few good friends who have at least enough knowledge on a variety of subjects to steer me in the direction of more in-depth information. I also belong to a general purpose, on-line discussion forum that has some really bright members from a number of walks of life, and they often serve as a source for leads to more specific information.
Email professors and offer to buy them drinks. In my case, it helps to have Brown University half a mile from my restaurant... haven't actually tried it yet, but who doesn't want free drinks? Even Nobel Prize laureates in astrophysics need to cut loose. Probably more than most of us with all those big ass numbers in their heads.
How to say it - that's not a statistically significant sample size? What kind of questions do you have? If you expect people to solve your problems for you, then you won't get much response. You'll need to post something that people want to answer. I've found plenty of forums (this one for example) that have experts on them, but it depends what I was trying to learn at the time. Also helps if the website has a good URL name to remember.
I'm writing a thing that requires some light sciencing done. Do you mean science without heavy lifting or the science of light? "Science" is a broad topic. The first thing you need to know is what field your questions involve. Even narrowing "science" down to physics or zoology isn't enough. For example, I know a fair amount about the natural history of the prairie rattlesnake but little about the physiology of its organs and tissues which is the bailiwick of a different kind of scientist. My husband is a geologist with expertise in minerology. Temple Grandin is an animal science professor who is arguably the world's foremost expert on corral design. Con Slobodchikov is an animal behaviorist and conservation biologist who specializes in animal language. UW used to have a graduate level paleontologist who studied eohippus in detail but rolled her eyes in irritation if you asked her about T Rex. Offering local scientists food, whiskey, or chocolate in return for their expert answers to some questions isn't a bad idea. Heck, I'll talk to you about rattlesnakes just for the pleasure of talking about rattlesnakes.
What kind of science do you need help with? I know a lot about Forensics, Chemistry, and some Physics from just reading books. How can I assist?
I really feel like there was a forum on stack exchange that did this exactly. I might be dreaming up a past that never happened though. . . SE is full of nerds that answer questions for online prestige, that I know, so that's where I'd go.
More than a few of us are inundated in the world of science as well. Personally, I'm in different labs daily doing all kinds of different technical work and constantly working with cutting edge microscopy technology. I've also worked in aerospace engineering and technician fields when I was in the military. I know a lot about all aspects of lab, science, tech, and engineering work, including their day today lives. Just PM and ask away, or drop my name with an @ in front of it on a new thread question here. I'll get to it in time.
Stack exchange is great. You could also email some professors at a nearby university; they might be willing to help you, or at least point you in the right direction. Maybe make it worth their while somehow. You could also befriend a poverty-stricken grad student. Lure him into your house for some home-cooked stroopwaffel and then pounce.
Post-docs are more useful. They're in the grind of science while still in memory of the education regiment phase of their careers. Run into the ground and working 12 to 16 hour days, they're basically machines of science. Half of them have no idea where they are anymore, just that they need to get the data so they get published in Nature, or the like. They'll rattle off info like nobody's business while pounding their second pitcher of coffee.
"Your momma don't dance, and your daddy don't Rock 'n Roll." I guess that depends on what you're looking for. Though what ifs are going to get a lot of different answers no matter who you ask them to. Though there are plenty of forums that could be useful when it comes to science type questions. https://www.scienceforums.net/ https://www.scienceforums.com/ http://www.thescienceforum.com/ https://thescienceforum.org/ https://blog.feedspot.com/science_forums/ It took me little time to find those sites, and there are loads out there for getting a variety of answers. Good luck.
I could if I have a clear cut question that has just one answer, but usually when that's the case, you fine folks are able to help me out just as well and even I prefer familiar "faces". I've been googling away a lot of writing time, doing just that. Painful fact is that I'm just not that smart. I need most of that writing dumbed down. Which I keep forgetting. I'll give Reddit a go too, thanks. I'm a gamer-turned-writer. Dude, I haven't been outside in twenty years. ;o) Slightly more serious, though. I'm 43 now and I don't have any friends in science circles. If I've any questions about the more undergound scenes of black metal, I'll know where to find them. I accidentally did irony, didn't I? Never. And they're not really problems either, I think. I'm theoretically destroying the world, and in one case, the universe. I'm looking to bounce ideas off someone who might know how something like fusion energy might factor in for survival, or what kind of phenomenon would look most like the universe is contracting. Basically, I've got the fiction part down, and I'd like some more muscle in the science part of it. It didn't seem necessary to expand on it for the purposes of this thread. I'm looking in the direction of physics, astronomy, and theoretical sciences like string theory and multiverses. I'm currently still fishing for a third idea in my planned end-of-the-world trilogy. I will know where to find you if Rattlesnake Apocalypse makes the shortlist. Thank you, but not yet. I'm just planning ahead a bit for when the fanciful ends of the stories need to be beaten into scientific-ish submission. I did already notice there are quite a few bright minds here, but my autistic side keep saying I should only ask book-things here. I like to keep everything in its appropriate corner. However, I will keep it in mind for when the time comes. Thank you for the offer, though. There is literally nothing I can cook (I could just end the sentence here) which will entice anything other than cockroaches to enter my house. Yeah, but after my statistically insignificant sample size I began to think I might be better off paying someone for their attention. It worked when I was single, I don't see why it wouldn't work now. I'll give a few of those a go later.
AS long as it isn't Snakenado! Though you could always option it to the Sy-Fy channel or whatever they're called these days.
This has all 3 easy to understand ways that scientist believe the universe will end. Edit: I don't know if anyone can help you find a universal (heh pun) fountain of knowledge. But in my experience, there will not be an easy access to an experts ear. You actually need to get into scientific circles or something and it seems like you have no interest in going that far. So all you can try to do is hire or incentivise some scientific people to help you. But there isn't any community that some writers have access to for all their questions.
Been done. People have the strangest ideas about snakes. How come no one ever writes about a skunk apocalypse or a concerted attack on Australia by venomous platypuses?
