
The Last Question by Isaac Asimov - greenlblue
http://www.multivax.com////last_question.html
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mbrubeck
A perennial favorite:

<http://searchyc.com/submissions/last+question>

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bkrausz
Yes, but always good for a chuckle followed by a deep thought or two :).

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kdeberk
I'm a little embarrassed to admit this, but The Last Question is what made me
become an AI master student instead of a regular CS master student.

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meric
I read another one after this, "The Last Answer"
"<http://www.thrivenotes.com/the-last-answer/>

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wwortiz
I actually prefer this one to The Last Question

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barredo
Audio read by Asimov himself:
<http://dl.dropbox.com/u/113545/The_Last_Question.mp3>

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nitfol
As the Cosmic AC was not in space, but "in hyperspace and made of something
that was neither matter nor energy", there should have been no objections to
it taking the role of Maxwell's demon and reversing entropy, powering the
universe through its hyperspace computational powers.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maxwell%27s_demon>

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codingthewheel
Asimov was a great popularizer of ideas that most people never come face-to-
face with in a lifetime. And though some criticize his style, I always find it
to be servicable and effective; he stays out of the way of his story.

On a side note: if you enjoy galactic timespanning of this sort, Alastair
Reynold's "inhibitors" (a "race" of machines forming the backdrop of most/many
of his novels) makes for some fascinating reading from a working
astrophysicist. I found myself impatiently reading through the story, trying
to get to the next bit of exposition where the Inhibitors are discussed. I
wish he'd done even more of this. Ah well.

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edwtjo
[http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=How+can+entropy+be+reve...](http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=How+can+entropy+be+reversed)

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klipt
Entropy can be reversed: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluctuation_theorem>

It just happens with very low probability. But even very low probability
events have to happen sometime, given enough time.

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junkbit
Beautiful.

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greenlblue
The story reminds of the Futurama episode where Bender meets god.

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ljf
Truly epic! Nice sunday reading!

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mkramlich
for those who've never read Asimov, this story is not really his best. his
most famous and beefy works are the Foundation series and the Robots series,
and highly recommended. They influenced many many things that came after, both
in science and in science fiction. you can't call yourself a true SF fan
unless you've read at least his main works.

for example: when I read HHGG for the first time, and the parts about the Deep
Thought computer, I assumed it was inspired by and/or a humourous tribute/riff
on Asimov, because there were so many strong similarities in structure and
narrative techniques.

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Ardit20
I thought that all energy is conserved. That is, if the sun dies, the
materials that made the sun are not destroyed as such, thus, the sun can never
die nor the universe.

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mkramlich
ah, the SF master at work. one of my top favorite authors of all time. such a
cleak thinker and writer, and teller of so many big powerful stories

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megafotze
why is this story so hyped? I thought it was pretty lame.

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tome
I don't get it at all either. Can someone who found something particularly
special about this story please explain what that was?

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garply
The notion of the sun as the fundamental power source driving the earth was
somewhat novel to me. I mean, we all know humanity wouldn't exist without the
sun, but I hadn't thought of the stars as the batteries of the Universe
before.

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klipt
It may be novel to some computer scientists, but the idea can be found in any
introductory ecology textbook.

It resolves the apparent 'paradox' between increasing entropy and increasing
complexity of life: life thrives only because of the initial low entropy of
the sun.

