NationStates Jolt Archive


The Last Question

Faxanavia
29-01-2008, 02:42
The Last Question (http://www.multivax.com/last_question.html) is a short story by Isaac Asimov, written in 1956. I've read it twice now, and it still is an incredibly deep and complex story. I cannot recommend it highly enough.
Lunatic Goofballs
29-01-2008, 03:14
The Last Question (http://www.multivax.com/last_question.html) is a short story by Isaac Asimov, written in 1956. I've read it twice now, and it still is an incredibly deep and complex story. I cannot recommend it highly enough.

Isaac Asimov is the closest thing I have to an idol. Him and Andy Kaufman. *nod*
Vetalia
29-01-2008, 03:31
I love this story...it's definitely one of my favorites.
VietnamSounds
29-01-2008, 03:34
Arthur C. Clark is better!
Demented Hamsters
29-01-2008, 03:34
Isaac Asimov is the closest thing I have to an idol. Him and Andy Kaufman. *nod*
Only because you're the illegitimate love-child of Isaac and Andy.
Occultus Terra
29-01-2008, 03:34
I read this story a while ago and it is really amazing. It is short but incredibly deep.
Mirkai
29-01-2008, 03:40
I can't wait for the year 2061, where we will have our miles-long, self-adjusting vacuum-powered computers.
Vetalia
29-01-2008, 03:48
I can't wait for the year 2061, where we will have our miles-long, self-adjusting vacuum-powered computers.

"Where a calculator on the ENIAC is equipped with 18,000 vacuum tubes and weighs 30 tons, computers in the future may have only 1,000 vacuum tubes and perhaps weigh 1 1/2 tons." -Popular Mechanics, March 1949.

What are we up to now? Supercomputers simulating brains and a little over a billion transistors on a single CPU, with four cores per processor...God bless Moore's Law. I'm personally interested in seeing the first commercial quantum computers; if anything could solve the Last Question, it would be one of them.
Intelligenstan
29-01-2008, 03:50
awesome story.
Barringtonia
29-01-2008, 03:56
Stories like this frustrate me with the knowledge that I'm likely to die within the next 80 years.

So many wonderful gadgets to be had in the future.
Lunatic Goofballs
29-01-2008, 04:31
Only because you're the illegitimate love-child of Isaac and Andy.

There are worse things to be. :)
Demented Hamsters
29-01-2008, 05:07
There are worse things to be. :)
true...very true.
You could be the bastard offspring of a Decepticon and Mothra. Of course, then you'd have to change your name to Dick Cheney.
NERVUN
29-01-2008, 05:56
I remember watching a program/drama based on this as a kid at my local planetarium. I never forgot just how cool an idea it was.
Lord Tothe
29-01-2008, 06:25
Good short story by a good author. Another good story (much longer) is Dream Thief by Stephen Lawhead.
Mirkai
29-01-2008, 06:30
So many wonderful gadgets to be had in the future.

They're all going to be geared towards pornography anyway.
Big Jim P
29-01-2008, 06:46
Very good story. I happened to get volume one of Asimovs collected works for xmas this year. w00t!
Vetalia
29-01-2008, 06:53
They're all going to be geared towards pornography anyway.

You make it sound like it's a bad thing.
Posi
29-01-2008, 07:42
Supercomputers simulating brains
not yet
and a little over a billion transistors on a single CPU,
not yet
with four cores per processor
actually more than that is currently available. none are x86 compatible, but they are there.