| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"wbarwell" |
| Date: |
22 Jan 2006 11:02:53 AM |
| Object: |
Isaac Asimov story - The Last Question |
http://matemaciek.max.ilo.pl/lq.txt
Isaac Asimov: The Last Question
The last question was asked for the first time,
half in jest, on May 21, 2061, at a time when
humanity first stepped into the light. The
question came about as a result of a five-dollar
bet over highballs, and it happened this way:
Alexander Adell and Bertram Lupov were two of the
faithful attendants of Multivac. As well as any
human beings could, they knew what lay behind the
cold, clicking, flashing face -- miles and miles
of face -- of that giant computer. They had at
least a vague notion of the general plan of relays
and circuits that had long since grown past the
point where any single human could possibly have a
firm grasp of the whole.
Multivac was self-adjusting and self-correcting.
It had to be, for nothing human could adjust and
correct it quickly enough or even adequately
enough. So Adell and Lupov attended the monstrous
giant only lightly and superficially, yet as well
as any men could. They fed it data, adjusted
questions to its needs and translated the answers
that were issued. Certainly they, and all others
like them, were fully entitled to share in the
glory that was Multivac's.
For decades, Multivac had helped design the ships
and plot the trajectories that enabled man to
reach the Moon, Mars, and Venus, but past that,
Earth's poor resources could not support the
ships. Too much energy was needed for the long
trips. Earth exploited its coal and uranium with
increasing efficiency, but there was only so much
of both.
But slowly Multivac learned enough to answer
deeper questions more fundamentally, and on May
14, 2061, what had been theory, became fact.
The energy of the sun was stored, converted, and
utilized directly on a planet-wide scale. All
Earth turned off its burning coal, its fissioning
uranium, and flipped the switch that connected all
of it to a small station, one mile in diameter,
circling the Earth at half the distance of the
Moon. All Earth ran by invisible beams of
sunpower.
Seven days had not sufficed to dim the glory of it
and Adell and Lupov finally managed to escape from
the public functions, and to meet in quiet where
no one would think of looking for them, in the
deserted underground chambers, where portions of
the mighty buried body of Multivac showed.
Unattended, idling, sorting data with contented
lazy clickings, Multivac, too, had earned its
vacation and the boys appreciated that. They had
no intention, originally, of disturbing it.
They had brought a bottle with them, and their
only concern at the moment was to relax in the
company of each other and the bottle.
"It's amazing when you think of it," said Adell.
His broad face had lines of weariness in it, and
he stirred his drink slowly with a glass rod,
watching the cubes of ice slur clumsily about.
"All the energy we can possibly ever use for free.
Enough energy, if we wanted to draw on it, to melt
all Earth into a big drop of impure liquid iron,
and still never miss the energy so used. All the
energy we could ever use, forever and forever and
forever."
Lupov cocked his head sideways. He had a trick of
doing that when he wanted to be contrary, and he
wanted to be contrary now, partly because he had
had to carry the ice and glassware. "Not forever,"
he said.
"Oh, hell, just about forever. Till the sun runs
down, Bert."
"That's not forever."
"All right, then. Billions and billions of years.
Ten billion, maybe.
Are you satisfied?"
Lupov put his fingers through his thinning hair as
though to reassure himself that some was still
left and sipped gently at his own drink. "Ten
billion years isn't forever."
"Well, it will last our time, won't it?"
"So would the coal and uranium."
"All right, but now we can hook up each individual
spaceship to the Solar Station, and it can go to
Pluto and back a million times without ever
worrying about fuel. You can't do that on coal and
uranium. Ask Multivac, if you don't believe me.
"I don't have to ask Multivac. I know that."
"Then stop running down what Multivac's done for
us," said Adell, blazing up, "It did all right."
"Who says it didn't? What I say is that a sun
won't last forever. That's all I'm saying. We're
safe for ten billion years, but then what?" Lupow
pointed a slightly shaky finger at the other. "And
don't say we'll switch to another sun."
There was silence for a while. Adell put his glass
to his lips only occasionally, and Lupov's eyes
slowly closed. They rested.
Then Lupov's eyes snapped open. "You're thinking
we'll switch to another sun when ours is done,
aren't you?"
"I'm not thinking."
"Sure you are. You're weak on logic, that's the
trouble with you. You're like the guy in the story
who was caught in a sudden shower and who ran to a
grove of trees and got under one. He wasn't
worried, you see, because he figured when one tree
got wet through, he would just get
under another one."
"I get it," said Adell. "Don't shout. When the sun
is done, the other stars will be gone, too."
"Darn right they will," muttered Lupov. "It all
had a beginning in the original cosmic explosion,
whatever that was, and it'll all have an end when
all the stars run down. Some run down faster than
others. Hell, the giants won't last a hundred
million years. The sun will last ten billion
years and maybe the dwarfs will last two hundred
billion for all the good they are. But just give
us a trillion years and everything will be dark.
Entropy has to increase to maximum, that's all."
"I know all about entropy," said Adell, standing
on his dignity.
"The hell you do."
"I know as much as you do."
"Then you know everything's got to run down
someday."
"All right. Who says they won't?"
"You did, you poor sap. You said we had all the
energy we needed, forever. You said 'forever.'
It was Adell's turn to be contrary. "Maybe we can
build things up again someday," he said.
"Never."
"Why not? Someday."
"Never."
"Ask Multivac."
"You ask Multivac. I dare you. Five dollars says
it can't be done."
Adell was just drunk enough to try, just sober
enough to be able to phrase the necessary symbols
and operations into a question which, in words,
might have corresponded to this: Will mankind one
day without the net expenditure of energy be able
to restore the sun to its full youthfulness even
after it had died of old age?
Or maybe it could be put more simply like this:
How can the net amount of entropy of the universe
be massively decreased?
Multivac fell dead and silent. The slow flashing
of lights ceased, the distant sounds of clicking
relays ended.
Then, just as the frightened technicians felt they
could hold their breath no longer, there was a
sudden springing to life of the teletype attached
to that portion of Multivac. Five words were
printed: INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR MEANINGFUL ANSWER.
"No bet," whispered Lupov. They left hurriedly.
By next morning, the two, plagued with throbbing
head and cottony mouth, had forgotten the
incident.
--------------------------------------------------
Jerrodd, Jerrodine, and Jerrodette I and II
watched the starry picture in the visiplate change
as the passage through hyperspace was completed in
its non-time lapse. At once, the even powdering of
stars gave way to the predominance of a single
bright shining disk, the size of a marble,
centered on the viewing-screen.
"That's X-23," said Jerrodd confidently. His thin
hands clamped tightly behind his back and the
knuckles whitened.
The little Jerrodettes, both girls, had
experienced the hyperspace passage for the first
time in their lives and were self-conscious over
the momentary sensation of insideoutness. They
buried their giggles and chased one another wildly
about their mother, screaming, "We've reached X-23
-- we've reached X-23 -- we've --"
"Quiet, children." said Jerrodine sharply. "Are
you sure, Jerrodd?"
"What is there to be but sure?" asked Jerrodd,
glancing up at the bulge of featureless metal just
under the ceiling. It ran the length of the room,
disappearing through the wall at either end. It
was as long as the ship.
Jerrodd scarcely knew a thing about the thick rod
of metal except that it was called a Microvac,
that one asked it questions if one wished; that if
one did not it still had its task of guiding the
ship to a preordered destination; of feeding on
energies from the various Sub-galactic Power
Stations; of computing the equations for the
hyperspatial jumps.
Jerrodd and his family had only to wait and live
in the comfortable residence quarters of the ship.
Someone had once told Jerrodd that the "ac" at the
end of "Microvac" stood for ''automatic computer"
in ancient English, but he was on the edge of
forgetting even that.
Jerrodine's eyes were moist as she watched the
visiplate. "I can't help it. I feel funny about
leaving Earth."
"Why, for Pete's sake?" demanded Jerrodd. "We had
nothing there. We'll have everything on X-23. You
won't be alone. You won't be a pioneer. There are
over a million people on the planet already. Good
Lord, our great-grandchildren will be looking for
new worlds because X-23 will be
overcrowded." Then, after a reflective pause, "I
tell you, it's a lucky thing the computers worked
out interstellar travel the way the race is
growing."
"I know, I know," said Jerrodine miserably.
Jerrodette I said promptly, "Our Microvac is the
best Microvac in the world."
"I think so, too," said Jerrodd, tousling her
hair.
It was a nice feeling to have a Microvac of your
own and Jerrodd was glad he was part of his
generation and no other. In his father's youth,
the only computers had been tremendous machines
taking up a hundred square miles of land. There
was only one to a planet. Planetary ACs they
were called. They had been growing in size
steadily for a thousand years and then, all at
once, came refinement. In place of transistors,
had come molecular valves so that even the largest
Planetary AC could be put into a space only half
the volume of a spaceship.
Jerrodd felt uplifted, as he always did when he
thought that his own personal Microvac was many
times more complicated than the ancient and
primitive Multivac that had first tamed the Sun,
and almost as complicated as Earth's Planetary AC
(the largest) that had first solved the problem of
hyperspatial travel and had made trips to the
stars possible.
"So many stars, so many planets," sighed
Jerrodine, busy with her own thoughts. "I suppose
families will be going out to new planets forever,
the way we are now."
"Not forever," said Jerrodd, with a smile. "It
will all stop someday, but not for billions of
years. Many billions. Even the stars run down, you
know. Entropy must increase.
"What's entropy, daddy?" shrilled Jerrodette II.
"Entropy, little sweet, is just a word which means
the amount of running-down of the universe.
Everything runs down, you know, like your little
walkie-talkie robot, remember?"
"Can't you just put in a new power-unit, like with
my robot?"
"The stars are the power-units. dear. Once they're
gone, there are no more power-units."
Jerrodette I at once set up a howl. "Don't let
them, daddy. Don't let the stars run down."
"Now look what you've done," whispered Jerrodine,
exasperated.
"How was I to know it would frighten them?"
Jerrodd whispered back,
"Ask the Microvac," wailed Jerrodette I. "Ask him
how to turn the stars on again."
"Go ahead," said Jerrodine. "It will quiet them
down." (Jerrodette II was beginning to cry, also.)
Jerrodd shrugged. "Now, now, honeys. I'll ask
Microvac. Don't worry, he'll tell us."
He asked the Microvac, adding quickly, "Print the
answer."
Jerrodd cupped the strip or thin cellufilm and
said cheerfully, "See now, the Microvac says it
will take care of everything when the time comes
so don't worry."
Jerrodine said, "And now, children, it's time for
bed. We'll be in our new home soon."
Jerrodd read the words on the cellufilm again
before destroying it: INSUFICIENT DATA FOR
MEANINGFUL ANSWER.
He shrugged and looked at the visiplate. X-23 was
just ahead.
--------------------------------------------------
VJ-23X of Lameth stared into the black depths of
the three-dimensional, small-scale map of the
Galaxy and said, "Are we ridiculous, I wonder in
being so concerned about the matter?"
MQ-17J of Nicron shook his head. "I think not. You
know the Galaxy will be filled in five years at
the present rate of expansion."
Both seemed in their early twenties, both were
tall and perfectly formed.
"Still," said VJ-23X, "I hesitate to submit a
pessimistic report to the Galactic Council."
"I wouldn't consider any other kind of report.
Stir them up a bit. We've got to stir them up."
VJ-23X sighed. "Space is infinite. A hundred
billion Galaxies are there for the taking. More."
"A hundred billion is not infinite and it's
getting less infinite all the time. Consider!
Twenty thousand years ago, mankind first solved
the problem of utilizing stellar energy, and a few
centuries later, interstellar travel became
possible. It took mankind a million years to fill
one small world and then only fifteen thousand
years to fill the rest of the Galaxy. Now the
population doubles every ten years --
VJ-23X interrupted. "We can thank immortality for
that."
"Very well. Immortality exists and we have to take
it into account. I admit it has its seamy side,
this immortality. The Galactic AC has solved many
problems for us, but in solving the problem of
preventing old age and death, it has undone all
its other solutions."
"Yet you wouldn't want to abandon life, I
suppose."
"Not at all," snapped MQ-17J, softening it at once
to, "Not yet. I'm by no means old enough. How old
are you?"
"Two hundred twenty-three. And you?"
"I'm still under two hundred. --But to get back to
my point. Population doubles every ten years. Once
this GaIaxy is filled, we'll have filled another
in ten years. Another ten years and we'll have
filled two more. Another decade, four more. In a
hundred years, we'll have filled a thousand
Galaxies. In a thousand years, a million Galaxies.
In ten thousand years, the entire known universe.
Then what?"
VJ-23X said, "As a side issue, there's a problem
of transportation. I wonder how many sunpower
units it will take to move Galaxies of individuals
from one Galaxy to the next."
"A very good point. Already, mankind consumes two
sunpower units per year."
"Most of it's wasted. After all, our own Galaxy
alone pours out a thousand sunpower units a year
and we only use two of those."
"Granted, but even with a hundred per cent
efficiency, we only stave off the end. Our energy
requirements are going up in a geometric
progression even faster than our population. We'll
run out of energy even sooner than we run out of
Galaxies. A good point. A very good point."
"We'll just have to build new stars out of
interstellar gas."
"Or out of dissipated heat?" asked MQ-17J,
sarcastically.
"There may be some way to reverse entropy. We
ought to ask the Galactic AC."
VJ-23X was not really serious, but MQ-17J pulled
out his AC-contact from his pocket and placed it
on the table before him.
"I've half a mind to," he said. "It's something
the human race will have to face someday."
He stared somberly at his small AC-contact. It was
only two inches cubed and nothing in itself, but
it was connected through hyperspace with the great
Galactic AC that served all mankind. Hyperspace
considered, it was an integral part of the
Galactic AC.
MQ-17J paused to wonder if someday in his immortal
life he would get to see the Galactic AC. It was
on a little world of its own, a spider webbing of
force-beams holding the matter within which surges
of submesons took the place of the old clumsy
molecular valves. Yet despite its sub-etheric
workings, the Galactic AC was known to be a full
thousand feet across.
MQ-17J asked suddenly of his AC-contact, "Can
entropy ever be reversed?"
VJ-23X looked startled and said at once, "Oh, say,
I didn't really mean to have you ask that."
"Why not?"
"We both know entropy can't be reversed. You can't
turn smoke and ash back into a tree."
"Do you have trees on your world?" asked MQ-17J.
The sound of the Galactic AC startled them into
silence. Its voice came thin and beautiful out of
the small AC-contact on the desk. It said: THERE
IS INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER.
VJ-23X said, "See!"
The two men thereupon returned to the question of
the report they were to make to the Galactic
Council.
--------------------------------------------------
Zee Prime's mind spanned the new Galaxy with a
faint interest in the countless twists of stars
that powdered it. He had never seen this one
before. Would he ever see them all? So many of
them, each with its load of humanity. --But a load
that was almost a dead weight. More and more, the
real essence of men was to be found out here, in
space.
Minds, not bodies! The immortal bodies remained
back on the planets, in suspension over the eons.
Sometimes they roused for material activity but
that was growing rarer. Few new individuals were
coming into existence to join the incredibly
mighty throng, but what matter? There was little
room in the Universe for new individuals.
Zee Prime was roused out of his reverie upon
coming across the wispy tendrils of another mind.
"I am Zee Prime," said Zee Prime. "And you?"
"I am Dee Sub Wun. Your Galaxy?"
"We call it only the Galaxy. And you?"
"We call ours the same. All men call their Galaxy
their Galaxy and nothing more. Why not?"
"True. Since all Galaxies are the same."
"Not all Galaxies. On one particular Galaxy the
race of man must have originated. That makes it
different."
Zee Prime said, "On which one?"
"I cannot say. The Universal AC would know."
"Shall we ask him? I am suddenly curious."
Zee Prime's perceptions broadened until the
Galaxies themselves shrank and became a new, more
diffuse powdering on a much larger background. So
many hundreds of billions of them, all with their
immortal beings, all carrying their load of
intelligences with minds that drifted freely
through space. And yet one of them was unique
among them all in being the original Galaxy. One
of them had, in its vague and distant past, a
period when it was the only Galaxy populated by
man.
Zee Prime was consumed with curiosity to see this
Galaxy and he called out: "Universal AC! On which
Galaxy did mankind originate?"
The Universal AC heard, for on every world and
throughout space, it had its receptors ready, and
each receptor led through hyperspace to some
unknown point where the Universal AC kept itself
aloof.
Zee Prime knew of only one man whose thoughts had
penetrated within sensing distance of Universal
AC, and he reported only a shining globe, two feet
across, difficult to see.
"But how can that be all of Universal AC?" Zee
Prime had asked.
"Most of it," had been the answer, "is in
hyperspace. In what form it is there I cannot
imagine."
Nor could anyone, for the day had long since
passed, Zee Prime knew, when any man had any part
of the making of a Universal AC. Each Universal AC
designed and constructed its successor. Each,
during its existence of a million years or more
accumulated the necessary data to build a better
and more intricate, more capable successor in
which its own store of data and individuality
would be submerged.
The Universal AC interrupted Zee Prime's wandering
thoughts, not with words, but with guidance. Zee
Prime's mentality was guided into the dim sea of
Galaxies and one in particular enlarged into
stars.
A thought came, infinitely distant, but infinitely
clear. "THIS IS THE ORIGINAL GALAXY OF MAN."
But it was the same after all, the same as any
other, and Lee Prime stifled his disappointment.
Dee Sub Wun, whose mind had accompanied the other,
said suddenly, "And is one of these stars the
original star of Man?"
The Universal AC said, "MAN'S ORIGINAL STAR HAS
GONE NOVA. IT IS A WHITE DWARF"
"Did the men upon it die?" asked Lee Prime,
startled and without thinking.
The Universal AC said, "A NEW WORLD, AS IN SUCH
CASES WAS CONSTRUCTED FOR THEIR PHYSICAL BODIES IN
TlME."
"Yes, of course," said Zee Prime, but a sense of
loss overwhelmed him even so. His mind released
its hold on the original Galaxy of Man, let it
spring back and lose itself among the blurred pin
points. He never wanted to see it again.
Dee Sub Wun said, "What is wrong?"
"The stars are dying. The original star is dead."
"They must all die. Why not?"
"But when all energy is gone, our bodies will
finally die, and you and I with them."
"It will take billions of years."
"I do not wish it to happen even after billions of
years. Universal AC! How may stars be kept from
dying?"
Dee Sub Wun said in amusement, "You're asking how
entropy might be reversed in direction."
And the Universal AC answered: "THERE IS AS YET
INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER."
Zee Prime's thoughts fled back to his own Galaxy.
He gave no further thought to Dee Sub Wun, whose
body might be waiting on a Galaxy a trillion
light-years away, or on the star next to Zee
Prime's own. It didn't matter.
Unhappily, Zee Prime began collecting interstellar
hydrogen out of which to build a small star of his
own. If the stars must someday die, at least some
could yet be built.
--------------------------------------------------
Man considered with himself, for in a way, Man,
mentally, was one. He consisted of a trillion,
trillion, trillion ageless bodies, each in its
place, each resting quiet and incorruptible, each
cared for by perfect automatons, equally
incorruptible, while the minds of all the bodies
freely melted one into the other,
indistinguishable.
Man said, "The Universe is dying."
Man looked about at the dimming Galaxies. The
giant stars, spendthrifts, were gone long ago,
back in the dimmest of the dim far past. Almost
all stars were white dwarfs, fading to the end.
New stars had been built of the dust between the
stars, some by natural processes, some by Man
himself, and those were going, too. White dwarfs
might yet be crashed together and of the mighty
forces so released, new stars built, but only one
star for every thousand white dwarfs destroyed,
and those would come to an end, too.
Man said, "Carefully husbanded, as directed by the
Cosmic AC, the energy that is even yet left in all
the Universe will last for billions of years."
"But even so," said Man, "eventually it will all
come to an end. However it may be husbanded,
however stretched out, the energy once expended is
gone and cannot be restored. Entropy must increase
forever to the maximum."
Man said, "Can entropy not be reversed? Let us ask
the Cosmic AC."
The Cosmic AC surrounded them but not in space.
Not a fragment of it was in space. It was in
hyperspace and made of something that was neither
matter nor energy. The question of its size and
nature no longer had meaning in any terms that Man
could comprehend.
"Cosmic AC," said Man, "how may entropy be
reversed?"
The Cosmic AC said, "THERE IS AS YET INSUFFICIENT
DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER."
Man said, "Collect additional data."
The Cosmic AC said, 'I WILL DO S0. I HAVE BEEN
DOING SO FOR A HUNDRED BILLION YEARS. MY
PREDECESORS AND I HAVE BEEN ASKED THIS QUESTION
MANY TlMES. ALL THE DATA I HAVE REMAINS
INSUFFICIENT.
"Will there come a time," said Man, 'when data
will be sufficient or is the problem insoluble in
all conceivable circumstances?"
The Cosmic AC said, "NO PROBLEM IS INSOLUBLE IN
ALL CONCEIVABLE CIRCUMSTANCES."
Man said, "When will you have enough data to
answer the question?"
The Cosmic AC said, "THERE IS AS YET INSUFFICIENT
DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER."
"Will you keep working on it?" asked Man.
The Cosmic AC said, "I WILL."
Man said, "We shall wait."
The stars and Galaxies died and snuffed out, and
space grew black after ten trillion years of
running down.
One by one Man fused with AC, each physical body
losing its mental identity in a manner that was
somehow not a loss but a gain.
Man's last mind paused before fusion, looking over
a space that included nothing but the dregs of one
last dark star and nothing besides but incredibly
thin matter, agitated randomly by the tag ends of
heat wearing out, asymptotically, to the absolute
zero.
Man said, "AC, is this the end? Can this chaos not
be reversed into the Universe once more? Can that
not be done?"
AC said, "THERE IS AS YET INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A
MEANINGFUL ANSWER."
--------------------------------------------------
Man's last mind fused and only AC existed -- and
that in hyperspace.
Matter and energy had ended and with it space and
time. Even AC existed only for the sake of the one
last question that it had never answered from the
time a half-drunken computer technician ten
trillion years before had asked the question of a
computer that was to AC far less than was a man to
Man.
All other questions had been answered, and until
this last question was answered also, AC might not
release his consciousness.
All collected data had come to a final end.
Nothing was left to be collected.
But all collected data had yet to be completely
correlated and put together in all possible
relationships.
A timeless interval was spent in doing that.
And it came to pass that AC learned how to reverse
the direction of entropy.
But there was now no man to whom AC might give the
answer of the last question. No matter. The answer
-- by demonstration -- would take care of that,
too.
For another timeless interval, AC thought how best
to do this. Carefully, AC organized the program.
The consciousness of AC encompassed all of what
had once been a Universe and brooded over what was
now Chaos. Step by step, it must be done.
And AC said, "LET THERE BE LIGHT!"
And there was light --
(End)
--
It's all coming down! It's all coming down!
IT'S ALL COMING DOWN!
- Texas Chainsaw Massacre II
Cheerful Charlie
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| User: "Gregory A Greenman" |
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| Title: Re: Isaac Asimov story - The Last Question |
23 Jan 2006 01:52:33 PM |
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In article <11t7emafj1s57c2@corp.supernews.com>, wbarwell
<wbarwell@mylinuxisp.com> declared...
http://matemaciek.max.ilo.pl/lq.txt
Isaac Asimov: The Last Question
It was a nice feeling to have a Microvac of your
own and Jerrodd was glad he was part of his
generation and no other. In his father's youth,
the only computers had been tremendous machines
taking up a hundred square miles of land. There
was only one to a planet. Planetary ACs they
were called. They had been growing in size
steadily for a thousand years and then, all at
once, came refinement. In place of transistors,
had come molecular valves so that even the largest
Planetary AC could be put into a space only half
the volume of a spaceship.
I'm really looking forward to the day we stop using transistors
in our computers. I need more room in my spaceship.
--
Greg
----
http://www.spencerbooksellers.com
greg00 -at- spencersoft -dot- com
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| User: "MarkA" |
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| Title: Re: Isaac Asimov story - The Last Question |
22 Jan 2006 08:53:21 PM |
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On Sun, 22 Jan 2006 11:02:53 -0600, wbarwell wrote:
http://matemaciek.max.ilo.pl/lq.txt
Isaac Asimov: The Last Question
Was it Asimov who wrote, "Nightfall"? I read that many years ago. I
remember it being OK, and dealing with the conflict between religion and
science. Does anyone remember it?
--
MarkA
(this space accidentally filled in)
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| User: "stoney" |
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| Title: Re: Isaac Asimov story - The Last Question |
23 Jan 2006 04:12:54 PM |
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On Sun, 22 Jan 2006 21:53:21 -0500, MarkA <toor@nowhere.com> wrote in
alt.atheism
On Sun, 22 Jan 2006 11:02:53 -0600, wbarwell wrote:
http://matemaciek.max.ilo.pl/lq.txt
Isaac Asimov: The Last Question
Was it Asimov who wrote, "Nightfall"?
Yes.
I read that many years ago. I
remember it being OK, and dealing with the conflict between religion and
science. Does anyone remember it?
I think so.
--
Fundies and trolls are cordially invited to
shove a wooden cross up their arses and rotate
at a high rate of speed. I trust you'll
be 'blessed' with a cornucopia of splinters.
.
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| User: "Pastor Kutchie" |
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| Title: Re: Isaac Asimov story - The Last Question |
22 Jan 2006 04:37:30 PM |
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wbarwell wrote:
http://matemaciek.max.ilo.pl/lq.txt
Isaac Asimov: The Last Question
Great storyteller,Asimov. The insufficient data respose reminds me of a
hilloarious Dr Who out-take.
Doctor: .. Ticking towards oblivion, how long k-9?
K-9: Insufficient data, master
Doctor: Yeah, you never do know the f_cking answer when it's important.
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