PART ITHE PSYCHOHISTORIANS1.HARI SELDON?.. born in the 11,988th year of the Galactic Era; died 12,069.The dates are more commonly given in terms of the current Foundational Eraas ?79 to the year 1 F.E. Born to middle-class parents on Helicon,Arcturus sector (where his father, in a legend of doubtful authenticity,was a tobacco grower in the hydroponic plants of the planet), he earlyshowed amazing ability in mathematics. Anecdotes concerning his ability areinnumerable, and some are contradictory. At the age of two, he is said tohave ...... Undoubtedly his greatest contributions were in the field ofpsychohistory. Seldon found the field little more than a set of vagueaxioms; he left it a profound statistical science....... The best existing authority we have for the details of his life is thebiography written by Gaal Dornick who. as a young man, met Seldon two yearsbefore the great mathematician's death. The story of the meeting ...ENCYCLOPEDIA GALACTICA** All quotations from the Encyclopedia Galactica here reproduced are takenfrom the 116th Edition published in 1020 F.E. by the Encyclopedia GalacticaPublishing Co., Terminus, with permission of the publishers.His name was Gaal Dornick and he was just a country boy who had never seenTrantor before. That is, not in real life. He had seen it many times on thehyper-video, and occasionally in tremendous three-dimensional newscastscovering an Imperial Coronation or the opening of a Galactic Council. Eventhough he had lived all his life on the world of Synnax, which circled astar at the edges of the Blue Drift, he was not cut off from civilization,you see. At that time, no place in the Galaxy was.There were nearly twenty-five million inhabited planets in the Galaxy then,and not one but owed allegiance to the Empire whose seat was on Trantor. Itwas the last halfcentury in which that could be said.To Gaal, this trip was the undoubted climax of his young, scholarly life.He had been in space before so that the trip, as a voyage and nothing more,meant little to him. To be sure, he had traveled previously only as far asSynnax's only satellite in order to get the data on the mechanics of meteordriftage which he needed for his dissertation, but space-travel was all onewhether one travelled half a million miles, or as many light years.

He had steeled himself just a little for the Jump through hyper-space, aphenomenon one did not experience in simple interpla
neta
ry trips. The Jumpremained, and would probably remain forever, the only practical method oftraveling between the stars. Travel through ordinary space could proceedat no rate more rapid than that of ordinary light (a bit of scientificknowledge that belonged among the items known since the forgotten dawn ofhuman history), and that would have meant years of travel between even thenearest of inhabited systems. Through hyper-space, that unimaginable regionthat was neither space nor time, matter nor energy, something nor nothing,one could traverse the length of the Galaxy in the interval between twoneighboring instants of time.Gaal had waited for the first of those Jumps with a little dread curledgently in his stomach, and it ended in nothing more than a trifling jar, alittle internal kick which ceased an instant before he could be sure he hadfelt it. That was all.And after that, there was only the ship, large and glistening; the coolproduction of 12,000 years of Imperial progress; and himself, with hisdoctorate in mathematics freshly obtained and an invitation from the greatHari Seldon to come to Trantor and join the vast and somewhat mysteriousSeldon Project.What Gaal was waiting for after the disappointment of the Jump was thatfirst sight of Trantor. He haunted the View-room. The steel shutter-lidswere rolled back at announced times and he was always there, watching thehard brilliance of the stars, enjoying the incredible hazy swarm of a starcluster, like a giant conglomeration of fire-flies caught in mid-motion andstilled forever, At one time there was the cold, blue-white smoke of agaseous nebula within five light years of the ship, spreading over thewindow like distant milk, filling the room with an icy tinge, anddisappearing out of sight two hours later, after another Jump.The first sight of Trantor's sun was that of a hard, white speck all butlost in a myriad such, and recognizable only because it was pointed out bythe ship's guide. The stars were thick here near the Galactic center. Butwith each Jump, it shone more brightly, drowning out the rest, paling themand thinning them out.An officer came through and said, "View-room will be closed for theremainder of the trip. Prepare for landing."Gaal had followed after, clutching at the sleeve of the white uniform withthe Spaceship-and-Sun of the Empire on it.

He said, "Would it be possible to let me stay? I would like to seeTrantor."The officer smiled and Gaal flushed a bit. It occurred to him that he spokewith a provincial accent.The officer said, "We'll be landing on Trantor by morning.""I mean I want to see it from Space.""Oh. Sorry, my boy. If this were a space-yacht we might manage it. Butwe're spinning down, sunside. You wouldn't want to be blinded, burnt, andradiation-scarred all at the same time, would you?"Gaal started to walk away.The officer called after him, "Trantor would only be gray blur anyway, Kid.Why don't you take a space-tour once you hit Trantor. They're cheap."Gaal looked back, "Thank you very much."It was childish to feel disappointed, but childishness comes almost asnaturally to a man as to a child, and there was a lump in Gaal's throat. Hehad never seen Trantor spread out in all its incredibility, as large aslife, and he hadn't expected to have to wait longer.

2.The ship landed in a medley of noises. There was the far-off hiss of theatmosphere cutting and sliding past the metal of the ship. There was thesteady drone of the conditioners fighting the heat of friction, and theslower rumble of the engines enforcing deceleration. There was the humansound of men and women gathering in the debarkation rooms and the grind ofthe hoists lifting baggage, mail, and freight to the long axis of the ship,from which they would be later moved along to the unloading platform.Gaal felt the slight jar that indicated the ship no longer had anindependent motion of its own. Ship's gravity had been giving way toplanetary gravity for hours. Thousands of passengers had been sittingpatiently in the debarkation rooms which swung easily on yieldingforce-fields to accommodate its orientation to the changing direction ofthe gravitational forces. Now they were crawling down curving ramps to thelarge, yawning locks.Gaal's baggage was minor. He stood at a desk, as it was quickly andexpertly taken apart and put together again. His visa was inspected andstamped. He himself paid no attention.This was Trantor! The air seemed a little thicker here, the gravity a bitgreater, than on his home planet of Synnax, but he would get used to that.He wondered if he would get used to immensity.Debarkation Building was tremendous. The roof was almost lost in theheights. Gaal could almost imagine that clouds could form beneath itsimmensity. He could see no opposite wall; just men and desks and convergingfloor till it faded out in haze.The man at the desk was speaking again. He sounded annoyed. He said, "Moveon, Dornick." He had to open the visa, look again, before he remembered thename.

Gaal said, "Where?where?The man at the desk jerked a thumb, "Taxis to the right and third left."Gaal moved, seeing the glowing twists of air suspended high in nothingnessand reading, "TAXIS TO ALL POINTS."A figure detached itself from anonymity and stopped at the desk, as Gaalleft. The man at the desk looked up and nodded briefly. The figure noddedin return and followed the young immigrant.He was in time to hear Gaal's destination.Gaal found himself hard against a railing.The small sign said, "Supervisor." The man to whom the sign referred didnot look up. He said, "Where to?"Gaal wasn't sure, but even a few seconds hesitation meant men queuing inline behind him.The Supervisor looked up, "Where to?"Gaal's funds were low, but there was only this one night and then he wouldhave a job. He tried to sound nonchalant, "A good hotel, please."The Supervisor was unimpressed, "They're all good. Name one."Gaal said, desperately, "The nearest one, please."The Supervisor touched a button. A thin line of light formed along thefloor, twisting among others which brightened and dimmed in differentcolors and shades. A ticket was shoved into Gaal's hands. It glowedfaintly.The Supervisor said, "One point twelve."Gaal fumbled for the coins. He said, "Where do I go?""Follow the light. The ticket will keep glowing as long as you're pointedin the tight direction."

Gaal looked up and began walking. There were hundreds creeping across thevast floor, following their individual trails, sifting and strainingthemselves through intersection points to arrive at their respectivedestinations.His own trail ended. A man in glaring blue and yellow uniform, shining andnew in unstainable plasto-textile, reached for his two bags."Direct line to the Luxor," he said.The man who followed Gaal heard that. He also heard Gaal say, "Fine," andwatched him enter the blunt-nosed vehicle.The taxi lifted straight up. Gaal stared out the curved, transparentwindow, marvelling at the sensation of airflight within an enclosedstructure and clutching instinctively at the back of the driver's seat. Thevastness contracted and the people became ants in random distribution. Thescene contracted further and began to slide backward.There was a wall ahead. It began high in the air and extended upward out ofsight. It was riddled with holes that were the mouths of tunnels. Gaal'staxi moved toward one then plunged into it. For a moment, Gaal wonderedidly how his driver could pick out one among so many.There was now only blackness, with nothing but the past-flashing of acolored signal light to relieve the gloom. The air was full of a rushingsound.Gaal leaned forward against deceleration then and the taxi popped out ofthe tunnel and descended to ground-level once more."The Luxor Hotel," said the driver, unnecessarily. He helped Gaal with hisbaggage, accepted a tenth-credit tip with a businesslike air, picked up awaiting passenger, and was rising again.In all this, from the moment of debarkation, there had been no glimpse ofsky.

3.TRANTOR?..At the beginning of the thirteenth millennium, this tendencyreached its climax. As the center of the Imperial Government for unbrokenhundreds of generations and located, as it was, toward the central regionsof the Galaxy among the most densely populated and industrially advancedworlds of the system, it could scarcely help being the densest and richestclot of humanity the Race had ever seen.Its urbanization, progressing steadily, had finally reached the ultimate.All the land surface of Trantor, 75,000,000 square miles in extent, was asingle city. The population, at its height, was well in excess of fortybillions. This enormous population was devoted almost entirely to theadministrative necessities of Empire, and found themselves all too few forthe complications of the task. (It is to be remembered that theimpossibility of proper administration of the Galactic Empire under theuninspired leadership of the later Emperors was a considerable factor inthe Fall.) Daily, fleets of ships in the tens of thousands brought theproduce of twenty agricultural worlds to the dinner tables of Trantor....Its dependence upon the outer worlds for food and, indeed, for allnecessities of life, made Trantor increasingly vulnerable to conquest bysiege. In the last millennium of the Empire, the monotonously numerousrevolts made Emperor after Emperor conscious of this, and Imperial policybecame little more than the protection of Trantor's delicate jugularvein....ENCYCLOPEDIA GALACTICAGaal was not certain whether the sun shone, or, for that matter, whether itwas day or night. He was ashamed to ask. All the planet seemed to livebeneath metal. The meal of which he had just partaken had been labelledluncheon, but there were many planets which lived a standard timescale thattook no account of the perhaps inconvenient alternation of day and night.The rate of planetary turnings differed, and he did not know that ofTrantor.

At first, he had eagerly followed the signs to the "Sun Room" and found itbut a chamber for basking in artificial radiation. He lingered a moment ortwo, then returned to the Luxor's main lobby.He said to the room clerk, "Where can I buy a ticket for a planetary tour?""Right here.""When will it start?""You just missed it. Another one tomorrow. Buy a ticket now and we'llreserve a place for you.""Oh." Tomorrow would be too late. He would have to be at the Universitytomorrow. He said, "There wouldn't be an observation tower ?or something?I mean, in the open air.""Sure! Sell you a ticket for that, if you want. Better let me check if it'sraining or not." He closed a contact at his elbow and read the flowingletters that raced across a frosted screen. Gaal read with him.The room clerk said, "Good weather. Come to think of it, I do believe it'sthe dry season now." He added, conversationally, "I don't bother with theoutside myself. The last time I was in the open was three years ago. Yousee it once, you know and that's all there is to it. Here's your ticket.Special elevator in the rear. It's marked 'To the Tower.' Just take it."

The elevator was of the new sort that ran by gravitic repulsion. Gaalentered and others flowed in behind him. The operator closed a contact. Fora moment, Gaal felt suspended in space as gravity switched to zero, andthen he had weight again in small measure as the elevator acceleratedupward. Deceleration followed and his feet left the floor. He squawkedagainst his will.The operator called out, "Tuck your feet under the railing. Can't you readthe sign?"The others had done so. They were smiling at him as he madly and vainlytried to clamber back down the wall. Their shoes pressed upward against thechromium of the railings that stretched across the floor in parallels settwo feet apart. He had noticed those railings on entering and had ignoredthem.Then a hand reached out and pulled him down.He gasped his thanks as the elevator came to a halt.He stepped out upon an open terrace bathed in a white brilliance that hurlhis eyes. The man, whose helping hand he had just now been the recipientof, was immediately behind him.The man said, kindly, "Plenty of seats."Gaal closed his mouth; he had been gaping; and said, "It certainly seemsso." He started for them automatically, then stopped.He said, "If you don't mind, I'll just stop a moment at the railing. I ?Iwant to look a bit."The man waved him on, good-naturedly, and Gaal leaned out over theshoulder-high railing and bathed himself in all the panorama.He could not see the ground. It was lost in the ever increasingcomplexities of man-made structures. He could see no horizon other thanthat of metal against sky, stretching out to almost uniform grayness, andhe knew it was so over all the land-surface of the planet. There wasscarcely any motion to be seen ? a few pleasure-craft lazed against thesky-but all the busy traffic of billions of men were going on, he knew,beneath the metal skin of the world.There was no green to be seen; no green, no soil, no life other than man.Somewhere on the world, he realized vaguely, was the Emperor's palace, setamid one hundred square miles of natural soil, green with trees, rainbowedwith flowers. It was a small island amid an ocean of steel, but it wasn'tvisible from where he stood. It might be ten thousand miles away. He didnot know.Before very long, he must have his tour!He sighed noisily, and realized finally that he was on Trantor at last; onthe planet which was the center of all the Galaxy and the kernel of thehuman race. He saw none of its weaknesses. He saw no ships of food landing.He was not aware of a jugular vein delicately connecting the forty billionof Trantor with the rest of the Galaxy. He was conscious only of themightiest deed of man; the complete and almost contemptuously finalconquest of a world.He came away a little blank-eyed. His friend of the elevator was indicatinga seat next to himself and Gaal took it.

Gaal fumbled. "Glorious," he said, again."Here on vacation? Traveling? Sight-seeing?""No exactly. At least, I've always wanted to visit Trantor but I came hereprimarily for a job.""Oh?"Gaal felt obliged to explain further, "With Dr. Seldon's project at theUniversity of Trantor.""Raven Seldon?""Why, no. The one I mean is Hari Seldon. -The psychohistorian Seldon. Idon't know of any Raven Seldon.""Hari's the one I mean. They call him Raven. Slang, you know. He keepspredicting disaster.""He does?" Gaal was genuinely astonished."Surely, you must know." Jerril was not smiling. "You're coming to work forhim, aren't you?""Well, yes, I'm a mathematician. Why does he predict disaster? What kind ofdisaster?""What kind would you think?""I'm afraid I wouldn't have the least idea. I've read the papers Dr. Seldonand his group have published. They're on mathematical theory.""Yes, the ones they publish."Gaal felt annoyed. He said, "I think I'll go to my room now. Very pleasedto have met you."Jerril waved his arm indifferently in farewell.

Gaal found a man waiting for him in his room. For a moment, he was toostartled to put into words the inevitable, "What are you doing here?" thatcame to his lips.The man rose. He was old and almost bald and he walked with a limp, but hiseyes were very bright and blue.He said, "I am Hari Seldon," an instant before Gaal's befuddled brainplaced the face alongside the memory of the many times he had seen it inpictures.

4.PSYCHOHISTORY?..Gaal Dornick, using nonmathematical concepts, has definedpsychohistory to be that branch of mathematics which deals with thereactions of human conglomerates to fixed social and economic stimuli....... Implicit in all these definitions is the assumption that the humanconglomerate being dealt with is sufficiently large for valid statisticaltreatment. The necessary size of such a conglomerate may be determined bySeldon's First Theorem which ... A further necessary assumption is that thehuman conglomerate be itself unaware of psychohistoric analysis in orderthat its reactions be truly random ...The basis of all valid psychohistory lies in the development of the Seldon.Functions which exhibit properties congruent to those of such social andeconomic forces as ...ENCYCLOPEDIA GALACTICA"Good afternoon, sir," said Gaal. "I?I?"You didn't think we were to meet before tomorrow? Ordinarily, we would nothave. It is just that if we are to use your services, we must work quickly.It grows continually more difficult to obtain recruits.""I don't understand, sir.""You were talking to a man on the observation tower, were you not?""Yes. His first name is Jerril. I know no more about him. ""His name is nothing. He is an agent of the Commission of Public Safety. Hefollowed you from the space-port.""But why? I am afraid I am very confused.""Did the man on the tower say nothing about me?"Gaal hesitated, "He referred to you as Raven Seldon.""Did he say why?""He said you predict disaster.""I do. What does Trantor mean to you?"Everyone seemed to be asking his opinion of Trantor. Gaal felt incapable ofresponse beyond the bare word, "Glorious."

"You say that without thinking. What of psychohistory?""I haven't thought of applying it to the problem.""Before you are done with me, young man, you will learn to applypsychohistory to all problems as a matter of course. 朞bserve." Seldonremoved his calculator pad from the pouch at his belt. Men said he kept onebeneath his pillow for use in moments of wakefulness. Its gray, glossyfinish was slightly worn by use. Seldon's nimble fingers, spotted now withage, played along the files and rows of buttons that filled its surface.Red symbols glowed out from the upper tier.He said, "That represents the condition of the Empire at present."He waited.Gaal said finally, "Surely that is not a complete representation.""No, not complete," said Seldon. "I am glad you do not accept my wordblindly. However, this is an approximation which will serve to demonstratethe proposition. Will you accept that?""Subject to my later verification of the derivation of the function, yes."Gaal was carefully avoiding a possible trap."Good. Add to this the known probability of Imperial assassination,viceregal revolt, the contemporary recurrence of periods of economicdepression, the declining rate of planetary explorations, the. ...."He proceeded. As each item was mentioned, new symbols sprang to life at histouch, and melted into the basic function which expanded and changed.Gaal stopped him only once. "I don't see the validity of thatset-transformation."Seldon repeated it more slowly.Gaal said, "But that is done by way of a forbidden sociooperation.""Good. You are quick, but not yet quick enough. It is not forbidden in thisconnection. Let me do it by expansions."

The procedure was much longer and at its end, Gaal said, humbly, "Yes, Isee now."Finally, Seldon stopped. "This is Trantor three centuries from now. How doyou interpret that? Eh?" He put his head to one side and waited.Gaal said, unbelievingly, "Total destruction! But ?but that is impossible.Trantor has never been ?Seldon was filled with the intense excitement of a man whose body only hadgrown old. "Come, come. You saw how the result was arrived at. Put it intowords. Forget the symbolism for a moment."Gaal said, "As Trantor becomes more specialized, it be comes morevulnerable, less able to defend itself. Further, as it becomes more andmore the administrative center of Empire, it becomes a greater prize. Asthe Imperial succession becomes more and more uncertain, and the feudsamong the great families more rampant, social responsibility disappears. ""Enough. And what of the numerical probability of total destruction withinthree centuries?""I couldn't tell.""Surely you can perform a field-differentiation?"Gaal felt himself under pressure. He was not offered the calculator pad. Itwas held a foot from his eyes. He calculated furiously and felt hisforehead grow slick with sweat.He said, "About 85%?""Not bad," said Seldon, thrusting out a lower lip, "but not good. Theactual figure is 92.5%."Gaal said, "And so you are called Raven Seldon? I have seen none of this inthe journals.""But of course not. This is unprintable. Do you suppose the Imperium couldexpose its shakiness in this manner. That is a very simple demonstration inpsychohistory. But some of our results have leaked out among thearistocracy.""That's bad."

"Not necessarily. All is taken into account.""But is that why I'm being investigated?""Yes. Everything about my project is being investigated.""Are you in danger, sir?""Oh, yes. There is probability of 1.7% that I will be executed, but ofcourse that will not stop the project. We have taken that into account aswell. Well, never mind. You will meet me, I suppose, at the Universitytomorrow?""I will," said Gaal.

今天就发到这里了，哎，发帖真是辛苦啊，现在开始佩服那些论坛的大侠们了，大家有时间要好好看一下啊，这原著到底比译本味道正一些，我那时虽然也是在文曲星的帮助下才看完英文版，但后来绝对不是种痛苦，而是享受，相信我！

不错，学习下！