Atheologian
John Frum
This is one of my favorite short stories, as I loved the "punchline". The surprise ending, whether you were actually surprised or not, I thought was very inventive and clever. If you've never read the story, I suggest you get the book, Nine Tommorows by Asimov.
If you don't feel like reading it, but still want to know what it's about:
In the story, "The Last Question", Humanity develops a computer, named "Multivac", to answer the question of how to stop entropy, or the heat death of the Universe, and to settle a 5 dollar highball bet. Over the span of the life of the Universe, man repeatedly asks Minivac, who eventually becomes AC, a super computer that exists in "hyperspace", how the net amount of entropy of the Universe can be massively reduced. The answer is always the same: Not enough data. So Minivac/AC keeps gathering data, and man eventually spreads through the universe in the trillions, their numbers growing exponetially, until they become kind of god-like uniform consciousness. They witness the last of the stars dying out and when AC still can't answer, due to a lack of sufficient data, they become one with AC. Then, when space-time unravels and the universe ends, he finally has the answer, but no one is around to hear it, and the universe has ended. He solves this delimma by demonstrating the answer to the question. He creates the universe anew, therefore reversing entropy. He says, "Let there be light", and there was.
There are 8 other great stories in "Nine Tomorrows" as well. Asimov is one of the greatest sci-fi authors of all time, and a great answer, even half a century later, to those horrible "Star Wars" novels that keep turning up.
And before the Star Wars fans go ape$&!# , I am not saying Star Wars is "horrible" or even that Geroge Lucas wrote bad novels, or even that ALL of the authors involved the star wars books are bad writers, but most star wars books should have been a screen play instead, because that's about how they read. Some of them only would have made a decent comic book. A few of them were just garbage. :foot:
If you don't feel like reading it, but still want to know what it's about:
In the story, "The Last Question", Humanity develops a computer, named "Multivac", to answer the question of how to stop entropy, or the heat death of the Universe, and to settle a 5 dollar highball bet. Over the span of the life of the Universe, man repeatedly asks Minivac, who eventually becomes AC, a super computer that exists in "hyperspace", how the net amount of entropy of the Universe can be massively reduced. The answer is always the same: Not enough data. So Minivac/AC keeps gathering data, and man eventually spreads through the universe in the trillions, their numbers growing exponetially, until they become kind of god-like uniform consciousness. They witness the last of the stars dying out and when AC still can't answer, due to a lack of sufficient data, they become one with AC. Then, when space-time unravels and the universe ends, he finally has the answer, but no one is around to hear it, and the universe has ended. He solves this delimma by demonstrating the answer to the question. He creates the universe anew, therefore reversing entropy. He says, "Let there be light", and there was.
There are 8 other great stories in "Nine Tomorrows" as well. Asimov is one of the greatest sci-fi authors of all time, and a great answer, even half a century later, to those horrible "Star Wars" novels that keep turning up.
And before the Star Wars fans go ape$&!# , I am not saying Star Wars is "horrible" or even that Geroge Lucas wrote bad novels, or even that ALL of the authors involved the star wars books are bad writers, but most star wars books should have been a screen play instead, because that's about how they read. Some of them only would have made a decent comic book. A few of them were just garbage. :foot:
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