Loren Cobb, Ph.D. is a research professor of mathematics, University of Colorado at Denver and principal of Aetheling International Consultants.

The Coming Revolution in Social Dynamics: Asimov's Psychohistory Revisited

Unknown to all but a few specialists, the US government is pouring large amounts of funding into the development of new mathematical approaches to the simulation and forecasting of major social change — a project remarkably similar in spirit to the mathematical "psychohistory" of Hari Seldon, as described in Isaac Asimov's 1948 masterwork, The Foundation Trilogy.

We will take an illustrated stroll through some of surprising developments on the horizon, seen through the prism of Asimov's science fiction, with special emphasis on the contemporary rapid evolution of war, peace, conflict resolution, pandemics, and human development.

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