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At least from an in-universe perspective, this is discussed in some length in the sequel, "2010". (Moreso in the novel than in the (underrated) movie adaptation
by LeoPanthera 5y ago
At least from an in-universe perspective, this is discussed in some length in the sequel, "2010". (Moreso in the novel than in the (underrated) movie adaptation.)
The explanation given is that HAL was given, in secret, orders not to reveal the true purpose of the mission to Poole and Bowman, the two crewmembers not in hibernation. Because even the designer[1] of HAL was not made aware of this secret instruction, they were not aware that HAL's fundamental design was incompatible with the concealment of information, and in attempting to obey the instruction, created what in humans would be called a mental health crisis.
[1]: "Dr. Langley" in 2001 the movie, but in the book and in all adaptations of the sequel, he has the wonderful name of "Dr. Sivasubramanian Chandrasegarampillai".
- tiahura 5y ago
- thaumasiotes 5y ago> in the book and in all adaptations of the sequel, he has the wonderful name of "Dr. Sivasubramanian Chandrasegarampillai" "Wonderful"? It would appear to be a take-off on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subrahmanyan_Chandrasekhar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subrahmanyan_Chandrasekhar
- LeoPanthera 5y agoI'm sure that is deliberate.
- JNRowe 5y agoMy favourite character naming is in the epilogue of 3001: So every word is mine: well, almost every word. I must confess that I found Professor Thirugnanasampanthamoorthy (Chapter 35) in the Colombo telephone directory; I hope the present owner of that name will not object to the loan. I actually think the epilogues are my favourite parts of the series, as Clarke wraps up thoughts and ties in real world developments in the thirty-odd years between the titles.
- sfifs 5y agoInterestingly enough, both the names are Tamil who form the minority population in Sri Lanka, not from the Sinhalese majority. Under British rule, a large part of the administration and educated class came from this community who were favoured by the British as part of their divide and rule policy and I'm sure the effects carried on at least 1-2 generations beyond independence. The Sri Lankan civil war resulted largely from of reversing this policy in the opposite direction after independence.
- thaumasiotes 5y ago> both the names are Tamil I notice in the wikipedia page on "Tamil language" that it says this: > Unlike most Indian languages, Tamil does not distinguish aspirated and unaspirated consonants. If that's true, why do the Tamil names Chandrasekhar and Thirugnanasampanthamoorthy use the digraphs "th" and "kh"? What sounds do those represent, and how would they be different if they were spelled "t" and "k"? The best guess I've been able to come up with is "Tamil shares a writing system with one or more other Indian languages that do distinguish aspirated consonants, and it just happens to spell these names with the aspirated version of the consonant", but I know literally nothing about this.
- sfifs 5y agothe Tamil written script indeed doesn't distinguish th and t or kh and k and indeed more sounds. However when they are spoken, especially by the more educated folks, they are pronounced differently from contextual knowledge. the contextual knowledge in this case is that both these names are actually from Sanskrit. When you write Sanskrit in Devnagari script, it does indeed distinguish and so the educated folks will pronounce it correctly being aware of this.
- thaumasiotes 5y agoWhat's the giveaway that these names are Tamil and not Bangla or Hindi or whatnot?