Foundation: Predicting The Future With Math, History, and Psychology

    For the 2017 Jan-term our group (Mallary, Nolan, Hadis, and John) binge read the books Foundation and Foundation and Empire, the first and second novels of the Foundation Trilogy by Isaac Asimov. Asimov divided his books into parts that were separated by several decades, sometimes even a century. For instance, Foundation, Part III, is about a war between the societies of Terminus and Anacreon, two different planets with light-years in between them. But in part IV of the book this war had become simply a fragment of history, with the new part taking place five decades later. Our group found the series to be slower when compared to the television binge, what with how much space Asimov devotes to setting up back-story and to build both tension and plot. He takes time to set up the main premise of his novels’ various plots: that through the usage of highly developed probability math, a deep understanding of human history, and a good lot of psychological knowledge, humanity might be able to one day successfully predict how our future will turn out (given the right variables are accounted for).

    By the time we reached the second novel, the course of the story had spanned over TWO. HUNDRED. YEARS. (Let that sink in).

    Asimov, showing us that he is aware of how humanity has changed over time in real-life, has the dialects and dialogues of his titular society, the Foundation, morph. They are different at the beginning of his trilogy than they are by the middle of the trilogy’s second book. For instance, during the first part, words of formality, such as lord, sire, and majesty, are frequently used when addressing authority. However, during the second book, a subsect of the Foundation society has begun using dialogue that is less formal, with words such as ‘boss’ and ‘doc’ addressing authority. The language becomes anachronistic, as it closely resembles common speech of the 1950s (think Bugs Bunny’s “What’s up, doc?”), despite taking place centuries in the future.

    On the whole we enjoyed what of the Foundation Trilogy that we read, with it’s politics, action, and sharp-witted characters. For lovers of sci-fi or House of Cards alike, we suggest this story to you.