Chapter 30 third chapter

But even so, when Hari Seldon stepped into his laboratory, he still couldn't help feeling a sense of supreme satisfaction.Things change and stars move. At first, twenty years ago, when he was just scribbling on his old Heliken computer.A hazy inspiration broke into his mind for the first time, and this inspiration later developed a super-chaotic mathematics. Then came the years at the University of Stirling, working with Hugo Amarel, painstakingly renormalizing the equations over and over again, eliminating those infinite parameters, trying to find a way around the most unpredictable A shortcut to the chaotic effect.But they have made little progress.

Today, he has been Prime Minister for ten years, has a whole floor of state-of-the-art computers, and a whole team of staff to overcome all kinds of technical difficulties for it.Inevitably, his staff—with the exception of Hugo and him, of course—knowledge only about the technical problems they tackled directly.Each of them studied only a small peak or valley in the endless mountain of psychohistory, and only Seldon and Amarel could appreciate the whole mountain-but even they could only dimly understand it. Observing its outline in a hazy way, the peaks are covered by clouds, and the deep valleys are locked by fog, making it difficult to see the details.

Indeed, Dors Venabili was right.It was time to lead his men into this whole mystical realm.Nowadays, the technology of the discipline of psychohistory is far from being mastered by only two people.And Seldon was getting old.Even if he could do it for a few more decades, the days when he could achieve the most brilliant academic achievements are undoubtedly in the past.And in another month, Amaril will be thirty-nine years old. Although he is still young, he may not be very young for a mathematician-he has spent about the same research time on this topic as Xie Ton as long.His ability to accept new things and his sensitivity to thinking may have also declined.

Seeing him coming in, Amaril went up to meet him.Seldon looked at him with concern in his eyes. Amarel, like Seldon's adopted son Rich, was a Dahl, and although he was muscular and equally short, he didn't look much like one.He has no mustache, no accent, and doesn't seem to have any Dahl self-awareness.He was even immune to the temptation of "Jojo" Qiao Ruonan, who once completely conquered the hearts of the people in Dar District.It seemed as though he had no allegiance to the region, nor to the planet, nor even to the idea of ​​the Empire.His whole body and soul already belonged to psychohistory.This made Seldon deeply ashamed.He himself couldn't forget the first twenty years of his life in Helicon, and it was impossible for him to completely erase the consciousness that he was a Helicon.He was not sure that his sense of place would not bias his considerations of psychohistory.Ideally, to use psychohistory correctly, that person would have to detach from planets and regions and deal with humans only as abstract data—and that's exactly what Amarel did.But Seldon couldn't do it, so he could only sigh to himself.

Amarel said, "I guess we've made some progress, Harry." "Estimate, Hugo? Just an estimate?" "I don't want to talk too much," he said solemnly (he had a rare sense of humor, Seldon knew), and they moved to the secret office.The place here is a bit small, but it is extremely tightly shielded.Amaril sat down, crossed his legs, and said, "Your new plan for bypassing the chaotic effect may be partially effective—of course, the price will be some loss of clarity." "Of course. What you gain is what you lose. That's the way the universe works. We've fooled it, anyway."

"But only fooled it a little bit. It's like looking through frosted glass." "It's better than spending years trying to see things through lead." Amarel muttered to himself, and continued: "But now we can recognize the change of light and dark." "explain." "I can't explain it, but I've got 'Tian Yuan', and I've been as busy as my head — elephant head —" making this thing "Let's say the elephant camel. That's an animal on Heliken--a load-bearing livestock. Not on Trantor." "If camels work very hard, then my development of 'Tianyuan' is probably similar to this animal."

He pressed the password keyboard on the desk, and a drawer opened and slid out without a sound.He took out a swarthy cube, which Seldon examined with interest. The circuit principle of "Tianyuan" was researched by Seldon himself, but the person who put it into practical use was Amarel—he was indeed a man with a mind and a dexterity.The room darkened, and the equations and relational expressions shone slightly in the air, and a large number of numbers spread under them, hovering above the desk, as if suspended in mid-air by invisible thin wires. Seldon said: "It's great! As long as there is a holiday, one day we can use 'Tianyuan' to create a long river of numbers, marking the history of the past and the future. We can distinguish the various tributaries, And figure out ways to redirect them so they flow in the direction we want."

"That's right," Amaril said lightly, "If we can master this knowledge and put it into practice in our lifetime, the choice we think is the best may lead to the worst consequences." "Believe me, Hugo, it's the same problem that keeps me up at night. But we haven't gotten there yet. All we've got—as you say, is a blur through frosted glass." Just discern light and dark." "exactly." "What do you think you saw, Hugo?" Seldon looked closer at Amarel with a serious expression.He has also gained weight, and is a little chunkier than before.He spends too much time on the computer (and now Tianyuan) - not enough exercise.And, despite seeing a woman next to him from time to time, Seldon knew that he was not married.This is a mistake!Even a workaholic should have the desire to have a family and have family happiness.Seldon couldn't help thinking of himself. He looked neat and decent, and it was all thanks to Dors' tireless care of him.

Amarel said: "What did I see? The empire is in trouble." "The empire has always been troubled." "Yes, but this time is more special. This time we are likely to encounter trouble in the center of the empire." "Trantor?" "I suppose so. It could be on the outskirts, though. Either something bad is going on here—a civil war, probably—or the remote outlying planets are starting to drift apart." "Clearly, these possibilities can be seen without psychohistory." "But what's interesting is that there seems to be a mutual exclusion between the two. Either one or the other. The chances of both happening are extremely small. Here it is! Look! It's your own mathematical theory here. Carefully Observe it!"

So the two of them studied around "Tianyuan" for a long time.Finally, Seldon said dejectedly: "I really don't see the reason why the two are mutually exclusive." "I don't see it either, Harry, but what's the point of psychohistory if it can only tell us something we've always been able to understand? It's telling us right now what we can't. What it doesn’t tell us is, first, which of these two evils is the lesser, and second, how to avoid the serious and make the less serious.” Seldon pursed his lips, and said slowly: "I can tell you how to choose. Let it go on the outside, and keep Trantor."

"Really?" "There's no doubt about it. Since we're on Trantor, we have to make sure it's safe and sound. That alone is reason enough." "But obviously our own comfort is not the deciding factor." "We're not, but psychohistory is. If the chaos on Trantor forces us to stop doing psychohistory, then what's the use of keeping the periphery? I'm not saying we'll be killed, but we might not be able to do research anymore Worked. The development of psychohistory is closely related to our own destiny. For the empire, even if the periphery is separated, it is only the beginning of disintegration, and it may take a long time to reach the core. " "Even if you're right, Harry, how are we going to keep Trantor stable?" "That's exactly what we're going to start thinking about now." The two were silent for a long time, and Seldon said again: "I always feel uncomfortable thinking about this kind of problem. What should I do if the empire has been on the wrong track since the beginning of its history? Every time I talk to That's a question that Gulleb always thinks about when he talks." "Who is Gulbe?" "Mandel Gruber. A gardener." "Oh. The man who came to your rescue with a rake in the last assassination?" "Yes. I've always been grateful to him. He had only a rake in his hand, and he could have faced a fellow assassin with a blaster. He was indeed loyal. Anyway, talking to him is like It's like a breath of fresh air. I can't just talk to court officials and psychohistorians all day." "Thank you for saying that about me." "Come on! You know what I mean. Gullock loves the open air. He loves the wind, the rain, the biting cold, and anything the natural climate can give him. And that's something I'll always miss myself .” "Forgive me. I don't mind never being outside." "Because you grew up under the dome - but imagine that there are still many unindustrialized planets in the empire's borders, where people live by grazing and farming, where people are sparsely populated and the land is empty. That kind of life is for us. Wouldn't it be better?" "It just sounds creepy to me." "I did as much research as I could in my spare time. What I found seemed to be a precarious state of equilibrium. A planet as sparsely populated as I've described it would either gradually decline and degenerate into a wilderness - or go away. The road to industrialization. This balance is set on an extremely narrow fulcrum, and it will always tip over to one side in the end, and when this inevitable event occurs, most of the planets in the Milky Way will collapse. to the side of industrialization." "Because it's better that way." "Maybe. But it won't last. Now we're seeing the consequences of over-tilting. The empire won't last long because it's - it's overheating. I can't think of another word for it. We don't know where it's going ...if, through psychohistory, we can manage to prevent the Great Recession from happening, or, more hopefully, to organize a recovery system after it occurs, is this just to ensure that the empire can be overheated again? The only future for mankind is to be like Sisyphus, pushing a stone up a hill over and over again, only to see it roll down again?" "Who is Sisyphus?" "It's a character in ancient mythology. Hugo, you should read more." Amarel shrugged. "Just to know about Sisyphus? I don't think it matters. Perhaps psychohistory will show us the way to a whole new society, a society quite different from the one we see now, one that is stable and satisfying." society." "I hope so," sighed Seldon, "I hope so, but there is no indication of its existence. And for the short-term future, we will have to do a heroic tactic and let the outer planets go away. That will Marking the beginning of the Great Fall of the Galactic Empire." Annotation: 【① Camel Camel——The original text is lamec, this word was created by Asimov, and the two letters at the beginning and the end are interchanged, which is camel (camel). 】 【② Sisyphus——Sisyphus, a character in ancient Greek mythology, is a famous tyrant who fell into hell after death and was punished to push a stone up a mountain. Again and again, never ending. 】