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I hope, in this case, given the really close parallels, it wont be facetious to say: Hari Seldon! Fact following from fiction?
by asg 14y ago
I hope, in this case, given the really close parallels, it wont be facetious to say: Hari Seldon! Fact following from fiction?
- jacques_chester 14y agoHe talks a bit about Hari Seldon in his work.
- throwaway1979 14y agoTo give HN skimmers some context: Hari Seldon is a key character in Isaac Asimov's Foundation series. He develops a new science called "psychohistory", which enables accurate prediction of the behavior of extremely large (galactic scale) groups of people. When I read the first book of the series, an idea that resonated with me was the marginalization of scientists. I kept seeing aspects of current society reflected in his work. What I wonder is if scientists felt the same way at the time Asimov wrote the series? P.S. It is a fantastic series of books. I encountered them my chance in the last few years. Highly recommended!
- gliese1337 14y agoThis is also one of the "big ideas" in the book _Eifelheim_, under the name "cliometrics". SPOILERS (just little ones, but still) Essentially, a historical visitation by aliens is revealed due to the failure of a certain group of people to fit the mathematical model of what their history should have been- the arrival of aliens was not considered as a factor in the theory.