Authors Ian Tregillis and George R.R. Martin develop a formula to capture the dynamics driving viral behavior in the Wild Cards series. Many science fiction authors try to incorporate scientific principles into their work,

In independent research in the American Journal of Physics, Ian Tregillis and George R.R. Martin derive a formula for viral behavior in the Wild Cards, a science fiction series written by a collection of authors about an alien virus called the Wild Card that mutates human DNA.

It’s not every day that a well-known author writes a physics paper. But George R R Martin, who is best known for his Song of Ice and Fire series of fantasy novels, has co-authored a paper in the American Journal of Physics with the title “Ergodic Lagrangian dynamics in a superhero universe”.

Martin and “Wild Cards” author Ian Tregellis turn a scenario from the sci-fi series into the entertaining foundation for an exercise in open-ended problem solving.

Long before Westeros, fantasy and science-fiction author George R.R. Martin had a hand in creating Wild Cards, a shared science-fiction universe involving a pathogen called the "Wild Card" virus that has now spanned 32 books,