5 ms·

The Last Question -- Isaac Asimov

74 points by mariorz 17y ago

RiderOfGiraffes 17y ago
Is there anyone here who hasn't read this? Mind you, it's a fun two minute read to remind me of Asimov. Occasionally brilliant ideas, generally awful writing. Sadly missed genius.
- metatronscube 17y ago
  Yeah I have not read this before. I wish there were a few more brilliant writers like this. I really enjoy his work.
  - swombat 17y ago
    Then you'll be glad to know that he's written an astounding number of short stories - you have good times ahead finding them all :-)
    - metatronscube 17y ago
      Yeah the only books of his I have read are the Foundation series...kept meaning to dig more into his works. I think I will now :)
      - theblackbox 17y ago
        Really love the short story where he takes you through the first ever trillionth frame per second imaging of an atomic explosion! The one where the historian builds a "past window" device and releases the specification on the internet really makes me think, too....
        pavel_lishin 17y ago
        Do you remember what those are called? I don't remember reading either book, and I've read quite a lot of his writings.
        RiderOfGiraffes 17y ago
        "Hell-Fire" and "The Dead Past"
- michael_dorfman 17y ago
  I concur with all of your particulars (everyone has read this, fun two minute read, occasionally brilliant ideas, generally awful writing, sadly missed) and was completely in agreement up until your very last word. If Isaac Asimov's a genius, what was Isaac Newton? "...all little sisters like to try on big sister's clothes..."
  - deleted 17y ago
    [deleted]
  - RiderOfGiraffes 17y ago
    > If Isaac Asimov's a genius, what was Isaac Newton? A genius of a different type. Can you compare Nelson Mandela with Leonhard Euler? Can you compare Benjamin Franklin with William Shakespeare? Genius, like intelligence, comes in different flavors. In short, it's silly and ultimately pointless trying to quantify terms such as "genius". One person's "genius" is abother person's "skilled". Let's agree that it's not worth worrying about.
    - michael_dorfman 17y ago
      Sorry, but I think there's orders of magnitude of difference involved here. Sure, you can compare Nelson Mandela, Leonhard Euler, Benjamin Franklin and William Shakespeare-- all were (are) truly exceptional men of the first order. Asimov was a somewhat talented and extremely prolific science fiction writer. He wrote a few great short stories, a few great novels, and a lot of standard (and sub-standard) fare. To call him a "genius" devalues the term beyond recognition.
      - RiderOfGiraffes 17y ago
        Then we'll agree to differ. I think simple, direct and engaging writing is difficult, and coming up with such a range of ideas to exploit is equally difficult. I think in this field Asimov has very, very few peers. I'm not upset that you don't think he was a genius.
- flooha 17y ago
  "two minute read" ~2223 words per minute. Impressive.
  - RiderOfGiraffes 17y ago
    OK, to be more accurate, two minute skim to remind me of the salient points of something I've probably read 15 or 20 times.
    - flooha 17y ago
      I thought maybe my reading level was drastically sub-par. ;)
- zeantsoi 17y ago
  I personally wouldn't characterize Asimov's writing as anything near awful. It's simple, yes-- but only enough to bring a layman sensibility to the most esoteric and abstract of concepts.
  - jerf 17y ago
    It depends on what you're looking for. His settings are mind-blowing (the more so when they were new and you didn't have Singulatarians running around blowing your mind twice as hard) and his stories dramatically sound, but his characters tend towards simplistic and dialog is pretty rough, even by contemporary standards. This isn't a criticism he'd be surprised by. He said so himself, several times, in some of the books I have. Romance in particular was a weak point of the entire genre during his era, and he admits it's because they were all pretty stereotypical nerds. Fortunately, that's not why we were reading his books.
- kokofoo 17y ago
  I have not read this before. But I heard this story told by a college professor Michio Kaku when I was in his astronomy 101 class. Yes, he is the author of the book, Hypersapce.(http://www.amazon.com/Hyperspace-Scientific-Odyssey-Parallel-Universes/dp/0385477058/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1241626582&sr=8-1 http://www.amazon.com/Hyperspace-Scientific-Odyssey-Parallel...) It's a good book to read if you're interested in those things.
digispaghetti 17y ago
This is the second time I have read this, and it is a brilliant short story pondering on the future of humanity and it's place in the universe.
avinashv 17y ago
I love this story. The BSG finale reminded me somewhat of this.
THEjoezack 17y ago
"The Last Answer" is actually my favorite of his shorts: http://destructionoverdrive.blogspot.com/2005/06/last-answer-by-isaac-asimov.html http://destructionoverdrive.blogspot.com/2005/06/last-answer...
- wkdown 17y ago
  I had read 'The Last Question' but not this one. Thank you
rajat 17y ago
What I find fascinating in this short story is the concept of THE computer. That was the vision of the computer back only two or three decades ago (and I'm old enough to remember). Everyone has a terminal into the main computer, instead of the myriad of personal computers (handhelds, laptops, etc) that we actually have. The concept of a major computer site taking up a huge amount of space might be superficially coming true with all the data centers we're building, and terminals are superficially like accessing the cloud instead of doing the computation locally, the concept of a single, massive entity is not really being pursued. We understand the limitations. We don't have the technology or even a theory behind how we would program one massive program, utilizing the zillions of little processors, as a single entity. We can't get multi-threading right even for comparatively trivial programs (compared to a Multivac, I mean) that do no AI.
- sp332 17y ago
  Perspective change for you: It's the Internet. It takes up a huge amount of space, utilizing zillions of processors, and is insanely parallel.
  - derefr 17y ago
    I find it surprising that no OS yet comes with a distributed processing framework (i.e. a pluggable system to support things like Folding@Home) installed and running by default. I predict that it might be the norm in ten years or so; then we'll actually get the effect you mention, where anyone can rent processor time on "the InterVAC" (or at least "the MicrosoftVAC" and "the GNUVAC", if it doesn't get standardized.)

74 points by mariorz 17y ago

Is there anyone here who hasn't read this? Mind you, it's a fun two minute read to remind me of Asimov. Occasionally brilliant ideas, generally awful writing. Sadly missed genius.

metatronscube 17y ago
Yeah I have not read this before. I wish there were a few more brilliant writers like this. I really enjoy his work.
- swombat 17y ago
  Then you'll be glad to know that he's written an astounding number of short stories - you have good times ahead finding them all :-)
  - metatronscube 17y ago
    Yeah the only books of his I have read are the Foundation series...kept meaning to dig more into his works. I think I will now :)
    - theblackbox 17y ago
      Really love the short story where he takes you through the first ever trillionth frame per second imaging of an atomic explosion! The one where the historian builds a "past window" device and releases the specification on the internet really makes me think, too....
      - pavel_lishin 17y ago
        Do you remember what those are called? I don't remember reading either book, and I've read quite a lot of his writings.
        RiderOfGiraffes 17y ago
        "Hell-Fire" and "The Dead Past"
michael_dorfman 17y ago
I concur with all of your particulars (everyone has read this, fun two minute read, occasionally brilliant ideas, generally awful writing, sadly missed) and was completely in agreement up until your very last word. If Isaac Asimov's a genius, what was Isaac Newton? "...all little sisters like to try on big sister's clothes..."
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]
- RiderOfGiraffes 17y ago
  > If Isaac Asimov's a genius, what was Isaac Newton? A genius of a different type. Can you compare Nelson Mandela with Leonhard Euler? Can you compare Benjamin Franklin with William Shakespeare? Genius, like intelligence, comes in different flavors. In short, it's silly and ultimately pointless trying to quantify terms such as "genius". One person's "genius" is abother person's "skilled". Let's agree that it's not worth worrying about.
  - michael_dorfman 17y ago
    Sorry, but I think there's orders of magnitude of difference involved here. Sure, you can compare Nelson Mandela, Leonhard Euler, Benjamin Franklin and William Shakespeare-- all were (are) truly exceptional men of the first order. Asimov was a somewhat talented and extremely prolific science fiction writer. He wrote a few great short stories, a few great novels, and a lot of standard (and sub-standard) fare. To call him a "genius" devalues the term beyond recognition.
    - RiderOfGiraffes 17y ago
      Then we'll agree to differ. I think simple, direct and engaging writing is difficult, and coming up with such a range of ideas to exploit is equally difficult. I think in this field Asimov has very, very few peers. I'm not upset that you don't think he was a genius.
flooha 17y ago
"two minute read" ~2223 words per minute. Impressive.
- RiderOfGiraffes 17y ago
  OK, to be more accurate, two minute skim to remind me of the salient points of something I've probably read 15 or 20 times.
  - flooha 17y ago
    I thought maybe my reading level was drastically sub-par. ;)
zeantsoi 17y ago
I personally wouldn't characterize Asimov's writing as anything near awful. It's simple, yes-- but only enough to bring a layman sensibility to the most esoteric and abstract of concepts.
- jerf 17y ago
  It depends on what you're looking for. His settings are mind-blowing (the more so when they were new and you didn't have Singulatarians running around blowing your mind twice as hard) and his stories dramatically sound, but his characters tend towards simplistic and dialog is pretty rough, even by contemporary standards. This isn't a criticism he'd be surprised by. He said so himself, several times, in some of the books I have. Romance in particular was a weak point of the entire genre during his era, and he admits it's because they were all pretty stereotypical nerds. Fortunately, that's not why we were reading his books.
kokofoo 17y ago
I have not read this before. But I heard this story told by a college professor Michio Kaku when I was in his astronomy 101 class. Yes, he is the author of the book, Hypersapce.(http://www.amazon.com/Hyperspace-Scientific-Odyssey-Parallel-Universes/dp/0385477058/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1241626582&sr=8-1 http://www.amazon.com/Hyperspace-Scientific-Odyssey-Parallel...) It's a good book to read if you're interested in those things.

digispaghetti 17y ago

This is the second time I have read this, and it is a brilliant short story pondering on the future of humanity and it's place in the universe.

avinashv 17y ago

I love this story. The BSG finale reminded me somewhat of this.

THEjoezack 17y ago

"The Last Answer" is actually my favorite of his shorts: http://destructionoverdrive.blogspot.com/2005/06/last-answer-by-isaac-asimov.html http://destructionoverdrive.blogspot.com/2005/06/last-answer...

wkdown 17y ago
I had read 'The Last Question' but not this one. Thank you

rajat 17y ago

What I find fascinating in this short story is the concept of THE computer. That was the vision of the computer back only two or three decades ago (and I'm old enough to remember). Everyone has a terminal into the main computer, instead of the myriad of personal computers (handhelds, laptops, etc) that we actually have. The concept of a major computer site taking up a huge amount of space might be superficially coming true with all the data centers we're building, and terminals are superficially like accessing the cloud instead of doing the computation locally, the concept of a single, massive entity is not really being pursued. We understand the limitations. We don't have the technology or even a theory behind how we would program one massive program, utilizing the zillions of little processors, as a single entity. We can't get multi-threading right even for comparatively trivial programs (compared to a Multivac, I mean) that do no AI.

sp332 17y ago
Perspective change for you: It's the Internet. It takes up a huge amount of space, utilizing zillions of processors, and is insanely parallel.
- derefr 17y ago
  I find it surprising that no OS yet comes with a distributed processing framework (i.e. a pluggable system to support things like Folding@Home) installed and running by default. I predict that it might be the norm in ten years or so; then we'll actually get the effect you mention, where anyone can rent processor time on "the InterVAC" (or at least "the MicrosoftVAC" and "the GNUVAC", if it doesn't get standardized.)