remarked that "even a sloth could outrun a Europ". This limit on energy efficiency also results in Europs being much smaller than humans. Overall, without the protection of the Monoliths, the Europs could have easily been wiped out by humanity with little effort. One area of pre-sapient activity observed among the Europs by 3001 is that they are fascinated by metal artefacts from crashed human spaceships and probes - as they have no counterpart in their raw state under the oceans. Whenever the Europs find abandoned human machinery (or the crashed ship Tsien) they strip all the metal from them, and pile it in heaps, frequently rearranging the pieces. Frank Poole speculatively compares this to the "Cargo cult" phenomenon on Earth in the twentieth century, and cites it as a spark of curiosity that shows advancement from pure animal instinct. At the end of the final novel, when Frank Poole approaches the Europs for first contact, he carries a large shiny copper wire as a peace offering to them. Design The first design for the Monolith for the 2001 film was a tetrahedral pyramid. This was taken from the 1951 short story "The Sentinel" that the first story was based on. A London firm was approached to provide a plexiglass pyramid, and due to construction constraints they recommended a flat slab shape. Kubrick approved, but was disappointed with the glassy appearance of the prop on set, leading art director Anthony Masters to suggest making the monolith black. The rejected acrylic monolith can be seen in St Katherine Dock, London, where it was hung in 1977 to commemorate the Queen's silver jubilee. Replicas Replicas have been displayed in some places as a tribute to the movie. During the Dutch hacker conference HAL (2001), a replica of the monolith was erected. In 2016, a replica appeared at NASA Ames Research Center. In June 2020, a 4.5 meters tall wood-made replica was found in the main courtyard of ENS. See also References Space Odyssey Fictional technology Evolution in popular culture