Definitely Maybe (novel)
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''Definitely Maybe'' (russian: links=no, За миллиард лет до конца света , translit=Za milliard let do kontsa sveta, literal translation: ''A Billion Years Before the End of the World'', sometimes called ''Definitely Maybe: A Manuscript Discovered Under Unusual Circumstances'') is a
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 unive ...
novel by Russian writers
Arkady and Boris Strugatsky The brothers Arkady Natanovich Strugatsky (russian: Аркадий Натанович Стругацкий; 28 August 1925 – 12 October 1991) and Boris Natanovich Strugatsky ( ru , Борис Натанович Стругацкий; 14 A ...
, first published 1977.


Plot summary

The story takes place in Leningrad, USSR, apparently in the 1970s. The protagonist, Dmitry Alekseyevich Malyanov (Дмитрий Алексеевич Малянов) is an astrophysicist who, while officially on vacation, continues to work on his thesis, "The Interaction of Stars with Diffused Galactic Matter". Just as he begins to realize that he is on the verge of a revolutionary discovery worthy of a Nobel Prize, his life becomes plagued by strange events. First, Malyanov is visited unexpectedly by an attractive woman claiming to be his wife's classmate and food and wine arrive for them mysteriously and already paid for. Then his neighbor dies of an apparent suicide and Malyanov becomes the murder suspect. Approaching the problem with a scientific mindset, Malyanov suspects that his discovery is in the way of someone (or something) intent on preventing the completion of his work. The same idea occurs to his friends and acquaintances, who find themselves in a similar impasse—some powerful, mysterious, and very selective force impedes their work in fields ranging from biology to mathematical linguistics. An explanation is proposed by Malyanov's friend and neighbor, the mathematician Vecherovsky (Вечеровский). He posits that the mysterious force is the Universe's reaction to mankind's scientific pursuit, which threatens to destroy the very fabric of the universe in some distant future. His hypothesis is that of a Homeostatic Universe, meaning that the Universe tends to conserve both its total entropy (a measure of disorder) and the capacity of regeneration of reasoning performed into it. The equilibrium between the two measures determines the structure of the Universe at a given time. Thus, the Universe naturally resists attempts of rational beings of constructing supercivilizations. Vecherovsky proposes to treat this universal resistance to scientific progress as a natural phenomenon which can and should be investigated and even harnessed by Science. As the novel concludes, the other scientists, including Malyanov, have decided to abandon their research due to the pressure, and Vecherovsky remains alone to battle the universe and continue their work.


Derived works

Aleksandr Sokurov Alexander Nikolayevich Sokurov, PAR (russian: link=no, Александр Николаевич Сокуров; born 14 June 1951) is a Russian filmmaker. His most significant works include a feature film, ''Russian Ark'' (2002), filmed in a s ...
's movie '' Days of Eclipse'' is loosely based on the novel. The Finnish film ''Miljardi vuotta ennen maailmanloppua'' ("One Billion Years Before the End of the World") was directed by Tapio Suominen in 1986 based on the novel.


In real life

Notable mathematician
Vladimir Voevodsky Vladimir Alexandrovich Voevodsky (, russian: Влади́мир Алекса́ндрович Воево́дский; 4 June 1966 – 30 September 2017) was a Russian-American mathematician. His work in developing a homotopy theory for algebraic va ...
had described himself as having similar experiences at one period of his life: The character of Vecherovsky is loosely based on the well-known mathematician
Yuri Manin Yuri Ivanovich Manin (russian: Ю́рий Ива́нович Ма́нин; born 16 February 1937) is a Russian mathematician, known for work in algebraic geometry and diophantine geometry, and many expository works ranging from mathematical logi ...
.


References


External links


Text of the novel
at
Maksim Moshkow's Library Lib.ru, also known as Maksim Moshkow's Library (russian: link=no, библиотека Максима Мошкова, started to operate in November 1994) is the oldest electronic library in the Russian Internet segment. Founded and supported ...
(Russian) {{Arkady and Boris Strugatsky 1976 novels Novels by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky Novels set in the Soviet Union Russian novels adapted into films