Similar to many psychohistorians (and economists who are the predecessors, albeit extremely primitive), Hari Seldon was also a mathematician by training, and psychohistory was originally just a side gig. Born in a tabacco farming family on Helicon, Hari Seldon's mathematical genius was obvious from very early age. He quickly became an assistant professor of mathematics at Helicon University, and at the age of 23, he presented the paper that formed the basis of psychohistory (12011) at a convention on Trantor. Later, he became a mathematics professor at Streeling University on Trantor, where he singlehandedly completed the whole structure of psychohistory (12035) while working on its real world applications.
The decipline of psychohistory deals with the probablistic description of history through the formal mathematical modeling of the human mind. The formalization of the Seldon Function is usually considered to have completed the whole system. Prior efforts have remained at the micro level, where the inherent noise prevented any significant breakthroughs. The main theoretical contribution of Seldon was his focus on society at the macro level. The determination of the group size that lends itself to such analysis was formalized by Seldon's First Theorem, which led to the explosive development of the field. Some criticize this achievement as a simple restatement of the law of large numbers and renormalization theory (to which Seldon himself replied "Niej dibgrostnech! I regbonisht!" (But of course! I read them!)). Also, some die-hard proponents of the ancient non-theory of chaos and complexity, claim that the complex interaction of agents within the society makes it inherently impossible to predict. These sects point to the unpredected factor "Mule" as the proof. Empirical data, however, does not seem to support such views, and whether the Mule is an emergent event is still being debated.
The greatest achievement of psychohistory was made almost at its birth. Hari Seldon, using his psychohistoric model, predicted the collapse of the Galactic Empire through implosion caused by its sheer social weight, which would lead to the dark ages that would extend 30 thousand years. This dismal prophesy earned Seldon his nickname of "Raven." To counter this historic tragedy, seldon proposed a plan (the Seldon Plan) to limit the dark ages to a mere 1,000 years. As anyone knows, this was the plan to establish a Foundation of 20,000 scientists, who will compile the whole of human knowledge into a Galactic Encyclopedia, that should be distributed to libraries around the galaxy to preserve the human intelectual asset. The accuracy of his predictions are well proven by the events since then, and the current Foundation owes its prosperity to Seldon's predictions. His influence also seems to transcend time, and it has been confirmed that a 20 Century Earth economist Paulo Kuguman has been influenced by Seldon. Some historicians even maintain that Isak Azimonov of the same period has produced some prophecies that names Hari Seldon as the founder of psychohistory, although of course, no such records exist.
After completing psychohistory as it is, Hari Seldon more or less limited himself to political activities that ensured the establishment of the Foundation. Since then, the discipline of psychohistory has moved to a stage of constant numeric demonstrations and calibrations. The theory itself maintains the level of Seldon's achievement, even 3 centuries after his death. Occasionally, dissidents refer to this condition as stagnation, which is an unbelievable display of ignorance concerning the theoretical perfection of Seldon. It is considered to be an attempt of mind pollution against the Foundation, which requires treatment. An extreme heretic cult even asserts that the reason for the downfall of the Empire was the drainage of intelectual resources due to the top level scientist manpower required by the Foundation's compilation effort of the Encyclopedia. According to this rediculous "theory," none other than Hari Seldon himself and his Grand Plan ("The Seldon Plan") practically caused the demise of the Empire! These heretics were also brought into custody for proper treatment. The source of such high level mind pollution is now under investigation. It is considered that these heretics are related to some of the rebel movements within the Foundation, who are not content with the survey and collection of past knowledge and plans to defect from the Foundation, in order to create new knowledge that may contradict or point out the "limits" of the Great Seldon Theories. Since the absolute indisputability of the Seldon Theories is the primary principle of the Foundation, the foundation of the Foundation ("meta-foundation"), these anti-Seldonistic thoughts themselves are subject to Class 1 treatment.
Another rumor that has been in circulation for a long time asserts that Seldon has secretly created the Second Foundation in order to prepare for the demise of the current Foundation, despite the fact that no evidence has been found to support it. Most consider this to be a hoax. Also, it seems that there has been another group who goes by the name of pshchohistory on 20 Century Earth. However, remaining record suggests little (if any) relevance to the Great Hari Seldon theories. Therefore, to assert any precedence there would be an act of highly treatable blasphemy. That Seldon has single handedly created the entire field of psychohistory is a Foundational truth that will not be allowed to be questioned.
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