
The Last Question -- Isaac Asimov - mariorz
http://www.multivax.com/last_question.html?
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RiderOfGiraffes
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.

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michael_dorfman
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..."_

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RiderOfGiraffes
> _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.

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michael_dorfman
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.

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RiderOfGiraffes
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.

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

~~~
wkdown
I had read 'The Last Question' but not this one. Thank you

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rajat
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.

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sp332
Perspective change for you: It's the Internet.

It takes up a huge amount of space, utilizing zillions of processors, and is
insanely parallel.

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derefr
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.)

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avinashv
I love this story.

The BSG finale reminded me somewhat of this.

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digispaghetti
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.

