Hari Seldon - Seldon's Technology

Seldon's Technology

As a fictional portrayal of a far-future Professor of Psychohistory, Hari Seldon is presented at the beginning of "Foundation" as making use of a powerful hand-held computer, which he uses to calculate probability estimates in real-time. At the time of publication of the first novel, in 1951, such technology was pure science fiction. By the second decade of the 21st century, with the development of high memory capacity and touch-screen tablet computer products, the real-time derivation of probability density estimates - even within the context of the casual conversation Seldon has at the beginning of Foundation - has become an evident reality.