Monday, September 05, 2011

Eliminating and Establishing Possibilities

Fastolfe's homely face was set in grim lines when Baley returned.

"Any progress?" he asked.

"I eliminated part of a possibility. --Perhaps."

"Part of a possibility? How do you eliminate the other part? Better yet, how do you establish a possibility."

Baley said, "By finding it impossible to eliminate a possibility, a beginning is made at establishing one."

Isaac Asimov, The Robots of Dawn, Bantam (NY:1994) p. 198.

The Robots of Dawn, of course, is one of Asimov's science fiction mysteries. Asimov is underappreciated as a mystery writer.