Axioms
Psychohistory depends on the idea that, while one cannot foresee the actions of a particular individual, the laws of statistics as applied to large groups of people could predict the general flow of future events. Asimov used the analogy of a gas: an observer has great difficulty in predicting the motion of a single molecule in a gas, but can predict the mass action of the gas to a high level of accuracy. (Physicists know this as the Kinetic theory.) Asimov applied this concept to the population of his fictional Galactic Empire, which numbered a quintillion. The character responsible for the science's creation, Hari Seldon, established two axioms:
- that the population whose behaviour was modeled should be sufficiently large
- that the population should remain in ignorance of the results of the application of psychohistorical analyses
There is a third underlying axiom of Psychohistory, which is trivial and thus not stated by Seldon in his Plan:
- that Human Beings are the only sentient intelligence in the Galaxy.
Read more about this topic: Psychohistory (fictional)
Famous quotes containing the word axioms:
““I tell you the solemn truth that the doctrine of the Trinity is not so difficult to accept for a working proposition as any one of the axioms of physics.””
—Henry Brooks Adams (1838–1918)
“The axioms of physics translate the laws of ethics. Thus, “the whole is greater than its part;” “reaction is equal to action;” “the smallest weight may be made to lift the greatest, the difference of weight being compensated by time;” and many the like propositions, which have an ethical as well as physical sense. These propositions have a much more extensive and universal sense when applied to human life, than when confined to technical use.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)