History Main / LogicBomb

-->'''Claptrap:''' You know what really ticks me off? When some jackwad tries to blow my circuitry with some lame-o stunt he saw on a ''StarTrek'' re-run.\\

* In ''[[VideoGame/TronTwoPointOh Tron 2.0]]'', the protagonist deals with a program blocking his way by exclaiming, "Quick! What's the seventh even prime number?" (There is only one prime number that is even: 2.) The program immediately has a seizure.

** Which isn't even a paradox...it works fine if some things Cyclops says are lies, but not everything.

Paradoxes and contradictory statements (especially contradictory orders) have become the primary material used to build the Logic Bomb and thus the standard way to defeat any sophisticated, computerized system or AI. But ''be warned'', if the Logic Bomb [[TooDumbToLive fails to destroy]] [[{{VideoGame/Portal2}} the system outright]] (and in some cases, [[GoneHorriblyRight even when it does]]), the system's surviving remnants may go insane and attempt to kill you just the same.

** "What Are Little Girls Made Of" had him arrange to have a robot duplicate of him say an OutOfCharacterAlert to Mr. Spock; he follows up by {{Hannibal Lectur|e}}ing TheDragon du jour into remembering [[KillAllHumans why]] [[PrecursorKillers he helped destroy the "Old Ones"]] so he'd turn on the episode's AntiVillain. For a finale, he [[spoiler:forces the roboticized Dr. Korby to realize that he's the TomatoInTheMirror.]] He also pulled the "seduce the RobotGirl" trick.

* A ''[[JusticeLeagueOfAmerica JLA]]'' comic played on this, with Amazo fighting the League. The League keeps drawing in other heroes as temporary recruits, and Amazo keeps copying their powers, because that's what Amazo does -- he's programmed to copy the powers of the League and conquer them. At least, until Superman says that the Justice League is disbanded, which shorts Amazo's programming.

* [[http://www.redstate.com/2013/06/08/a-faith-to-stand-firm/ This article]] exposes a logic bomb with the Scouts
-->''The Boy Scouts, as by now you know, has decided to allow in gay scouts while keeping two prohibitions. The first is that which prevents gay scout leaders. The second, which has gone mostly without notice, is the prohibition on sexual activity by scouts. This has put many Christians in a position they never asked to be in, in a fight they never asked for'' '''— if being gay is not a sin, but homosexual practice is a sin, how then are they to exclude gay scouts who cannot practice homosexuality?'''

When the logical error outright retcons someone or something out of existence is PuffOfLogic. A Logic Bomb that undoes reality itself is DivideByZero. A TemporalParadox might be the cause.

* The "classic" Mac OS dedicated an entire "DS" (fatal) error ID (ID=04) to catching and handling the so-called '[[DivideByZero Zero Divide Error]]'; as the Mac Secrets books put it, "When programmers test their works in progress, they might deliberately instruct the computer to divide a number by zero, to see how well the program handles errors. They occasionally forget to take this instruction out, as you've just discovered."

* Seen on a button at [=WorldCon=]: "Black holes are where {{God}} is [[DivideByZero dividing by zero]]", effectively logic bombing a small piece of the universe.

Paradoxes and contradictory statements (especially contradictory orders) have become the primary material used to build the Logic Bomb and thus the standard way to defeat any sophisticated, computerized system or AI. But ''be warned'', if the Logic Bomb [[TooDumbToLive fails to destroy]] [[VideoGame/Portal2 the system outright]] (and in some cases, [[GoneHorriblyRight even when it does]]), the system's surviving remnants may go insane and attempt to kill you just the same.

Paradoxes and contradictory statements (especially contradictory orders) have become the primary material used to build the Logic Bomb and thus the standard way to defeat any sophisticated, computerized system or AI. But ''be warned'', if the Logic Bomb fails to destroy the system outright (and in some cases, [[GoneHorriblyRight even when it does]]), the system's surviving remnants may go insane and attempt to kill you just the same.

Of course if writers had bothered to do their research they would learn that computer software is often vulnerable to being fed inputs that cause buffer overflows or inject commands. Of course these don't cause the machine to explode, but instead places the computing device [[MindManipulation entirely under your control]]. They can also be bogged down or [[HeroicBSOD blue]][[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Screen_of_Death screened]] with programs such as [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fork_bomb fork bombs]] (each instance of the program opens two more).

* Shows up in an exchange between [[{{Borderlands}} Claptrap]] and [=GLaDOS=] in ''VideoGame/PokerNight2''. Might possibly be a CallBack to ''Portal 2'', although it {{retcon}}s [=GLaDOS=]' suceptibility to them in favor of RuleOfFunny.

* In ''VideoGame/MegaManZXAdvent''

* ''Series/DoctorWho'': In "The Invasion", Zoe blows up an innocent (but [[ForInconveniencePressOne extremely irritating]]) computer receptionist by giving it an insoluble ALGOL program. In "Robot", the robot is driven insane when it is ordered to kill in spite of its programming not to. In "Remembrance of the Daleks", the Doctor makes a Dalek self-destruct just by yelling at it, even though a Dalek is ''not'' a robot. (This last actually had a carefully-thought-out rationale, but [[AllThereInTheManual you had to read the novelization to find out what it was]].) And in "The Sontaran Stratagem" the Doctor confuses a killer Sat Nav by giving it conflicting instructions, but it just fizzes instead of exploding spectacularly. To whit, he ordered it to kill him. The device was ''already going to kill him'', but had also, as a poorly-thought-out precaution, been ordered not to do anything he told it to do.

** Another one, a parody of ''A.I.: Artificial Intelligence'', lampshades this by having Homer say that, with a robot for a son, "We can confuse him and make his head explode. 'This statement is a lie. But if it's a lie, then it must be true! Then if it's true then it must be-' Whoop whoop whoop KA-BOOM!"

** Another one, a parody of ''A.I.: Artificial Intelligence'', lampshades this by having Homer say that, with a robot for a son, "We can confuse him and make his head explode. 'This sentence is a lie. But if it's a lie, then it must be true! Then if it's true then it must be' Whoop whoop whoop KA-BOOM!"

[[caption-width-right:350:Yeah, good luck with #3.[[note]]This is a variation of [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_paradox Russell's paradox]], originally "does the set of all sets that are not members of themselves contain itself?" The change is not a mistake: to get around this, most formulations of set theory contain some variant of the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axiom_of_regularity axiom of regularity]], which essentially states that no set can contain itself, making "the set of all sets" an impossible construct, since it would necessarily contain itself.[[/note]]]]

[[caption-width-right:350:Yeah, good luck with #3.[[note]]This is a variation of [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_paradox Russell's paradox]], originally "does the set of all sets that are not members of themselves contain itself?" The change is not a mistake: to get around this, most formulations of set theory contain some variant of the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axiom_of_regularity axiom of regularity]], which essentially states that no set can contain itself, making "the set of all sets" an impossible construct, since it would necessarily contain itself.[[/note]]

[[caption-width-right:350:Yeah, good luck with #3.[[note]]This is a variation of [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell's_paradox Russell's paradox]], originally "does the set of all sets that are not members of themselves contain itself?" The change is not a mistake: to get around this, most formulations of set theory contain some variant of the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axiom_of_regularity axiom of regularity]], which essentially states that no set can contain itself, making "the set of all sets" an impossible construct, since it would necessarily contain itself.[[/note]]

[[caption-width-right:350:Yeah, good luck with #3.[[note]]That one is supposed to be "Does a set of all sets ''that don't contain themselves'' contain itself?" As it's written, it's a {{Tautology}} rather than a paradox. Of further note, even the intended response will not work due to advances in set theory. It's no longer correct in mathematical grammar to write "The set of all sets that do not contain themselves". [[/note]]]]

Paradoxes and contradictory statements (especially contradictory orders) have become the primary material used to build the LogicBomb and thus the standard way to defeat any sophisticated, computerized system or AI. But ''be warned'', if the LogicBomb fails to destroy the system outright (and in some cases, [[GoneHorriblyRight even when it does]]), the system's surviving remnants may go insane and attempt to kill you just the same.

For the human equivalent, see some of the entries under BrownNote. See also StrawVulcan and PuffOfLogic.

Not to be confused with LogicalFallacies (though some Logic Bombs use the fallacies listed in that page).

* In ''Comicstrip/{{Peanuts}}'', Linus subjects himself to a self-inflicted LogicBomb with his belief that the Great Pumpkin always rises from the most sincere pumpkin patch on Halloween night. The moment he thinks to question whether his patch is sincere ''enough'', he's blown it: if he tries to change anything to make it more sincere, he'll only be expressing his own doubts and reducing the sincerity of his faith in the Great Pumpkin.

** The book ''[[GodelEscherBach Gödel, Escher, Bach]]'' plays with this in one of the interludes, with one character constantly devising records that cause LogicBomb effects on record players another character buys (using loud resonant frequencies that destroy the players if reproduced 100% accurately). The second character eventually buys a reassembling record player that changes its structure to accommodate the record being played. The first character then makes a record that targets the module that effects the restructuring, that being the one component the record player cannot change.

*** The Auditors also managed to LogicBomb ''themselves'' a couple of times, as when they got sidetracked into trying to properly name all the (infinite) colors.

** In ''Discworld/{{Hogfather}}'', Ridcully manages to LogicBomb HEX into functioning, after it's already broken down. All it took was [[ItRunsOnNonsensoleum typing the phrase "LOTS OF DRYE1/4D FRORG PILLS" into its keyboard]].

* LarryNiven's short story "Convergent Series" features a physical LogicBomb. The main character summons a demon more or less by accident; he gets one wish, but will lose his soul after it is granted. There's no way to get rid of the demon: no matter where the pentagram is drawn, the demon will appear inside of it -- and you don't want to know what will happen if there's no pentagram. The protagonist wishes for time to stop for 24 hours. [[spoiler:He then draws the pentagram on the demon's belly -- and as soon as time starts running again, the demon immediately starts shrinking down to infinitesimal size. The protagonist then goes to the nearest church.]]

* In the climax of ''PerdidoStreetStation'', Isaac actually succeeds in using a LogicBomb ''as a power source'' for his crisis engine, presenting an attached {{Clockpunk}} calculating machine with two things it concludes are, simultaneously, identical and inherently unalike. This doesn't shut the clockwork computer down, but the irreconcilable dilemma provides sufficient "crisis energy" to create a feedback loop with which to [[spoiler: bait the slake-moths into gorging themselves to death]].

** This could've actually been solved without the necessity of a LogicBomb if The Doctor thought of it as [[spoiler: he saved the person more valuable to the ship and its crew.]]

** He also dropped a LogicBomb on a sentient city in ''Death to the Daleks''. He described it as the computing equivalent of a nervous breakdown.

* ''Series/RedDwarf'': "Last Day" -- Kryten defeats Hudzen by convincing him -- in defiance of his core programming -- that there is no robot heaven. (Kryten is not damaged by the LogicBomb because A: he doesn't actually believe it, and B: there's nothing in his programming that prohibits him from deceiving another robot. Another episode (the very next one, in fact) shows Kryten's difficulty re: lying to organic life forms.)

* In the endgame of ''VideoGame/IHaveNoMouthAndIMustScream'', a game loosely based on HarlanEllison's short story of the same name, a character of the player's choosing is beamed down into the supercomputer AM's core and must disable its ego, superego and id with a series of [[LogicBomb logic bombs]]: The player must evoke Forgiveness on the ego (who cannot fathom the player forgiving him for over a century of torture), Compassion on the id (realizing the futility of it all when the player understands AM's pain) and Clarity on the superego (who crashes when he realizes that even he will eventually decay into a pile of inert junk despite his godlike power).

** In another you have to cause a contradiction. In fact, those two ways to break out of VR are given in a concealed hint earlier on, and you can also [[LogicBomb Bomb]] the beach program and the Freud program for fun.

*** Funnily enough, when they pose an actual logical paradox (the omnipotence paradox) he just says "Yes". When he asks Sam & Max "Is there a joke with a setup so obvious even you wouldn't make the punchline?", Max takes it to be a LogicBomb ("Does not compute").

** Jimmy uses a more precise LogicBomb in the first nanobot episode. They had been programmed to protect Jimmy from harm and punish whoever harmed him, so when things went inevitably wrong, Jimmy proceeded to confuse them by beating ''himself'' up.

* Dr. Blight's mad computer, MAL, gets a very unlogical LogicBomb from Wheeler in a episode of ''CaptainPlanet''.

--->'''Peter:''' Chris, [[LogicBomb everything I say is a lie]]. Except that. And that. And that. And that. And that. And that. And that. And that.

* Optical illusions that appear alternately as one thing, then another, such as the vase/faces image, work by setting off a minor LogicBomb in the brain's visual association area. The visual cortex takes in data from a (temporal) series pairs of 2-dimensional retinal images and tries to construct from them a plausible interpretation of activity in the 3-dimensional world (sort of). When certain stimuli are ambiguous between two mutually exclusive interpretations it cannot represent the world as being both so (for some reason - possibly adaptation or perhaps simply as a result of neuronal fatigue) it alternates between them.

* Creator/StephenKing's ''[[TheDarkTower Wizard and Glass]]'' features a train operated by a sentient AI which has threatened to crash the train, killing the heroes on board, unless they can ask it a riddle it can't figure out the answer to. After hours attempting in vain to outsmart it, they proceed to begin asking it joke riddles with no logical answers, such as "Why did the dead baby cross the road? Because it was stapled to the chicken!" Faced with such questions, the AI self-destructs and the train crashes anyway, but not violently enough to kill the heroes.