PREDICTIONS – 10 Years Later - Santa Fe Institute

2. NEEDLES IN A HAYSTACK
• • •
It is August 2, 1492, in Palos, Spain. There is feverish activity
in the harbor around the boats that will set sail westward
tomorrow. Christopher Columbus pauses for a minute on the
captain’s deck of the Santa Maria. He leans forward over the
railing, gazing down at the deck below, watching his crew at
work.
He is an old master of the seas. He has no apprehension; he
is eager to set sail. The other side of the ocean draws him like
siren. But he realizes that he is not the first one to be possessed
like this. Many captains have journeyed westward before him,
but none of them came back. How many? he wonders. Over
the centuries, how many ships sailed off and never sent back a
single word, not even a signal?
He is burning with desire to succeed. What are his chances?
If those who perished before him number half a dozen to a
dozen, maybe it was their fault. It is not impossible that ten
captains in a row made bad mistakes, showed poor judgment,
or just had bad luck. But if there were hundreds before him? If
hundreds or thousands of captains before him failed trying to
sail west, why should he succeed?
He raises his glance toward the dark horizon over the
ocean. It couldn’t have been so many. If hundreds of boats like
his had been lost, it would have become a legend. Kings would
have gone bankrupt! Or it must have been a long, long time
ago, so long ago that boats would have been primitive, flimsy,
inefficient. With boats of inferior design, the explorers could
not have survived.
He squares his shoulders, takes a deep breath, looks up at
the sky and re-enters his cabin. There is work to be done. Tomorrow
he is sailing.
• • •
Was Columbus’s reasoning right? Were there only a few attempted expeditions
westward before him? Given that there is no accurate
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