From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

General Technics is an informal organization started in the mid-1970s by a handful of Midwestern college students with a common interest in hard science fiction, the hard sciences, and engineering. Since its founding, General Technics has grown to have an active globally-distributed membership.

The name is used with kind permission by John Brunner (novelist), the author of Stand on Zanzibar, in which General Technics features prominently as a globe-spanning high-tech corporation.

Members of GT include:

• animators, astronomers, astrophysicists, and attorneys
• biochemists, bookkeepers, and biotechnology researchers
• celestial mechanics, certified mining engineers, computer scientists, and cryptographers
• entrepreneurs
• homemakers
• librarians and linguists
• oceanographers and open source evangelists
• physicians, physicists, programming language experts, psychologists, and pyrotechnicians
• race car drivers and radiology technicians
• spacecraft propulsion experts and students
• veterinarians and videographers

Membership in General Technics was augmented by recognition of mutual interests with Michigan Technological University's Permanent Floating Riot Club, a name taken from a Larry Niven hard-SF short story about Flash Crowds.

The "GT List" (by invitation) serves as a means for ongoing communication and to foster a sense of community.

In addition to academic credentials and academic or business careers, most GTers are known by their willingness and enthusiasm to reduce their interests to practice through hands-on work. Some notable accomplishments of GT members include:

• Holding "Build a Blinky" outreach events
• Voting on whether Pluto should remain a planet
• Two members were mentioned in Dan Brown's "Da Vinci Code"
• Designing and building remotely-piloted and autonomous submarines
• Developing autonomous navigation systems for interplanetary spacecraft
• Organizing, running, and competing in Midwestern robotics competitions
• Steering and colliding particle beams in the world's most energetic particle accelerator
• Building kitchen-oil - based diesel vehicle on The Discovery Channel's "Escape from Experiment Island"

• A General Technics Site
• The General Technics Homepage