Earth eclipse 2001: a Space Odyssey, dir. Stanley Kubrick (1968) 1
Introduction
There is something quite satisfying to know what an abbreviation stands for. Ever since the EOS project was announced on 22 May 2017 at Consensus in NY, there has been many individuals within the crypto space suggesting backronym's for EOS. The most well known one being 'Ethereum on Steroids' I would like to throw my bowler-hat in the ring and have a guess at the true meaning of EOS but... i will do so with some explanations and reasoning to support my outlandish claim. This post will consist of an introduction some background information, seven observations and then a summary & final thoughts section. Feel free to skip ahead if you so wish.
Facts/coincidences?
My observations are about the similarity between the Monolith in the film '2001: A Space Odyssey' and the EOS logo which in turn have led me to what I believe is the true backronym for EOS. At first I just ignored the happy coincidences as I am a fan of both the film and the EOS project but now I believe there are too many similarities for the connection not to be true so I am writing this post as a kind of sanity check and to share my observations and see what the wider Steem community think?
Disclaimer: there will be spoilers for both Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey film and the 'Space Odyssey' collective works by Arthur C. Clark.
The Monolith
There is a scene early in the film '2001: A Space Odyssey' called ‘The Dawn of Man’ set in prehistoric time. It is here that the first iconic monolith structure is introduced, silently insinuating that its mere foreign presence somehow triggers the intelligence and advancement in the starving Hominid’s mind for the productive use of tools to use as weapons to hunt for food.
'Murder, the hominids turn in 2001: a Space Odyssey, dir. Stanley Kubrick (1968) 2
Evolution of mankind
It is often considered that when analysing human development through the ages, we should first look at the evolution of the organism and then also consider the development of its interaction with the environment.
Evolution of the organism will begin with the evolution of life perceived through the hominid coming to the evolution of mankind, as in Neanderthal, Cro-Magnon and then finally man. This development involves three roads, biological (how the organism changes over successive generations), anthropological (development of cities/infrastructure) and cultural (as in human expression). Now mostly what we've experienced up until the present day is the evolution of populations at a slowly increasing rate.
What the Monolith represents in '2001: A Space Odyssey' is an increase in speed, a kind of short cut in the evolutionary timeline. An Alien artefact that helps humanity develop technologically quicker than it would have done so without interaction with the object. The Monolith is a kind of Pyrokinesis for human development.
The origins of Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey
The origin story of this incredible 1968 film begins over the Christmas period of 1948 when Arthur C. Clark wrote the short Science Fiction story 'The Sentinel' for a BBC competition. The story surprisingly wasn't even placed and Arthur has been famously quoted saying
"I have often wondered what did win?".
Ironically there is now an award in the UK named 'The Arthur C. Clarke Award' which is given for the best sci-fi novel first published in the UK during the previous year.
‘The Sentinel’ is the starting point of The 'Space Odyssey' series and depicts the Monolith that Stanley uses in the film.
Arthur then went on to write the other Odyssey's novels, some of which have been adapted into successful films and screenplays:
- 2001: A Space Odyssey 1968
- 2010: Odyssey Two – 1982
- 2061: Odyssey Three – 1987
- 3001: The Final Odyssey – 1997
Kubrick writes a letter to Clarke
Stanley Kubrick was a real fan of Arthurs work and when he read 'The Sentinel' he thought it had great potential as the basis for a good screenplay adaptation, so on the 31 March 1964, Kubrick wrote a letter to Arthur C. Clarke proposing that the two collaborate on “the proverbial ‘really good’ science fiction film”.
Letter source - openculture.com 4
Their relationship becomes strained
After working together on the project for the next four years and then independently due to Stanly demanding rewrite after rewrite. Stanley then releases the film a few months before the book release 9probably to prevent the book overshadowing his film). Clarke would later compare the differences between the story and the film to those between an acorn and an oak tree.
Now I will share my observations which have led me to believe the EOS logo is a representation of the Monolith in 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Observation one:
Daniel Larimer is a fan of 2001: A Space Odyssey
Dan is currently the CTO of Block.one and although he is not the lead developer for EOS he is certainly the most well known. The EOS Telegram chat was started on the 14 May 2017 by Jonathan Mohan. Dan has been very active on the EOS chat answering questions and queries about the EOS platform design and functionality.
Dan quotes the film on EOS.io/chat
On May 15 a user named 'pairmike' asked Dan what would be the first dapps to be launched on EOS. Due to possibly the need to maintain a time based competitive edge Dan replied with
"I'm sorry Dave, I cannot answer that"
Which is arguably the most famous line from the film 2001: A Space Odyssey.
The official EOS chat room 5
Observation two:
The EOS logo and the Monolith are both Polyhedron's.
In the film '2001: A Space Odyssey' Director Stanley Kubrick changed The monolith so that it's dimensions had a precise ratio of 1 : 4 : 9. But this is not how the original monolith looked. In Clark's 'The Sentinel' story, the monolith is described as being:
A Pyramid like structure with mirrored surfaces, a many faceted jewel.
The shape of a pyramid is a Tetrahedron, which is in the geometry class of Polyhedron, also known as a "triangular pyramid".
The Tetrahedron
The EOS logo is a Chestahedron (as seen below) named after the artist Frank Chester, it is a seven sided diminished trapezohedron , which is also in the geometry class of Polyhedron.
The Chestahedron
Click to view a Chestahedron from all angles
The Polyhedron similarity
The Chestahedron may have been chosen because of its similarities to the Tetrahedral Monolith in the original Space Odyssey 2001 novel ‘The Sentinel’. Being a fan of the film it is likely that Dan Larimer has also read the novel as well as watching the film. Dan himself describes the similarities of both shapes (the Tetrahedron and the Chestahedron) in the video below.
Observation three:
EOS is a reversed Acronym for 'Sentinel of Eternity'
Arthur C. Clark first wrote the short story (just 20 pages) "The Sentinel" in 1948 but it was first published under a different title 'The Sentinel of Eternity' in spring 1951 in the magazine '10 Story Fantasy'.
Sentinel Of Eternity
EOS is just a reversed Acronym for 'Sentinel of Eternity'.
Observation four
Both the Monolith and EOS logo are depicted as having a force field.
In the 'Sentinel of Eternity' the lead character Wilson describes the monolith as having a forcefield because the moon dust and the meteor strikes ended abruptly in a wide circle enclosing where the monolith pyramid was found. Wilson later explains that it took twenty years to crack the invisible shield using the savage might of atomic power.
If you look closely you can also see what looks like a depiction of a forcefield surrounding Block.one's most frequently used EOS logo.
Observation five
Both objects have similar properties in colour, texture & symmetry.
In 'Sentinel of Eternity' Wilson describes the monolith as:
"The glittering mirror surfaces that still dazzled my eyes".
And "A shining pyramid, devoid of all colour, yet it seemed to have an elusive symmetry".
When watching the spinning EOS logo gif it is indeed devoid of all colour and does also have what can be described as an elusive symmetry, at some angles lining up perfectly to depict a new shape.
Observation six
Both can be described as machines.
In 'The Sentinel of Eternity' the narrator Wilson describes the monolith as being not a building but a machine perhaps to the technology of paraphysical forces.
A blockchain can be thought of as a machine . When asked by Jeff Berwick if Ethereum could be upgraded to copy what EOS are currently proposing/doing, Dan Larimer uses a machine simile to explain that the inner Ethereum architecture would need to be changed to run the execution of Dapps in parallel, explaining it would be like trying to change a car engine while the engine is still running. Quote 13:35min of the interview below.
Jeff Berwick - Anarchast Ep.371 - http://anarchast.com
Observation seven
Both have the capacity to change the course of history.
In the Odyssey novels Clarke describes the monolith as being operated by an internal machine and able to grow to any size. In Kubrick's film he suggests that the monoliths presence helps spark a new higher level of consciousness in the Prehistoric Hominids.
The EOS project if successful in delivering the features listed in it's white paper will undoubtably gain favour and high adoption from developers. If it is released and developers can create the Dapps that they are wishing to run on the Ethereum network but are presently unable too due to the limited Transaction speeds then EOS has the potential of wide spread adoption and we could see a very fast increase in Blockchain development and public/commercial use from that point on.
Both if in existence could dramatically change the course of history.
Summary:
- Dan Larimer's a fan of Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey.
- Both the logo and the Monolith are Polyhedron's.
- EOS is a reversed Acronym for 'Sentinel of Eternity' the novel that the Polyhedron shaped Monolith features in.
- Both the Monolith and EOS are depicted as having a force field.
- Both objects have similar properties in colour, texture & symmetry.
- Both can be described as machines.
- Both could dramatically change the course of human history.
Final thoughts
I like the fact that during Ethereum's initial price rally there was a lot of talk on Reddit of the price going "to the moon". This then became a common meme. Perhaps Ethereum actually went to the moon and like the novel 'Sentinel of Eternity' we have now found our own metaphysical monolith in EOS.
Up until now I've not given much thought to the actual size of the EOS logo but in 'Sentinel of Eternity' the monolith is described as being:
"Twice as high as man, a gigantic many-faceted jewel".
What are your thoughts? What do you think EOS stands for? Feel free to comment below. If I am wrong then "sorry i am a stranger here myself" and this blog post can be known as Wilson's Folly from now on.
Some other amusing backronym's suggested on the official EOS.io/chat include:
- Enterprise Operating System - Jonathan Mohan
- End of statism - Jonathan Mohan
- Eye of Sauron - JoeyD
- Everyone's open society - Daniel Larimer
- EOS Operating System - Spike Spiegel
- Everyday Operating System - Ram Vish
- Entry Operating System - Jon-Eric Cook
- Eternal Operating System - pep
- Ethos of Satoshi - Pheonike
- Exactly on schedule - Julien Heller
- Errbody on Steemit - Kevin Wong
- Evolution of society - Tom
- Enemy of the State - Sam Lynx
- Epitomic Operating Structure - Xeidal
- Endless Online Scaling - bbrewer
- Enterprise Operating Spaceship - Jonathan Bahal
- Elves Or Shire - Alonso
- Eco Operating System - Webpasco
- Economics Of Scale - AJ Johnson
- Economics Of Sexy - Fuzzy
- Enhanced Operating System - Mithat Arslan
- Economic Operating System - Cass
- End of Soundgarden - Tuck Fheman
- End of Space - Daniel Larimer
- Everyone's on Something - Tuck Fheman
- Electro-Optical System - Roelandp
- EOS-On-Scale - Anton Bukov
- Enema Obfuscation System - contentjunkie
- Echo of Space - Vovan Drug
- Evolve or Stall - Pheonike
- "I've started so I'll finish...
- Everything on Steroids - Sun Tzu
- End of Secrecy - Sun Tzu
- End of Shitcoin - fav
- Elegance of Solomon - Solomon Adele
- Eggs Over Sunnyside - Jonathan Bahal
- Erotics on Steem - fav
- EOS: Open Society - Rodrigo
- End of Singlecore - Ben Mason
- Some Operating System - Zzzzzz
- EOS Over Software - (Valentin | M)
- Eddie's Ome-made Sausages - Howlin Dawg
- End of Sequence - Rob K
- End of Suffering - J-Rod The Anon
- Enter Our Savior - Spike Spiegel
- Evolution of Satoshi - Daniel Larimer
- Empire Of Sovereignty - hadrian
- Ethereum Oops Scalability - Jaewoo Cho
- Everyone Owes Satoshi - Julien Heller
- Enterprise's Only Solution - Daniel Larimer
- Earths Operating System - jonnybitcoin
- Everyday Operating System - Ram Vish
- Entry Operating System - Jon-Eric Cook
- Eternal Operating System - pep
- Evolving Operating System - Jim
- End of Service - Josh
- Eat Our Shorts - Josh
- Every One Single - Sun Tzu
- Ethereum On Steem - J Alan R
- Element Of Surprise - Ram Vish
- Evolution Of Suspense - Daniel Larimer
- Eggs Of Steel - Fav
- Enlightenment Of Self - CHONG, T.
- Ethereum Overlooked Scalability - Jaewoo Cho
- Equal Opportunities Sucka's!!! - AJ Johnson
- Existence, Ownership & Sovereignty - hadrian
- Everyone's own Sovereignty - Daniel Larimer
- Enter our Synergy - Ben Mason
- Evolve our State - Ben Mason
- Evolution Of Steem - Clement
- Enablement Of Something - hadrian
- end of sale - AA
- Egg Or Sausage - Pheonike
- Emotions of Soul - Alexey Sukhodoev
- Extension of Steemit - Igor William
- End of stupidity - Daniel Larimer
- Emancipating Our Slaves - hadrian
- Epic Operating System - Igor William
- Exchange of shares - Daniel Larimer
- Elements of speculation - Daniel Larimer
- Epic Operating System - Androcottos
- Evolution of Skynet - Ram Vish
- Evolution of Sentience - Ram Vish
- Element of Stupendousness - Ram Vish
- Evolution of Software - Ram Vish
- Era of Supercomputer - Kamil Kozlowski
- Endless Ocean Songs - 1lya P
- Ebay Offers Shoes - 1lya P
- Elite Offshore Services - 1lya P
- Early Onset Singularity - go1dfish
- Economically Organised Society - DestBest
- end of show - Tom Desmet
- Eavesdrop On Santa - Spike Spiegel
- Enormously Orchestrated System - Kamil Kozlowski
- Epicly Organised Society - Samupaha
- Everyone on Spaceship - Sun Tzu
- Evolution of Synchronicity - Ram Fish
- Evolution of Smart - Daniel Larimer
- End of Speculations - Andi Rueckel
- Era of Superman - Ram Vish
- Energy of Speculation - Ram Vish
- End of Street - Daniel Larimer
- End of Scams - Kurt Beil
- Earthlings Overcome Scalingissues - Frank Li
Wilson climbing the plateau in 'Sentinel of Eternity' with the EOS logo added 8
