Add the last question
This commit is contained in:
parent
f2771babaa
commit
d45b2dad89
617
lastquestion.txt
Normal file
617
lastquestion.txt
Normal file
|
|
@ -0,0 +1,617 @@
|
|||
The Last Question
|
||||
Isaac Asimov
|
||||
|
||||
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 function, 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. Twenty 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. "Twenty billion
|
||||
years isn't forever."
|
||||
|
||||
"Will, 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 twenty billion years, but then what?" Lupov 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 twenty billion years and
|
||||
maybe the dwarfs will last a 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 about 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 marble-disk, centered.
|
||||
|
||||
"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 inside-outness. 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 hyperspacial 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
|
||||
"analog 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.)
|
||||
|
||||
Jarrodd 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 of 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:
|
||||
INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A 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 problems 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 Galaxy is filled, we'll have another filled
|
||||
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 can only stave off
|
||||
the end. Our energy requirements are going up in 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 sub-mesons took the
|
||||
place of the old clumsy molecular valves. Yet despite it's 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 shrunk 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 originals 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 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 lead 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 Zee 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 NOW A WHITE
|
||||
DWARF."
|
||||
|
||||
"Did the men upon it die?" asked Zee Prime, startled and without thinking.
|
||||
|
||||
The Universal AC said, "A NEW WORLD, AS IN SUCH CASES, WAS CONSTRUCTED FOR
|
||||
THEIR PHYSICAL BODIES IN TIME."
|
||||
|
||||
"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 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 to 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 SO. I HAVE BEEN DOING SO FOR A HUNDRED BILLION
|
||||
YEARS. MY PREDECESSORS AND I HAVE BEEN ASKED THIS QUESTION MANY TIMES. 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?"
|
||||
|
||||
"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 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----
|
||||
46
main.py
46
main.py
|
|
@ -30,6 +30,7 @@ KEY_ENTER = 10
|
|||
TIMEZONE_CALGARY = pytz.timezone('America/Edmonton')
|
||||
|
||||
location = os.path.dirname(os.path.realpath(__file__))
|
||||
|
||||
with open(location + '/info.txt') as f:
|
||||
PROTO_INFO = f.read()
|
||||
|
||||
|
|
@ -40,6 +41,10 @@ for num, line in enumerate(PROTO_INFO.split('\n')):
|
|||
print('non-ascii found in line:', num+1)
|
||||
raise
|
||||
|
||||
with open(location + '/lastquestion.txt') as f:
|
||||
LAST_QUESTION = f.read()
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
def format_date(datestr):
|
||||
d = datetime.strptime(datestr, '%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%SZ').replace(tzinfo=pytz.UTC)
|
||||
d = d.astimezone(TIMEZONE_CALGARY)
|
||||
|
|
@ -184,7 +189,7 @@ classes = {}
|
|||
classes_start = 0
|
||||
protocoin = {}
|
||||
protocoin_line = 0
|
||||
info_line = 0
|
||||
text_line = 0
|
||||
|
||||
logging.info('Starting main loop...')
|
||||
|
||||
|
|
@ -240,7 +245,7 @@ while True:
|
|||
stdscr.addstr(stars[0]+8 , stars[1], " . * | , ")
|
||||
stdscr.addstr(stars[0]+9 , stars[1], " . o ")
|
||||
stdscr.addstr(stars[0]+10, stars[1], " .---. ")
|
||||
stdscr.addstr(stars[0]+11, stars[1], " = _/__~0_\_ . * o ' ")
|
||||
stdscr.addstr(stars[0]+11, stars[1], " = _/__[0]\_ . * o ' ")
|
||||
stdscr.addstr(stars[0]+12, stars[1], " = = (_________) . ")
|
||||
stdscr.addstr(stars[0]+13, stars[1], " . * ")
|
||||
stdscr.addstr(stars[0]+14, stars[1], " * - ) - * ")
|
||||
|
|
@ -323,12 +328,23 @@ while True:
|
|||
classes = fetch_classes()
|
||||
stdscr.erase()
|
||||
skip_input = True
|
||||
elif current_screen == 'asimov':
|
||||
stdscr.addstr(0, 1, 'PROTOVAC UNIVERSAL COMPUTER')
|
||||
lines = LAST_QUESTION.split('\n')
|
||||
|
||||
offset = 2
|
||||
for num, line in enumerate(lines[text_line:text_line+20]):
|
||||
stdscr.addstr(num + offset, 1, line)
|
||||
|
||||
stdscr.addstr(23, 1, '[B] Back [J] Down [K] Up', curses.A_REVERSE if highlight_keys else 0)
|
||||
stdscr.clrtoeol()
|
||||
stdscr.refresh()
|
||||
elif current_screen == 'info':
|
||||
stdscr.addstr(0, 1, 'PROTOVAC UNIVERSAL COMPUTER')
|
||||
lines = PROTO_INFO.split('\n')
|
||||
|
||||
offset = 2
|
||||
for num, line in enumerate(lines[info_line:info_line+20]):
|
||||
for num, line in enumerate(lines[text_line:text_line+20]):
|
||||
stdscr.addstr(num + offset, 1, line)
|
||||
|
||||
stdscr.addstr(23, 1, '[B] Back [J] Down [K] Up', curses.A_REVERSE if highlight_keys else 0)
|
||||
|
|
@ -482,6 +498,8 @@ while True:
|
|||
current_screen = 'stats'
|
||||
elif button == 'i':
|
||||
current_screen = 'info'
|
||||
elif button == '0':
|
||||
current_screen = 'asimov'
|
||||
elif button == 'n':
|
||||
current_screen = 'sign'
|
||||
elif button == 'c':
|
||||
|
|
@ -528,17 +546,31 @@ while True:
|
|||
stdscr.erase()
|
||||
else:
|
||||
try_highlight()
|
||||
elif current_screen == 'asimov':
|
||||
if button == 'b' or c == KEY_ESCAPE:
|
||||
current_screen = 'home'
|
||||
protocoin = {}
|
||||
text_line = 0
|
||||
elif button == 'j' or c == curses.KEY_DOWN:
|
||||
text_line += 19
|
||||
stdscr.erase()
|
||||
elif button == 'k' or c == curses.KEY_UP:
|
||||
if text_line > 0:
|
||||
text_line -= 19
|
||||
stdscr.erase()
|
||||
else:
|
||||
try_highlight()
|
||||
elif current_screen == 'info':
|
||||
if button == 'b' or c == KEY_ESCAPE:
|
||||
current_screen = 'home'
|
||||
protocoin = {}
|
||||
info_line = 0
|
||||
text_line = 0
|
||||
elif button == 'j' or c == curses.KEY_DOWN:
|
||||
info_line += 19
|
||||
text_line += 19
|
||||
stdscr.erase()
|
||||
elif button == 'k' or c == curses.KEY_UP:
|
||||
if info_line > 0:
|
||||
info_line -= 19
|
||||
if text_line > 0:
|
||||
text_line -= 19
|
||||
stdscr.erase()
|
||||
else:
|
||||
try_highlight()
|
||||
|
|
|
|||
Loading…
Reference in New Issue
Block a user