History Literature / TheScienceOfDiscworld

* AsYouKnow: Zigzagged in the fiction portions, in which Ponder uses this phrase when he suspects Ridcully ''doesn't'' know something about physics; this gives him the chance to contrast Discworld physics (which the ''readers'' don't know) with Roundworld rules (which readers ''might'' know, but Ridcully doesn't).

* LiesToChildren: The TropeNamer.

* EarlyBirdCameo: Roundworld itself, as Rincewind and Twoflower briefly travel there in ''TheColourOfMagic''.

'''The Science of Discworld''', by TerryPratchett, Ian Stewart and Jack Cohen, is one half {{Discworld}} novel, in which the wizards accidentally create a universe without magic and are fascinated by the way it develops its own rules in the absence of NarrativeCausality, and one half popular science text, as Stewart and Cohen explain how the Roundworld Project (i.e., our universe) actually works.

* WriterOnBoard: Especially ''Science of Discworld III'' - the Rev. Richard Dawkins anyone?

* FridgeLogic: The wizards are unflinchingly convinced that inorganic matter in Roundworld couldn't possibly have become alive, insisting that rocks don't just start moving around on their own. This is an odd presumption on their part, considering that {{Discworld}} trolls ''are'' rocks that just spontaneously started to move around on their own, at least according to [[spoiler: the two versions of]] the dwarfish CreationMyth.
** Yes, but that happened in a universe filled with narrativium. "All Things Strive", Tak wrote, but not on Roundworld, they don't.

* BeliefMakesYouStupid: According to ''III'', if Darwin hadn't written ''The Origin of Species'', humanity would never leave the earth before it froze. [[WriterOnBoard Right...]]
** The idea presumably is that if people begin to accept "God did it" as the general answer to any difficult scientific question, they won't be able to innovate as much as they otherwise could. Darwin's case would be an important precedent in all this - not because he doesn't write his book, as someone else would do it in his stead, but because he writes it to support the idea of Intelligent Design.

* InSpiteOfANail: Apparently, if Darwin had become a believer in what we'd now call "intelligent design", RichardDawkins would have been the author of ''The Origin Of Species'', sadly too late to make a difference. Which suggests that there's a historical imperative that Dawkins ''must'' be a Darwinist, ''even if Darwin isn't''.

* BeliefMakesYouStupid: According to ''III'', if Darwin hadn't written ''The Origin of Species'', humanity would never leave the earth before it froze. [[WriterOnBoard Right...]]

* InSpiteOfANail: Apparently, if Darwin had become a believer in what we'd now call "intelligent design", RichardDawkins would have been the discoverer of modern evolutionary theory. Suggesting that Dawkins ''must'' be a Darwinist, ''even if Darwin isn't''.

It was followed by two sequels: ''The Science of Discworld II: The Globe'', in which the wizards must stop TheFairFolk preying on the superstitious folk of Elizabethan Roundworld, while Stewart and Cohen talk about the nature of storytelling and belief, and ''The Science of Discworld III: Darwin's Watch'', in which the wizards stop the God of Evolution from seriously confusing Charles Darwin, while Stewart and Cohen discuss his theory in more detail than they had to spare in the first book.

* BeethovenWasAnAlienSpy: {{Shakespeare}} and Darwin, amongst others, are greatly influenced by the wizards.

* {{Magitek}}: Hex of course, and the Thaumic Engine is the magical equivalent of a nuclear reactor (going back to Pratchett's roots, as he made many similar comparisons in ''Discworld/TheColourOfMagic''.

** As it is, the first book contains a paragraph speculating about how, if sentient crabs had instead evolved in humans' place, three of them might be writing ''The Science of Dishworld'', about a bowl-shaped world that's carried on the backs of gigantic marine invertebrates.

* FridgeLogic: If it's such a surprise to the wizards that planets are round in our universe, why was it already called "The Roundworld Project"?
*** Because the bubble that the mini-universe is contained inside was also a sphere?
** Also, in the first book, humans successfully flee into space. Then in the second book, the elves muck with the timeline and the humans don't get off. The wizards undo the timeline mucking but discover the humans STILL don't escape, because they need just the right amount of elvish influence...even though they originally escaped with none at all. What?
*** The elves were there in the first timeline, but the wizards don't know it until they go inside Roundworld in the second book.

* NecroNonSequitur: Intentionally; the many deaths of Darwin.
-->'''Ponder Stibbons''': Look at this stuff! "Darwin bitten by poisonous spider ... Darwin savaged by kangaroo ... stung by jellyfish ... eaten by shark ... ''Beagle'' found floating, table laid for a meal, this time in a different ocean, still no one on board ... Darwin struck by lightning ... killed by volcanic activity ... ''Beagle'' sunk by freak wave" ... ''does anyone expect us to believe this for one minute?''