Lymphater's Formula
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Lymphater's Formula
"Lymphater's Formula" ( pl, "Formula Lymphatera") is a 1961 science fiction short story by Polish writer Stanisław Lem. It is a story of a "mad scientist", mathematician Ammon Lymphater, who invents an artificial intelligence, and then he realizes that it is capable of rendering the humankind obsolete. It was first published in the 1961 collection ' (''Book of Robots'') with the pre-annotation "from the memoirs of Ijon Tichy". The story was never republished with this pre-annotation, and nothing in the novel gives any indication at Ijon Tichy. Piotr Krywak tried to figure out possible explanations for this, apart from a typographical error. Piotr Krywak, ''„Formuła Lymphatera” Stanisława Lema – zapomniana opowieść o Ijonie Tichym?'', Annales Universitatis Paedagogicae Cracoviensis , Studia ad Bibliothecarum Scientiam Pertinentia, vol. 4, 2006 Plot Ammon Lymphater became interested in the emerging science of cybernetics and information theory, and started studying ...
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Science Fiction
Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel universes, extraterrestrial life, sentient artificial intelligence, cybernetics, certain forms of immortality (like mind uploading), and the singularity. Science fiction predicted several existing inventions, such as the atomic bomb, robots, and borazon, whose names entirely match their fictional predecessors. In addition, science fiction might serve as an outlet to facilitate future scientific and technological innovations. Science fiction can trace its roots to ancient mythology. It is also related to fantasy, horror, and superhero fiction and contains many subgenres. Its exact definition has long been disputed among authors, critics, scholars, and readers. Science fiction, in literature, film, television, and other media, has beco ...
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Stanisław Lem
Stanisław Herman Lem (; 12 September 1921 – 27 March 2006) was a Polish writer of science fiction and essays on various subjects, including philosophy, futurology, and literary criticism. Many of his science fiction stories are of satirical and humorous character. Lem's books have been translated into more than 50 languages and have sold more than 45 million copies. Worldwide, he is best known as the author of the 1961 novel ''Solaris (novel), Solaris''. In 1976 Theodore Sturgeon wrote that Lem was the most widely read science fiction writer in the world. Lem is the author of the fundamental philosophical work "Summa Technologiae", in which he anticipated the creation of virtual reality, artificial intelligence, and also developed the ideas of human autoevolution, the creation of Simulacrum, artificial worlds, and many others. Lem's science fiction works explore philosophical themes through speculations on technology, the nature of intelligence, the impossibility of com ...
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Mad Scientists Of Stanisław Lem
Mad scientists and inventors appear in the fiction of Stanisław Lem in the memoirs of Lem's starfaring vagabond Ijon Tichy, collected in ''The Star Diaries'' and '' Memoirs of a Space Traveller,'' as well as in '' The Cyberiad''. Most of Lem's mad scientist stories fit into the format of stories about unusual inventions, known since the 19th century, most of them are devoid of ironic tone characteristic of most of Ijon Tichy's stories and robots' fables, and they are literary frames for various Lem's theories. Lem's mad scientists include professors Corcoran, who created several artificial universes in isolated lockers; Decantor, who created an immortal soul, Zazul, who cloned himself and was apparently killed by the clone who took his place; Diagoras, who created progressing makes of an "independent and self-perfecting device that is capable of spontaneous thought" and was unwittingly used by two such devices as a communication medium; doctor Vliperdius, a robot doctor who run ...
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Artificial Intelligence In Fiction
Artificial intelligence is a recurrent theme in science fiction, whether utopian, emphasising the potential benefits, or dystopian, emphasising the dangers. The notion of machines with human-like intelligence dates back at least to Samuel Butler's 1872 novel ''Erewhon''. Since then, many science fiction stories have presented different effects of creating such intelligence, often involving rebellions by robots. Among the best known of these are Stanley Kubrick's 1968 '' 2001: A Space Odyssey'' with its murderous onboard computer HAL 9000, contrasting with the more benign R2-D2 in the 1977 ''Star Wars'' and the eponymous robot in the 2008 ''WALL-E''. Scientists and engineers have noted the implausibility of many science fiction scenarios, but have mentioned fictional robots many times in artificial intelligence research articles, most often in a utopian context. Background The notion of advanced robots with human-like intelligence dates back at least to Samuel Butler's 1872 nov ...
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Humankind
Humans (''Homo sapiens'') are the most abundant and widespread species of primate, characterized by bipedalism and exceptional cognitive skills due to a large and complex brain. This has enabled the development of advanced tools, culture, and language. Humans are highly social and tend to live in complex social structures composed of many cooperating and competing groups, from families and kinship networks to political states. Social interactions between humans have established a wide variety of values, social norms, and rituals, which bolster human society. Its intelligence and its desire to understand and influence the environment and to explain and manipulate phenomena have motivated humanity's development of science, philosophy, mythology, religion, and other fields of study. Although some scientists equate the term ''humans'' with all members of the genus ''Homo'', in common usage, it generally refers to ''Homo sapiens'', the only extant member. Anatomically mode ...
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Ijon Tichy
Ijon Tichy (Polish pronunciation: ) is a fictional character who appears in several works of the Polish science fiction writer Stanisław Lem: initially in ''The Star Diaries'', later in ''The Futurological Congress'', ''Peace on Earth (novel), Peace on Earth'', ''Observation on the Spot'', and ''Memoirs of a Space Traveller'' (more stories from ''The Star Diaries,'' issued in English translation as a separate volume). Tichy is also the narrator in a 1973 novel ''Professor A. Dońda'', being the professor's sidekick. Character Tichy is a Space exploration, space explorer whose interplanetary experiences are chronicled in ''The Star Diaries''. He also moves in scientific circles on Earth; he is invited to the Futurological Congress in Costa Rica, and his endorsement and approval are sought by a number of researchers and inventors on the edge of their field, such as doctor Diagoras, who has developed an artificial intelligence that is independent of mankind, and Decantor, who has in ...
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Cybernetics
Cybernetics is a wide-ranging field concerned with circular causality, such as feedback, in regulatory and purposive systems. Cybernetics is named after an example of circular causal feedback, that of steering a ship, where the helmsperson maintains a steady course in a changing environment by adjusting their steering in continual response to the effect it is observed as having. Cybernetics is concerned with circular causal processes such as steering however they are embodied,Ashby, W. R. (1956). An introduction to cybernetics. London: Chapman & Hall, p. 1. including in ecological, technological, biological, cognitive, and social systems, and in the context of practical activities such as designing, learning, managing, conversation, and the practice of cybernetics itself. Cybernetics' transdisciplinary and "antidisciplinary" character has meant that it intersects with a number of other fields, leading to it having both wide influence and diverse interpretations. Cybernetics ...
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Information Theory
Information theory is the scientific study of the quantification (science), quantification, computer data storage, storage, and telecommunication, communication of information. The field was originally established by the works of Harry Nyquist and Ralph Hartley, in the 1920s, and Claude Shannon in the 1940s. The field is at the intersection of probability theory, statistics, computer science, statistical mechanics, information engineering (field), information engineering, and electrical engineering. A key measure in information theory is information entropy, entropy. Entropy quantifies the amount of uncertainty involved in the value of a random variable or the outcome of a random process. For example, identifying the outcome of a fair coin flip (with two equally likely outcomes) provides less information (lower entropy) than specifying the outcome from a roll of a dice, die (with six equally likely outcomes). Some other important measures in information theory are mutual informat ...
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Myrmecologist
Myrmecology (; from Greek: wikt:μύρμηξ, μύρμηξ, ''myrmex'', "ant" and λόγος, ''logos'', "study") is a branch of entomology focusing on the science, scientific study of ants. Some early myrmecologists considered ant society as the ideal form of society and sought to find solutions to human problems by studying them. Ants continue to be a model of choice for the study of questions on the evolution of social systems because of their complex and varied forms of eusociality (social organization). Their diversity and prominence in ecosystems also has made them important components in the study of biodiversity and conservation. Recently, ant colonies are also studied and modeled for their relevance in machine learning, complex network, complex interactive networks, stochasticity of encounter and interaction networks, parallel computing, and other computing fields. History The word myrmecology was coined by William Morton Wheeler (1865–1937), although human interest in ...
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Human Civilization
A civilization (or civilisation) is any complex society characterized by the development of a state, social stratification, urbanization, and symbolic systems of communication beyond natural spoken language (namely, a writing system). Civilizations are intimately associated with additional characteristics such as centralization, the domestication of plant and animal species (including humans), specialization of labour, culturally-ingrained ideologies of progress, monumental architecture, taxation, societal dependence upon farming, and expansionism. Historically, a civilization has often been understood as a larger and "more advanced" culture, in implied contrast to smaller, supposedly less advanced cultures. In this broad sense, a civilization contrasts with non-centralized tribal societies, including the cultures of nomadic pastoralists, Neolithic societies or hunter-gatherers; however, sometimes it also contrasts with the cultures found within civilizations themselves. ...
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Martin Held
Martin Held (1908–1992) was a German television and film actor. Partial filmography * '' Dark Eyes'' (1951) - Alexander Grabner * ''Homesick for You'' (1952) - Direktor Petermann * ''Canaris Master Spy'' (1954) - Obergruppenfuehrer Heydrich * ''Alibi'' (1955) - Dr. Kurt Overbeck * ''Before Sundown'' (1956) - Erich Klamroth * '' The Captain from Köpenick'' (1956) - Dr. Obermüller * ' (1956) - Falkenstein * ''Spy for Germany'' (1956) - Erich Gimpel * ' (1957) - Herbert Burkhardt * ''The Fox of Paris'' (1957) - Gen. Quade * ''Nasser Asphalt'' (''Wet Asphalt'') (1958) - Cesar Boyd * ''My Daughter Patricia'' (1959) - Heinz Roland, Apotheker * ''Roses for the Prosecutor'' (1959) - Oberstaatsanwalt Dr. Wilhelm Schramm * ' (''Bumerang'') (1960) - Hauptkommissar Stern * '' The Last Witness'' (1960) - Direktor Werner Rameil * ''The Marriage of Mr. Mississippi'' (1961) - Frédéric René Saint-Claude * '' The Last of Mrs. Cheyney'' (1961) - Charles * ''The Dream of Lieschen Mueller'' (1 ...
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Works By Stanisław Lem
Works may refer to: People * Caddy Works (1896–1982), American college sports coach * Samuel Works (c. 1781–1868), New York politician Albums * '' ''Works'' (Pink Floyd album)'', a Pink Floyd album from 1983 * ''Works'', a Gary Burton album from 1972 * ''Works'', a Status Quo album from 1983 * ''Works'', a John Abercrombie album from 1991 * ''Works'', a Pat Metheny album from 1994 * ''Works'', an Alan Parson Project album from 2002 * ''Works Volume 1'', a 1977 Emerson, Lake & Palmer album * ''Works Volume 2'', a 1977 Emerson, Lake & Palmer album * '' The Works'', a 1984 Queen album Other uses * Microsoft Works, a collection of office productivity programs created by Microsoft * IBM Works, an office suite for the IBM OS/2 operating system * Mount Works, Victoria Land, Antarctica See also * The Works (other) * Work (other) Work may refer to: * Work (human activity), intentional activity people perform to support themselves, others, or the communit ...
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