Michael Wilson                                                  400 words
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Email: wilson@math.uvm.edu.



              THREE THEORIES ABOUT THE MILLENNIUM PROBLEM


By now, most of us have heard of the Millennium Problem, or Y2K: the
programming glitch that will prevent many computers from recognizing
dates after the year 1999. What will happen to the computers, and
to the systems they control, when their calendars click over to "00"?
Will power grids shut down? Phone networks collapse? Businesses fail? 
Even the experts disagree. 

I propose three theories.

I call the first theory, "Aux armes, citoyens!"

The alien invasion of Earth will begin in the early hours of 
January 1, 2000. Three independent lines of reasoning support this
conclusion.

1. All early warnings of the approaching attack fleet will be 
dismissed as "millennium glitches."

2. Even when the danger is recognized (too late!), it will be 
impossible to mount an effective defense, since all of Earth's
weapon systems will be down with the Y2K flu.

3. Who is responsible for the Y2K bug, anyway? Computer programmers
in the 1960's, that's who. Does anybody seriously believe that those
guys were human? They said they were storing dates in two-digit
form to save memory: a likely story!

Theory number two: "Da capo."

At the stroke of midnight (Greenwich Mean Time), on December 31, 1999,
the entire universe will be reset to January 1, 1900. The history of
the Twentieth Century will be erased, to be lived again. Spandex and
sport-utes, along with most of the people who use them, will vanish,
to be replaced by corsets, Stanley Steamers, and horses.

Not every trace of the current Twentieth Century will disappear. Random
artifacts will survive to challenge the ingenuity of late-Victorian man.

Since this is certain to happen, it must have happened before---and before
that---and before that---possibly hundreds of times.

So, the next time you see a compact disk being used as a reflector for
a kerosene lamp, an aquarium made from a thousand-year-old picture tube,
or an armchair's leather upholstery tacked down with transistors, do not
say---do not even think---"Oh, how quaint!"

Theory number three: "Harmonic convergence."

It is most likely that both of the preceding theories have some truth,
and that the aliens, in planting the Millennium Bug, have unwittingly sealed
the doom of their invasion plot. What delicious irony! On that fateful
New Year's Eve, as the Imperial Expeditionary Fleet crosses the orbit
of Mars, a temporal shock wave from Earth will wipe it out of existence,
and hurl the Galactic Empire a century back in time!