Mirror Image (Isaac Asimov)
Mirror Image (Original title: Mirror Image ) is an approximately 19-page science fiction - short story by Isaac Asimov in 1972, in which it comes to the resolution of the conflict between two mathematicians. Both claim that they are the originator of a new, revolutionary idea, but that the other is a liar and plagiarist. Even their two robot assistants confirm the contradicting statements of the two scientists. The detective Elijah Baley is contacted by his former robot assistant R. Daneel Olivaw in order to subtly resolve this conflict and avoid a scandal.
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Detective Elijah Baley is contacted by his former robot assistant R. Daneel Olivaw to solve a problem on the Eta Carina spaceship , which is taking two mathematicians to a neurobiophysics conference on the planet Aurora. Both the more than 270 year old Dr. Alfred Barr Humboldt and the 50-year-old Dr. Gennao Sabbat claim to have had a revolutionary idea at the beginning of the trip, "a possible method to analyze neural pathways through changes in microwave absorption patterns of local cortical regions." Both claim to have submitted their idea to the other for consideration, and both then wrote an abstract about the method to present at the upcoming conference. Both describe themselves as the originator and the other as a plagiarist.
Both scientists refuse to speak to Baley, and since he is not a “robo-psychologist,” he is allowed to speak to their robot assistants, but has no way of probing them. Baley suspects that both robot assistants interpret the three robot laws in such a way that they want to protect their masters, Humboldt and Sabbat, from “damage to scientific recognition”, and that is why one of them is lying. In conversation with R. Idda, Dr. Sabbath, Baley brings him through logical conflicts - the damage to the famous Dr. Humboldt is to be rated higher than that for Dr. Sabbath - to admit that Dr. Sabbath is not the author of the method. In the corresponding mirror-inverted questioning to R. Preston, the assistant of Dr. Humboldt, the latter is blocked during the last question and remains in stasis. But Baley has already solved the case by weighing the two mathematicians' situation against the following two questions:
- Who usually has revolutionary new ideas? A young scientist or one at the end of his career?
- Who is more likely to feel the need to discuss their new idea with a colleague? A still young, little famous scientist with an experienced colleague or an already very experienced scientist with his young colleague?
With Baley's conclusion that Dr. Humboldt is the plagiarist, R. Daneel Olivaw makes his way back to find Dr. To get Humboldt to rethink.
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The detective Elijah Baley and his robot assistant R. Daneel Olivaw are also the protagonists in Asimov's novels The Caves of Steel and The Naked Sun . Asimov has been asked by fans to write a third Baley / Olivaw novel. This short story with both of them was Asimov's compromise.
The three laws of robotics invented by Asimov also play a role in this short story.
Web links
reference
- English: Mirror Image , in The Best of Isaac Asimov, 1954–1972 , Sphere Science Fiction, London (1977), Ed. Angus Wells
- English: Spiegelbild , in Isaac Asimov: When the Stars Go Out (Terra Paperback), Pabel (1975)
Evidence and explanations
- ↑ In the original: "a possible method for analyzing neural pathways from changes in microwave absorption patterns of local cortical areas."