What is the monolith in 2001: A space odyssey?
It’s a device for examining and manipulating minds. Here’s the premise. There was an advanced race moving from start to star 4 million years ago. They were experimenting with evolution – if we put ideas about using tools into the heads of these man-apes now, how long will it take for them to reach the moon? The monolith was placed where the man-apes would find it and it put the idea of tools and weapons into their minds. Then it vanished. Four million years later astronauts find a huge magnetic field around the cater Tycho on the moon – almost like a beacon. They start digging and uncover another monolith – deliberately buried 4 million years earlier. Then the sun rises and shines on the monolith for the first time in 4 million years. It radios its masters and the experiment is complete. The story is about a lot more than just that, of course, but that is the story of the monolith.
