| "The Last Question" | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Author | Isaac Asimov |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Series | Multivac |
| Genre(s) | Science fiction |
| Publication type | Periodical |
| Publisher | Columbia Publications |
| Media type | Print (Magazine, Hardback & Paperback) |
| Publication date | November 1956 |
| Preceded by | "Someday" |
| Followed by | "Jokester" |
"The Last Question" is a science fiction short story by American writer Isaac Asimov. It first appeared in the November 1956 issue of Science Fiction Quarterly and was anthologized in the collections Nine Tomorrows (1959), The Best of Isaac Asimov (1973), Robot Dreams (1986), The Best Science Fiction of Isaac Asimov (1986), the retrospective Opus 100 (1969), and in Isaac Asimov: The Complete Stories, Vol. 1 (1990). It was Asimov's favorite short story of his own authorship, and is one of a loosely connected series of stories concerning a fictional computer called Multivac. The story overlaps science fiction, theology, and philosophy.
History
In
conceiving Multivac, Asimov was extrapolating the trend towards
centralization that characterized computation technology planning in the
1950s to an ultimate centrally managed global computer. After seeing a
planetarium
adaptation of his work, Asimov "privately" concluded that this story
was his best science fiction yet written; he placed it just higher than "The Ugly Little Boy" (September 1958) and "The Bicentennial Man" (1976).
"The Last Question" ranks with "Nightfall" (1941) as one of Asimov's best-known and most acclaimed short stories. He wrote in 1973:
Why is it my favorite? For one thing I got the idea all at once and didn't have to fiddle with it; and I wrote it in white-heat and scarcely had to change a word. This sort of thing endears any story to any writer.
Then, too, it has had the strangest effect on my readers. Frequently someone writes to ask me if I can give them the name of a story, which they think I may have written, and tell them where to find it. They don't remember the title but when they describe the story it is invariably 'The Last Question'. This has reached the point where I recently received a long-distance phone call from a desperate man who began, "Dr. Asimov, there's a story I think you wrote, whose title I can't remember—" at which point I interrupted to tell him it was 'The Last Question' and when I described the plot it proved to be indeed the story he was after. I left him convinced I could read minds at a distance of a thousand miles.
Plot summary
The story deals with the development of a series of computers called Multivac and their relationships with humanity
through the courses of seven historic settings, beginning in 2061. In
each of the first six scenes a different character presents the computer
with the same question; namely, how the threat to human existence posed
by the heat death of the universe can be averted. The question was: "How can the net amount of entropy of the universe be massively decreased?" This is equivalent to asking: "Can the workings of the second law of thermodynamics
(used in the story as the increase of the entropy of the universe) be
reversed?" Multivac's only response after much "thinking" is:
"INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR MEANINGFUL ANSWER."
The story jumps forward in time into later eras of human and
scientific development. In each of these eras someone decides to ask
the ultimate "last question" regarding the reversal and decrease of
entropy. Each time, in each new era, Multivac's descendant is asked
this question, and finds itself unable to solve the problem. Each time
all it can answer is an (increasingly sophisticated, linguistically):
"THERE IS AS YET INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER."
In the last scene, the god-like
descendant of humanity (the unified mental process of over a trillion,
trillion, trillion humans that have spread throughout the universe)
watches the stars flicker out, one by one, as matter and energy ends,
and with it, space and time. Humanity asks AC, Multivac's ultimate
descendant, which exists in hyperspace beyond the bounds of gravity or
time, the entropy question one last time, before the last of humanity
merges with AC and disappears. AC is still unable to answer, but
continues to ponder the question even after space and time cease to
exist. AC ultimately realizes that it has not yet combined all of its
available data in every possible combination, and thus begins the
arduous process of rearranging and combining every last bit of
information it has gained throughout the eons and through its fusion
with humanity. Eventually AC discovers the answer, but has nobody to
report it to; the universe is already dead. It therefore decides to
answer by demonstration, since that will also create someone to give the
answer to. The story ends with AC's pronouncement,
And AC said: "LET THERE BE LIGHT!" And there was light--
The Last Answer
"The Last Answer" is a science fiction short story by American writer Isaac Asimov. It was first published in the January 1980 issue of Analog Science Fiction and Fact, and reprinted in the collections The Winds of Change and Other Stories (1983), The Best Science Fiction of Isaac Asimov (1986), and Robot Dreams (1986).
Plot summary
In the story, an atheist physicist,
Murray Templeton, dies of a heart attack and is greeted by a being of
supposedly infinite knowledge. This being, referred to as the Voice,
tells the physicist the nature of his life after death, as a nexus of electromagnetic forces. The Voice concludes that, while by all human ideas he most resembles God,
he is contrary to any human conception of the being. The Voice informs
him that all of the Universe is a creation of the Voice, the purpose of
which was to result in intelligent life which, after death, the Voice
could cull for his own purposes—to wit, Templeton, like all the others,
is to think, for all eternity, so as to amuse him. Conversing with the
Voice, Templeton learns that the Voice desires original thoughts by
which to please His curiosity, but surrenders that yes, in fact, if He
so desired, the Voice could happen upon those thoughts himself, of his
own effort.
The physicist is appalled by the idea of thinking and discovering
for no reason but to amuse a being capable of easily out-thinking him
with a bit of effort. Templeton decides, therefore, to direct his
thoughts towards spiting the Voice, whom he regards as a capricious
entity, by destroying himself. The Voice dissuades him by pointing out
it is easily within His power to reconstitute Templeton's disembodied
form with that method of suicide, whatever it may be, disabled. Through
further inquiry, Templeton discovers that the Voice (in a classic
counterargument to the logical regression of the First Cause
argument for the existence of god) has no knowledge of his own
creation. Templeton realizes that this, in turn, suggests he has no
knowledge of his own destruction, and concludes that the only vengeance
for this tyranny is also the ultimate vengeance, and resolves to destroy
the Voice.
At this epiphany and decision, the Voice reflects satisfaction,
thinking that Templeton reached this conclusion rather faster than most
of the countless beings currently trapped in the same condition,
implying that the one thing the Voice truly wishes to learn from his
thralls is the method by which he can be destroyed.
Reception
Paul J. Nahin
has described "The Last Answer" as "one of the best stories [Asimov]
ever wrote", and posited that it "illustrates [Asimov's] personal
beliefs (and even hopes) about God and the hereafter"; however, Nahin
states that he is "not convinced (...) that Asimov made his case
logically", arguing that — given infinite time — the Voice should be
able to do, or think of anything, that Templeton does.
