See: Clarke's three laws.

Clarke's three laws, including Clarke's fourth law: "For every expert there is an equal and opposite expert."

The same work also contained "Clarke's First Law" and text that became Clarke's three laws in later editions.

The series is set several thousand years in the future, in a society with advanced nanotechnology, teleportation, and other technologies which effectively are Magic (paranormal) in the sense of Clarke's three laws made real, all controlled and coordinated by an Artificial Intelligence called 'Mother'.