MovieChat Forums > Colossus: The Forbin Project (1970) Discussion > Colossus and the Crab question

Colossus and the Crab question

posted 18 years ago by sobe33
4 replies | jump to latest

Wondering if anyone could clear up a question i have about the book colossus and the crab(third book in the trilogy). On page 83 of the paperback, the martians tell forbin that "an old earth astronomer truly said 'astronomy can be divided into two halves; half concerns the Crab, the other half deals with the rest of the Universe.' I was wondering if this was an actual quote by someone or if it was only made up by Jones for the story. let me know if you find anything out. thanks

[–] gracegreenberg86 18 years ago

The Martians say "... the human Messier listed it (the crab nebula)first in his star cataloged as M.1." on page 84. D.F. Jones is referring to Charles Messier who rediscovered the Crab Nebula in 1758 and listed it as M1 in his catalog. I can not confirm that the quote attributed to him is genuine.

[–] MuggySphere 15 years ago

How do the martians kill the computer when humans fail?

[–] bigal_a 15 years ago

'Cos they is, kinda, just a little bit, you know, more savvy than us humans, like.

[–] jimmyolsenblues 12 years ago

In book two when colossus is taken over the world. The martians contact forbin and explain to feed him a problem, like a math problem, in the middle of other data,
Colossus will fail because the problem is so complex, that the problem shuts down colossus.