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The Last Question (1956)
- joejerryronnie 8y agoMy favorite short story, I re-read probably once a year when I stumble across a random reference to it.
- hprotagonist 8y ago“For a Breath I Tarry” is also wonderful. http://www.kulichki.com/moshkow/ZELQZNY/forbreat.txt http://www.kulichki.com/moshkow/ZELQZNY/forbreat.txt
- overlordalex 8y agoThat was a wonderful story but has a somehow unsatisfactory conclusion to the question. Spoilers below SPOILER The story appears to assert that to be human you need to have the imperfect faculties of a human body, but I would say that Frost started becoming human upon his creation which gave him curiosity
- hprotagonist 8y agoI don't think that's the human criterion. The criterion mordel asserts is, more or less, qualia.
- sunw 8y agoIncredible; thanks for sharing. I found a version that's easier to read: http://afrodita.rcub.bg.ac.rs/~alexp/books/forbreat.html http://afrodita.rcub.bg.ac.rs/~alexp/books/forbreat.html
- jdmoreira 8y agoI read this when I was a pre-teen because my grandmother's brother gave me a compilation of asimov stories named '9 Tomorrows' and this story is one of them. The whole book really blew my mind! I always wanted a laptop sticker saying 'My other computer is the multivac'
- tauwauwau 8y agoManga adaption https://mangadex.org/chapter/39016/1 https://mangadex.org/chapter/39016/1
- btschaegg 8y agoOoh, I didn't know that yet. Thank you very much for the link! I really like how it's built around the scrolling one has to do in order to read it.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- daverdo 8y agoI can't explain it exactly, but somehow being written over 60+ years ago adds this other layer where you have this funny feeling of looking into the past to see the future.
- krispbyte 8y agoThere's also another short story by Asimov called The Last Answer https://www.thrivenotes.com/the-last-answer/ https://www.thrivenotes.com/the-last-answer/
- not2b 8y agoThe story was written after the invention of the transistor, but it seems Asimov hadn't heard of them or didn't grasp the implications, and assumed that computers would be based on tubes (or valves, the word used in the story) for billions of years into the future (but eventually they would be "molecular valves" and a powerful computer could be only half the size of a spaceship).
- rohit2412 8y agoWell, aren't transistors vavles for electric flow, that is valves for electrons
- pupppet 8y agoThis is one of those stories I randomly think about a few times a year.
- winchling 8y agoAudio version I: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojEq-tTjcc0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojEq-tTjcc0 (with British accents for Jerrodd, Jerrodine & the Jerrodettes) Audio version II: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8XOtx4sa9k4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8XOtx4sa9k4 (read by Leonard Nimoy for added gravitas)
- lostmsu 8y agoA song on the subject: 1. Russian: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMJNta-okRw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMJNta-okRw 2. French: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DynLBcmOTGs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DynLBcmOTGs Nerdiness warning.
- SomeHacker44 8y agoLong my favorite short story of all time. Greg Egan has some great short stories too.
- jagger11 8y agoOh man, Asimov was so bad with futuristic ideas. If you'd like to read good thoughts about future, go for Stanislaw Lem (Summa Technologiae, Golem XIV)
- JohnJamesRambo 8y agoWhat was bad about them?