Peter Schattschneider is professor emeritus in solid state physics at TU Wien. During his long career, he has been a teacher at college and has written and edited popular articles for broad audiences on topics which deal with diverse aspects of physics. As a scientist, he worked for a private engineering company and he covered research positions as professor for the French CNRS and as director of the Vienna University Service Center for Electron Microscopy. His record of publications consists of more than 300 research articles in peer-reviewed journals and several monographs on electron-matter interaction. His current research focuses on electron vortex beams, which are exotic probes for solid state spectroscopy.

His interest in physics emerged from an early fascination for hard science fiction (sci-fi). He has published two sci-fi novels and two story collections in German and many short stories in sci-fi anthologies, some of them translated into English and French. Together with colleagues, he has given a series of lectures at the university in Paris, Vienna and Beijing on Physics in Science Fiction.

The Novel.- Scientific Appendix.