I think you’re misunderstanding what the terms mean. Star Trek is filled with academic lectures, fundamental particles, etc but its underlying physics is soft.
Hard refers to science fiction that matches our understanding of physics, mathematics, etc. If they discover an unknown particle or effect not theorized to exist in scientific literature it’s by definition not Hard science fiction.
Operating at the unknown edge where we don’t know what it takes to make AGI so under or overestimating the hardware requirements is fine. Tossing away our physics and replacing it with whatever is needed for the story to function is the definition of soft science fiction.
Granted degrees of soft science fiction exist. Jurassic Park is close enough to the boarder of Hard Science fiction it’s a little debatable, where Star Wars is fantasy with shapeships.
> I think you’re misunderstanding what the terms mean.
I was going off the Google definitions, oops.
> Star Trek is filled with academic lectures, fundamental particles, etc but its underlying physics is soft.
Yes, that's true, and I agree. Star Trek isn't really fully internally consistent or rigorous because advanced/alien technology is simply the setting. Most of it is about the people, not the science.
> Hard refers to science fiction that matches our understanding of physics, mathematics, etc. If they discover an unknown particle or effect not theorized to exist in scientific literature it’s by definition not Hard science fiction.
Since when? From Wikipedia:
> The heart of the "hard science fiction" designation is the relationship of the science content and attitude to the rest of the narrative, and (for some readers, at least) the "hardness" or rigor of the science itself.
> One requirement for hard SF is procedural or intentional: a story should try to be accurate, logical, credible and rigorous in its use of current scientific and technical knowledge about which technology, phenomena, scenarios and situations that are practically or theoretically possible.
Existing in a different universe from ours doesn't make it automatically soft, if their current scientific and technical knowledge is still rigorous in the same way that ours is. As an example, their book "Ra" seems absolutely like hard sci-fi to me, even though there exists within it an actual concept of "magic" (!), because (without spoilers) the phenomenon called magic is fully defined, and there is no element of arcanity to it.
But I guess you're right that this specific story might not count as hard sci-fi; though I don't agree that it's because of the particle's existence but rather the way it is regarded: the point of the story is to explore the philosophical implications of such a machine existing, not to explore the actual science of the machine.
Their other stories, like "Ra" and "Fine Structure", certainly explore the science of their respective universes/situations, not just the philosophical implications, and I would count both of those examples as hard sci-fi, having read both.
The very first line: “Hard science fiction is a category of science fiction characterized by concern for scientific accuracy and logic.“ Scientific rigor might apply in a fictional setting with different laws, but accuracy requires a universe similar to our own.
One of the references linked from Wikipedia wants not some consistent set of laws but also facts about our universe like the moon not having an atmosphere. https://books.google.com/books?id=PiphRocVYRwC&pg=PA187#v=on... Thus a platypus should be closely related to mammals even though it lays eggs. In a different universe different genealogies are possible even with identical physics, but that doesn’t fit our science.
So by “rigor of the science itself” it’s in reference to our science not the stories universe because:
> Existing in a different universe
Any story could work in some theoretical universe. Olympian gods could exist with the right physics and any child learning how the world works is exploring that physics.
> if their current scientific and technical knowledge is still rigorous in the same way that ours is
I think what you’re looking for is Rationalist fiction which cares about the consistency of the setting’s internal rules but not how close the physics matches ours. ‘Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality’ fits as soft science fiction and rationalist fiction. The main character is definitely trying to understand how the world works and carries out many experiments, things just don’t fit our physics.
Meanwhile you can have Hard Science fiction with primitive humans exploring the ruins of our civilization who don’t have the slightest idea of the scientific method. That line between possibility and not is a meaningful line and we came up with words to describe it.
Hard: is a category of science fiction characterized by concern for scientific accuracy and logic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_science_fiction
Soft: refer to science fiction which prioritizes human emotions over scientific accuracy or plausibility. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soft_science_fiction
Hard refers to science fiction that matches our understanding of physics, mathematics, etc. If they discover an unknown particle or effect not theorized to exist in scientific literature it’s by definition not Hard science fiction.
Operating at the unknown edge where we don’t know what it takes to make AGI so under or overestimating the hardware requirements is fine. Tossing away our physics and replacing it with whatever is needed for the story to function is the definition of soft science fiction.
Granted degrees of soft science fiction exist. Jurassic Park is close enough to the boarder of Hard Science fiction it’s a little debatable, where Star Wars is fantasy with shapeships.