4 ms·

Isaac Asimov himself imagined a world wide library that anyone could access remotely, though I can't recall when he wrote about it.

loa_in_ 3y ago
Wasn't it Stanisław Lem with his Summa Technologiae?
- bregma 3y ago
  Wasn't it Terry Pratchett with his L-space?
  - rsynnott 3y ago
    That’s a bit of a cheat; I think it showed up first in Guards! Guards!. That was written in 1989, at which point in _reasonably_ sure Pratchett was already using usenet.
peoplefromibiza 3y ago
wasn't it the Imperial Library of Trantor in Foundation?
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
ghaff 3y ago
A number of authors have run with the idea but Asimov was probably the first. [1] One interesting aspect to this sort of thing historically is that it's (almost?) always portrayed as an authoritative work created by experts because that's pretty much what encyclopedias were. I'm not sure there are any examples that look like Wikipedia in fiction. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encyclopedia_Galactica https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encyclopedia_Galactica
- tokai 3y ago
  Nah Paul Otlet was the first.
zabzonk 3y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Library_of_Babel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Library_of_Babel - this one is nearly, but not quite infinite and doesn't have an ip address.
- detourdog 3y ago
  Reading about this re-enforces the idea to me that our technical desires transcends time. There are also universal forms and structure that act as solutions to problems that transcends the technical implementation. The description of the rooms in the library as well as the uniform approach to typesetting is very modernist idea. Found this website in the wikipedia page. Someone recreated the physically described structure as a website. https://libraryofbabel.info/browse.cgi https://libraryofbabel.info/browse.cgi
  - ahazred8ta 3y ago
    Kurd Lasswitz wrote "The Universal Library" in 1901; its 'all possible sequences of letters' was the same as Borges' library of babel. There was an ancient greek thought experiment where alphabet tiles shuffled repeatedly would eventually display all possible sentances.

loa_in_ 3y ago

Wasn't it Stanisław Lem with his Summa Technologiae?

bregma 3y ago
Wasn't it Terry Pratchett with his L-space?
- rsynnott 3y ago
  That’s a bit of a cheat; I think it showed up first in Guards! Guards!. That was written in 1989, at which point in _reasonably_ sure Pratchett was already using usenet.

peoplefromibiza 3y ago

wasn't it the Imperial Library of Trantor in Foundation?

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

ghaff 3y ago

A number of authors have run with the idea but Asimov was probably the first. [1] One interesting aspect to this sort of thing historically is that it's (almost?) always portrayed as an authoritative work created by experts because that's pretty much what encyclopedias were. I'm not sure there are any examples that look like Wikipedia in fiction. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encyclopedia_Galactica https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encyclopedia_Galactica

tokai 3y ago
Nah Paul Otlet was the first.

zabzonk 3y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Library_of_Babel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Library_of_Babel - this one is nearly, but not quite infinite and doesn't have an ip address.

detourdog 3y ago
Reading about this re-enforces the idea to me that our technical desires transcends time. There are also universal forms and structure that act as solutions to problems that transcends the technical implementation. The description of the rooms in the library as well as the uniform approach to typesetting is very modernist idea. Found this website in the wikipedia page. Someone recreated the physically described structure as a website. https://libraryofbabel.info/browse.cgi https://libraryofbabel.info/browse.cgi
- ahazred8ta 3y ago
  Kurd Lasswitz wrote "The Universal Library" in 1901; its 'all possible sequences of letters' was the same as Borges' library of babel. There was an ancient greek thought experiment where alphabet tiles shuffled repeatedly would eventually display all possible sentances.