The Last Question (1956)

[throwaway2419]

http://www.multivax.com/last_question.html

[jdmoreira]

I read this when I was a pre-teen because my grandmother's brother gave me a compilation of asimov stories named '9 Tomorrows' and this story is one of them. The whole book really blew my mind!

I always wanted a laptop sticker saying 'My other computer is the multivac'

[krispbyte]

There's also another short story by Asimov called The Last Answer https://www.thrivenotes.com/the-last-answer/

[daverdo]

I can't explain it exactly, but somehow being written over 60+ years ago adds this other layer where you have this funny feeling of looking into the past to see the future.

[not2b]

The story was written after the invention of the transistor, but it seems Asimov hadn't heard of them or didn't grasp the implications, and assumed that computers would be based on tubes (or valves, the word used in the story) for billions of years into the future (but eventually they would be "molecular valves" and a powerful computer could be only half the size of a spaceship).

[rohit2412 → not2b]

Well, aren't transistors vavles for electric flow, that is valves for electrons

[tauwauwau]

Manga adaption

https://mangadex.org/chapter/39016/1

[btschaegg → tauwauwau]

Ooh, I didn't know that yet. Thank you very much for the link!

I really like how it's built around the scrolling one has to do in order to read it.

[joejerryronnie]

My favorite short story, I re-read probably once a year when I stumble across a random reference to it.

[hprotagonist → joejerryronnie]

“For a Breath I Tarry” is also wonderful.

http://www.kulichki.com/moshkow/ZELQZNY/forbreat.txt

[overlordalex → hprotagonist]

That was a wonderful story but has a somehow unsatisfactory conclusion to the question. Spoilers below

SPOILER

The story appears to assert that to be human you need to have the imperfect faculties of a human body, but I would say that Frost started becoming human upon his creation which gave him curiosity

[hprotagonist → overlordalex]

I don't think that's the human criterion. The criterion mordel asserts is, more or less, qualia.

[sunw → hprotagonist]

Incredible; thanks for sharing. I found a version that's easier to read: http://afrodita.rcub.bg.ac.rs/~alexp/books/forbreat.html

[winchling]

Audio version I:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojEq-tTjcc0

(with British accents for Jerrodd, Jerrodine & the Jerrodettes)

Audio version II:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8XOtx4sa9k4

(read by Leonard Nimoy for added gravitas)

[pupppet]

This is one of those stories I randomly think about a few times a year.

[SomeHacker44]

Long my favorite short story of all time. Greg Egan has some great short stories too.

[lostmsu]

A song on the subject:

1. Russian: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMJNta-okRw

2. French: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DynLBcmOTGs

Nerdiness warning.

[jagger11]

Oh man, Asimov was so bad with futuristic ideas. If you'd like to read good thoughts about future, go for Stanislaw Lem (Summa Technologiae, Golem XIV)

[Mistletoe → jagger11]

What was bad about them?