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"[Science fiction is] nightmares and visions, always outlined by the barely possible."
- Gregory Benford
 |
| Simple Organisms Do Math | ||
| Insects show unusual signs of intelligence. |
How can poor Mr. Meek, a penny-pinching accountant from Earth who could barely pilot a spaceship and had no idea how to play space polo, win the game?
| THE BUGS had dug a new set of holes, much after the manner of a Chinese checker board, and now were settling down into their respective places preparatory to the start of another game...
None of the diagrams made sense. They showed the patterns of three other boards and the moves that had been made by the bugs in playing out the game. Apparently, in each case, the game had been finished. But so far as Meek could see from study of the diagrams there was not even a purpose or a problem, let alone a solution or a point... Suddenly there was confusion on the board. For a moment a half-dozen of the bugs raced madly about, as if seeking the proper hole to occupy. Then, as suddenly, all movement had ceased. And in another moment, they were on the move again, orderly again, but retracing their movements, going back several plays beyond the point of confusion. Just as one would do when one made a mistake working a mathematical problem . . . going back to the point of error and going on again from there... Games! Those bugs weren’t playing any game. They were solving mathematical equations! |
| Technovelgy from Mr. Meek Plays Polo,
by Clifford Simak. Published by Planet Stories in 1944 Additional resources -
|
It turns out that the bugs were pretty good at math:
He bent closer and froze. It was crawling. There was no doubt of that. Crawling with rock-bugs.
Breath whistling between his teeth. Meek ducked his head under the panel. Every wire, every control was oozing bugs!
...“It’s the bugs!’’ Meek whispered to himself, lips scarcely moving. “The bugs have taken over!”
The craft he was riding, he knew, was no longer just a ship, but a collection of rock bugs. Bugs that could work out mathematical equations. And now were playing polo 1
For what was polo, anyhow, except a mathematical equation, a problem of using certain points of force at certain points in space to arrive at a predetermined end? Back on Gus’ rock the bugs had worked as a unit to solve equations . . . and the new hatch in the ship was working as a unit, too, to solve another kind of problem . . . the problem of taking a certain ball to a certain point despite certain variable and random factors in the form of opposing spaceships.
Fans of The Mote in God's Eye will recognize in these intelligent and useful bugs the Watchmaker Moties from the Niven and Pournelle novel of the 1970's.
A hint of motion on the instrument panel caught his eye and he bent close to see what it was. He stiffened. The panel seemed to be alive. Seemed to be crawling.
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