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The Last Question by Isaac Asimov (1956)
- tjaerv 12y agoAsimov's "The Last Answer" is perhaps more profound: http://www.thrivenotes.com/the-last-answer/ http://www.thrivenotes.com/the-last-answer/
- codingdave 12y agoNot really - it is written from quite the elitist perspective, with a nihilistic goal at the end. It is pretty dark and depressing if you ask me.
- gpvos 12y agoNot sure if it's more profound, but I hadn't read that one yet, so thanks.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- yoha 12y agoIt might have already been posted. https://hn.algolia.com/?q=the%20last%20question#!/story/forever/0/the%20last%20question https://hn.algolia.com/?q=the%20last%20question#!/story/fore...
- eudox 12y agoThis is so old. Have a better story instead: http://www.infinityplus.co.uk/stories/shanidar.htm http://www.infinityplus.co.uk/stories/shanidar.htm
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- mgolawala 12y agoThank you for posting it. I first reading this story as a teenager. I remember it having an impact on me in a way few stories do. I have re-read it many times since then and it can still take my breath away every time.
- jeremysmyth 12y agoI came here to say precisely this. I didn't even know Asimov at the time; I started with some of Arthur C. Clarke's stuff). Years later I had to hunt it down to find it again, and that resumed my love affair with Asimov. It's hard to believe he was 21 when he wrote Foundation. Easier to believe when you see how profound he could be in such short bursts as with OP.
- fsiefken 12y ago'nightfall' is also very good, both the short and novel version. It may have influenced Vernor Vinge's Deepness in the Sky portrayel of the civilization of the intelligent spider creatures who hibernate through the "Deepest Darkness" of their variable sun's long "off" periods where their civilization falls apart.
- hypersoar 12y agoI've read both of these but hadn't made that connection. A Deepness in the Sky is one of my all-time favorite scifi novels.
- lotsofmangos 12y agoI always thought that it influenced Pitch Black as well. Especially since it includes the line "So much for your nightfall." near the start.
- namlem 12y agoI've always thought that setting would make for a good MMO.
- erikb 12y agoOne of the comments in the older threads mentions how the Multivac represents the opposite of what we got today, because we have so many computers running at the same time (phone, laptop, tv, and tablet currently around me, for instance). I can't completely agree. Although all these devices might work by themselves. But they are not complete. Each of these machines is currently running software that actively connects one or the other cloud service. Isn't what we have pretty much that Multivac thing? It's not a single big blob somewhere on this planet, but this just makes it way bigger.
- Steven_Bukal 12y agoMy favourite Asimov story :3. Also his favourite, IIRC.