The pioneering 1968 film, an adaptation of a screenplay by Arthur C Clarke, deals with questions about the evolution of mankind, and the nature of artificial intelligence - epitomised by the supercomputer HAL 9000.

The group of scientists, including representatives from Cardiff University and the University of Glamorgan, alongside contemporaries from Oxford and King's College London, judged that the cult sci-fi film featured the most plausible view of scientific progress.

Artificially intelligent super computers with the power to conspire against people, such as HAL, were considered the science fiction imagining most likely to become a reality.

Mark Brake, professor of Science Communication at the University of Glamorgan, said: "2001 raised science fiction cinema to a new level. The unfolding four-million-year filmic story brilliantly portrays Arthur C Clarke's disturbing man-machine encounter with HAL a computer turned murderer.

"This unsettling scenario is not something we would ever want to imagine happening in reality, but it is not beyond the realms of possibility that artificial intelligence could turn on its creators."