The Last Question
"The Last Question" | |||
---|---|---|---|
Periodical | |||
Publisher | Columbia Publications | ||
Media type | Print (Magazine, Hardback & Paperback) | ||
Publication date | November 1956 | ||
Chronology | |||
Series | Multivac | ||
|
"The Last Question" is a
The story overlaps science fiction,
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 the 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 story asks the question of humanity's fate, and human existence as a whole, highlighting Asimov's focus on important aspects of our future like population growth and environmental issues.[4]
"The Last Question" ranks with "
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 centers around Multivac, a self-adjusting and self-correcting computer. Multivac had been fed data for decades, assessing data and answering questions, allowing man to reach beyond the planetary confines of Earth. However, in the year 2061, Multivac began to understand deeper fundamentals of humanity. In each of the first six scenes, a different character presents the computer with the same question, how the threat to human existence posed by the heat death of the universe can be averted: "How can the net amount of entropy of the universe be massively decreased?" That 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. These new eras highlight humanity's goals of searching for "more"; more space, more energy, more planets to inhabit once the current one becomes overcrowded. As humanity's imprint on the universe expands, computers have subsequently become more compact, as evidenced in the "Microvac", a smaller and more advanced iteration of Multivac, noted in the second era of the story, which details humanity's inhabitation on "Planet X-23". In each era, someone decides to ask the ultimate "last question" regarding the reversal and decrease of entropy. Each time that Multivac's descendant is asked the question, it finds itself unable to solve the problem, and all it can answer is (linguistically increasingly-sophisticated) "THERE IS AS YET INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER."
In the last scene, the
And AC said: "LET THERE BE LIGHT!
Themes
Philosophy
While science and religion typically have an oppositional relationship,[7] "The Last Question" explores some biblical contexts ("Let there be light"). In Asimov's story, aspects like the great meaning of existence are culminated through both technology and human knowledge. The evolution from Multivac to AC also emulates a sort of cycle of existence.[8]
Dystopian happy ending
Multivac's purpose was conceptualized with a desire for knowledge, promoting the idea that more knowledge will lead to a better and more fruitful future for humanity. However, the computer's answers regarding the future suggest an inevitable exhaustion of the Sun, and this thirst for knowledge becomes an obsession with the future. The story's end displays a dichotomy between annihilation and peace.[9]
Dramatic adaptations
Planetarium shows
- "The Last Question" was first adapted for the Abrams Planetarium at In Joy Still Felt(1980).
- It was adapted for the Strasenburgh Planetarium in Rochester, New York (in 1969), under the direction of Ian C. McLennan.
- It was adapted for the Edmonton Space Sciences Centre in Edmonton, Alberta (early 1970s), under the direction of John Hault.
- It was adapted for the Gates Planetarium at the Denver Museum of Natural History in 1973 under the direction of Mark B. Peterson[10]
It subsequently played at the:
- Fels Planetarium of the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia in 1973[11][12]
- Planetarium of the Reading School District in Reading, Pennsylvania in 1974[12]
- Buhl Planetarium, Pittsburgh in 1974[13]
- Vanderbilt Planetarium in Centerport New York, in 1978,[14] read by singer-songwriter and Long Island resident Harry Chapin.
- )
- A reading of the story was played on BBC Radio 7 in 2008 and 2009.[17]
- Gates Planetarium in Denver, Colorado (in early 2020)[18]
In 1989 Asimov updated the star show adaptation to add in quasars and black holes.[16]
Douglas Adams's Deep Thought (from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy) seems to make a nod towards Multivac, at least in the 2005 film, saying that there is insufficient data for an answer.
See also
- The Best of Isaac Asimov – Collection of twelve short stories by Isaac Asimov published in 1973
- Cyclic model – Cosmological models involving indefinite, self-sustaining cycles
- "The Last Answer" – Science-fiction short story by Isaac Asimov
- Technological singularity – Hypothetical point in time when technological growth becomes uncontrollable and irreversible
Notes
References
- )
- ^ Gardner, Martin (1983). The Whys of a Philosophical Scrivener.
- ^ Landon, Brooks (2008). "computers in science fiction". In Gunn, James; Barr, Marleen S.; Candelaria, Matthew (eds.). Reading Science Fiction.
- )
- LCCN 74-2863.
- ^ "Science Fiction Quarterly New Series v04n05 (1956 11) (slpn)". November 1956 – via Internet Archive.
- ^ Popova, Maria (2013-08-13). "Religion vs. Humanism: Isaac Asimov on Science and Spirituality". The Marginalian. Retrieved 2023-01-29.
- ^ "The Last Question Analysis". Creative Writing Prompt Contests. 2015-06-20. Retrieved 2023-01-29.
- S2CID 242355987, retrieved 2022-04-06
- ^ "Asimov, Isaac, 1920-1992 - Social Networks and Archival Context". snaccooperative.org. Retrieved 2021-07-25.
- ^ "Untitled briefs". The Philadelphia Inquirer. 2 September 1973. Retrieved 27 September 2016.
- ^ a b Walsh, John F. (30 June 1974). "'The Last Question' appeals to viewers at planetarium". Reading Eagle. Retrieved 27 September 2016.
- ^ Oles, Paul (July 18, 1974). "The Pittsburgh Press". Viewing the Stars. p. 17.
- ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2017-02-06.
- ^ "Planetarium presents 'The Last Question'". Deseret News. January 28, 1980. Retrieved 23 September 2013.
- ^ a b "Planetarium asks sci-fi 'star' to update tale". Deseret News. May 30, 1989. Archived from the original on 25 February 2021. Retrieved 26 September 2016.
- ^ "BBC Radio 7 - Isaac Asimov - The Last Question". Retrieved 14 Aug 2015.
- ^ "Isaac Asimov's The Last Question (6 p.m.)". Denver Museum of Nature & Science. Archived from the original on 2020-01-31. Retrieved 2020-01-31.
External links
- The Last Question title listing at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
- "The Last Question" at the Internet Archive
- Isaac Asimov reads "The Last Question" at the Internet Archive