Read Online Foundation Fear by Gregory Benford - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Gregory Benford
Tags: Science-Fiction, Fantasy
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vast set of interlocked equations, following the variables
of history. It was impossible to change one and not vary any other. Alter population and
trade changed, along with modes of entertainment, sexual mores, and a hundred other
factors.
Some were undoubtedly unimportant, but which? History was a bottomless quarry of factoids,
meaningless without some way of winnowing the hail of particulars. That was the essential
first task of any theory of history -- to find the deep variables.
“Post-diction rates -- presto!” Yugo said, his hand computer suspending in air 3D graphs,
elegantly arrayed. “Economic indices, variable-families, the works.”
“What eras?” Hari asked.
“Third millennia to seventh, G.E.”
The multidimensional surfaces representing economic variables were like twisted bottles
filled with -- as Yugo time-stepped them -- sloshing fluids. The liquids of yellow and
amber and virulent red flowed around and through each other in a supple, slow dance. Hari
was perpetually amazed at how beauty arose in the most unlikely ways from mathematics.
Yugo had plotted abstruse econometric quantities, yet in the gravid sway of centuries they
made delicate arabesques.
“Surprisingly good agreement,” Hari allowed. The yellow surfaces of historical data merged
cleanly with the other color skins, fluids finding curved levels. “And covering four
millennia! No infinities?”
“That new renormalization scheme blotted them out.”
“Excellent! The middle Galactic Era data is the most solid, too, correct?”
“Yeah. The politicians got into the act after the seventh millennium. Dors is helpin' me
filter out the garbage.”
Hari admired the graceful blending of colors, ancient wine in transfinite bottles.
The psychohistorical rates linked together strongly. History was not at all like a sturdy
steel edifice rigidly spanning time; it rather more resembled a rope bridge, groaning and
flexing with every footfall. This “strong coupling dynamic” led to resonances in the
equations, wild fluctuations, even infinities. Yet nothing really went infinite in
reality, so the equations had to be fixed. Hari and Yugo had spent many years eliminating
ugly infinites. Maybe their goal was in sight.
“How do the results look if you simply run the equations forward, past the seventh
millennium?” Hari asked.
“Oscillations build up,” Yugo admitted.
Feedback loops were scarcely new. Hari knew the general theorem, ancient beyond measure:
If all variables in a system are rightly coupled, and you can change one of them precisely
and broadly, then you can indirectly control all of them. The system could be guided to an
exact outcome through its myriad internal feedback loops. Spontaneously, the system
ordered itself -- and obeyed.
History, of course, obeyed no one. But for eras such as the fourth to seventh millennium,
somehow the equations got matters right. Psychohistory could “post-diet” history.
In truly complex systems, how adjustments occur lay beyond the human complexity horizon,
beyond knowing -- and most important, not worth knowing.
But if the system went awry, somebody had to get down in the guts of it and find the
trouble. “Any ideas? Clues?”
Yugo shrugged. “Look at this.”
The fluids lapped at the walls of the bottles. More warped volumes appeared, filled with
brightly colored data-liquids. Hari watched as tides swept through the burnt-orange
variable-space, driving answering waves in the purple layers nearby. Soon the entire bob
showed furiously churning turbulence.
“So the equations fail,” Hari said.
“Yeah, big time, too. The grand cycles last about a hundred and twenty-five years. But
smoothing out events shorter than eighty years gives a steady pattern. See -- ”
Hari watched turbulence build like a hurricane churning a multicolored ocean.
Yugo said, “That takes away scatter due to
of history. It was impossible to change one and not vary any other. Alter population and
trade changed, along with modes of entertainment, sexual mores, and a hundred other
factors.
Some were undoubtedly unimportant, but which? History was a bottomless quarry of factoids,
meaningless without some way of winnowing the hail of particulars. That was the essential
first task of any theory of history -- to find the deep variables.
“Post-diction rates -- presto!” Yugo said, his hand computer suspending in air 3D graphs,
elegantly arrayed. “Economic indices, variable-families, the works.”
“What eras?” Hari asked.
“Third millennia to seventh, G.E.”
The multidimensional surfaces representing economic variables were like twisted bottles
filled with -- as Yugo time-stepped them -- sloshing fluids. The liquids of yellow and
amber and virulent red flowed around and through each other in a supple, slow dance. Hari
was perpetually amazed at how beauty arose in the most unlikely ways from mathematics.
Yugo had plotted abstruse econometric quantities, yet in the gravid sway of centuries they
made delicate arabesques.
“Surprisingly good agreement,” Hari allowed. The yellow surfaces of historical data merged
cleanly with the other color skins, fluids finding curved levels. “And covering four
millennia! No infinities?”
“That new renormalization scheme blotted them out.”
“Excellent! The middle Galactic Era data is the most solid, too, correct?”
“Yeah. The politicians got into the act after the seventh millennium. Dors is helpin' me
filter out the garbage.”
Hari admired the graceful blending of colors, ancient wine in transfinite bottles.
The psychohistorical rates linked together strongly. History was not at all like a sturdy
steel edifice rigidly spanning time; it rather more resembled a rope bridge, groaning and
flexing with every footfall. This “strong coupling dynamic” led to resonances in the
equations, wild fluctuations, even infinities. Yet nothing really went infinite in
reality, so the equations had to be fixed. Hari and Yugo had spent many years eliminating
ugly infinites. Maybe their goal was in sight.
“How do the results look if you simply run the equations forward, past the seventh
millennium?” Hari asked.
“Oscillations build up,” Yugo admitted.
Feedback loops were scarcely new. Hari knew the general theorem, ancient beyond measure:
If all variables in a system are rightly coupled, and you can change one of them precisely
and broadly, then you can indirectly control all of them. The system could be guided to an
exact outcome through its myriad internal feedback loops. Spontaneously, the system
ordered itself -- and obeyed.
History, of course, obeyed no one. But for eras such as the fourth to seventh millennium,
somehow the equations got matters right. Psychohistory could “post-diet” history.
In truly complex systems, how adjustments occur lay beyond the human complexity horizon,
beyond knowing -- and most important, not worth knowing.
But if the system went awry, somebody had to get down in the guts of it and find the
trouble. “Any ideas? Clues?”
Yugo shrugged. “Look at this.”
The fluids lapped at the walls of the bottles. More warped volumes appeared, filled with
brightly colored data-liquids. Hari watched as tides swept through the burnt-orange
variable-space, driving answering waves in the purple layers nearby. Soon the entire bob
showed furiously churning turbulence.
“So the equations fail,” Hari said.
“Yeah, big time, too. The grand cycles last about a hundred and twenty-five years. But
smoothing out events shorter than eighty years gives a steady pattern. See -- ”
Hari watched turbulence build like a hurricane churning a multicolored ocean.
Yugo said, “That takes away scatter due to
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