Lifestyle

 

Monolith, a word which you might have come across in recent times. You might be wondering what the thing actually is? Why is everyone talking about it? Why are some people so excited about listening to this name? Should we fear?

 

In this article, we’ll come across all these questions and will try to look at some facts which you might know about it.

 

But first, let us look at some history of the monolith, or from where this term arose.

 

Space Odyssey

 

The literature meaning of monolith is ‘a large single upright block of stone, especially one shaped into or serving as a pillar or monument.’.

 

But in 1968, Arthur C. Clarke published a novel ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ where he described monoliths as ‘Machines that are built by an unseen extraterrestrial species.

In the series of these novels, there were a total of 3 monoliths that were discovered across the solar system. 

 

Origin

 

The species that built the monolith were never under much light. But monoliths were immediately identified as ‘artifacts of non-human origin’ due to many reasons.

 

In the novel, the species developed intergalactic travel millions or billions of years ago and explored the universe in search of knowledge from intelligent species. In the novels, they were referred to as ‘Firstborns’.

 

When they discover such planets they send their monoliths which observes them remotely, and they were able to do many tasks for their creators, like encouraging the species into further development, technology, and space travel(probably they want the species to become type 1 or type 2 civilization so that they can exploit them for more). The monoliths were even able to transfer their consciousness into the computers, creating complex Artificial Intelligence(or machines that can literally think).

 

Work of monoliths

 

In the novels, the monoliths were referred to as TMA(Tacho-Magnetic Anomalies), they named as TMA-1, TMA-2, and TMA-0.

 

They were named so because they radiated strong magnetic fields(however TMA-2 was nonmagnetic).

 

The TMA-1(vastly dealt with in the novel because of the fact that it was present on Earth, while TMA-2 was present on the moon of Jupiter), was buried about 15m below the surface. Suddenly in the morning, it radiated strong radio waves to Jupiter(probably to communicate with its ‘Big Brother’ on the moon)

 

In the novels, the monoliths examine the species and can even destroy the species on the command of their “Superior”(a monolith present in the distant star system).

 

Since the signals that monoliths used for communication is also limited by the speed of light, so it took around 450 yrs to reach the “Superior” and another 450yrs to come back(the story which was seen in 3001: Space Odyssey)

 

So, since you know some history of monoliths, we can now discuss the current scenario.