Psychohistory Foundation Psychohistory is the structure on which the Isaac Asimov Foundation is based. It features several episodes about a variety of characters over a period of 400 years, and those episodes feature a number of strong-minded individuals seeking solutions to a series of problems as they arise (Gunn 42). In the novel, these problems were all preordained long ago by Hari Seldon's science of psychohistory. Psychohistory is defined by Asimov as a "'deep statistical science' concerned with the reactions of human conglomerates to fixed social and economic stimuli" (Touponce 76). In short, this science predicts the future by treating humanity as a huge series of mathematical equations. However, the only drawback of psychohistory is that this science does not take individual and random variables into account. Hari Seldon uses the science of psychohistory to predict the fall of the massive Galactic Empire. Using complex mathematical equations, Seldon is able to mathematically prove that the fall of the Galactic Empire is imminent. Furthermore, psychohistory also adds a sense of determination and predestination to Foundation. The main characters in each book of the novel are aware that when a Seldon crisis occurs, they will manage to make the correct decisions that will lead to the inevitable turnout of the crisis. Seldon's prophecies "are revealed only after the fact, and even solutions that he or others say are obvious are only so in retrospect, as in all good stories" (Gunn 41). This is first shown in "The Psychohistorians" when Salvor Hardin decides to take over management of the Foundation. This decision is logical in retrospect, but causes Hardin much angst about the likely outcomes of his actions before carrying them out. The dilemma experienced by Asimov's characters is how to achieve the predetermined outcome engineered by Seldon. The hero of the first Foundation, Salvor Hardin, decides to wait for the crisis to limit his choices to a single course of action. He argues:...the future is not nebulous. It was calculated by Seldon and plotted. Each successive crisis in our history is charted and each depends to some extent on the successful conclusion of the preceding ones... With each crisis our freedom of action would be limited to the point where only one course of action would be possible... As long as it is more than one course of action possible, the crisis has not been reached.