Technologies in 2001: A Space Odyssey well, such as a nervous breakdown—as Hal did in the film. Clarke noted that, contrary to popular rumor, it was a complete coincidence that each of the letters of Hal's name immediately preceded those of IBM in the alphabet. The meaning of HAL has been given both as "Heuristically programmed ALgorithmic computer" and as "Heuristic ALgorithmic computer". The former appears in Clarke's novel of "2001" and the latter in his sequel novel "2010". In computer science, a heuristic is a programmable procedure not necessarily based on fixed rules, producing informed guesses often using trial-and-error. The results can be false such
2001: A Space Odyssey (novel) trying to tell us something?" Clarke himself directly addressed the spelling issue in chapter 19 of "The Lost Worlds of 2001", explaining that he simply (and unconsciously) used the spelling he was familiar with from "The Conquest of Space" (1949) by Willy Ley and Chesley Bonestell, presuming that the "J" form is the German rendering of the Greek. The film "2010" was released in 1984 resulting in movie tie-in editions of both the "2001" and "2010" novels. At the time Signet Books reported that over 2.8 million copies of "2001" were in print and that "2010" was one of 1983's