Psychohistorians
Hari Seldon's school of mathematicians, who predicted the fall of an empire.
The psychohistorians are Hari Seldon and the scholars who follow him in Isaac Asimov's Foundation universe. Seldon, a mathematician and psychologist, developed psychohistory, which uses mathematics and statistical analysis to predict future trends on a galactic scale, and with it predicted the unavoidable fall of the Galactic Empire.
Quick Facts
- Founder
- Hari Seldon
- Tool
- Prime Radiant
Lore & Background
To soften that fall, Seldon planned the Foundation, a repository of civilisation-preserving knowledge. The Seldon Plan, a huge body of mathematics, describes the events set in motion by Seldon's intervention and his successors'; its real aim goes well beyond preserving knowledge.
Reader's Guide
Their work is stored in the Prime Radiant, which projects the equations of the Plan; Seldon's successors extend it in colour-coded addenda. The Time Vault plays Seldon's recorded messages at each Seldon Crisis.
In "The Psychohistorians", the first part of Foundation, Seldon's prediction angers the Commission of Public Safety, which exiles him and his followers to Terminus rather than make him a martyr. In the prequels, Seldon develops the science with Yugo Amaryl, the second-best psychohistorian after him.
More in Empires & Organizations
Elsewhere in Foundation
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