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	<html><head><title>The Last Question</title>


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	<h3>The Last Question</h3>
	By Isaac Asimov
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	Isaac Asimov was the most prolific science fiction
	author of all time. In fifty years he averaged a new magazine article, short
	story, or book every two weeks, and most of that on a manual typewriter. Asimov
	thought that <em>The Last Question</em>, first copyrighted in 1956, was his
	best short story ever. Even if you do not have the background in science to
	be familiar with all of the concepts presented here, the ending packs more impact
	than any other book that I've ever read. Don't read the end of the story first!
	<blockquote> <em>This is by far my favorite story of all those I have written.
	<p></p>
	After all, I undertook to tell several trillion
	years of human history in the space of a short story and I leave it to you as
	to how well I succeeded. I also undertook another task, but I won't tell you
	what that was lest l spoil the story for you.
	<p></p>
	It is a curious fact that innumerable readers
	have asked me if I wrote this story. They seem never to remember the title of
	the story or (for sure) the author, except for the vague thought it might be
	me. But, of course, they never forget the story itself especially the ending.
	The idea seems to drown out everything -- and I'm satisfied that it should.</em>
	<p></p>
	</blockquote>
	<hr width="80%">
	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:
	<p></p>
	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.
	<p></p>
	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.
	<p></p>
	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.
	<p></p>
	But slowly Multivac learned enough to answer deeper
	questions more fundamentally, and on May 14, 2061, what had been theory, became
	fact.
	<p></p>
	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.
	<p></p>
	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.
	<p></p>
	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.
	<p></p>
	"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."
	<p></p>
	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.
	<p></p>
	"Oh, hell, just about forever. Till the sun runs
	down, Bert."
	<p></p>
	"That's not forever."
	<p></p>
	"All right, then. Billions and billions of years.
	Ten billion, maybe. Are you satisfied?"
	<p></p>
	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."
	<p></p>
	"Well, it will last our time, won't it?"
	<p></p>
	"So would the coal and uranium."
	<p></p>
	"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 <em>that</em> on coal and uranium.
	Ask Multivac, if you don't believe me.
	<p></p>
	"I don't have to ask Multivac. I know that."
	<p></p>
	"Then stop running down what Multivac's done for
	us," said Adell, blazing up, "It did all right."
	<p></p>
	"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."
	<p></p>
	There was silence for a while. Adell put his glass
	to his lips only occasionally, and Lupov's eyes slowly closed. They rested.
	<p></p>
	Then Lupov's eyes snapped open. "You're thinking
	we'll switch to another sun when ours is done, aren't you?"
	<p></p>
	"I'm not thinking."
	<p></p>
	"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."
	<p></p>
	"I get it," said Adell. "Don't shout. When the sun
	is done, the other stars will be gone, too."
	<p></p>
	"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."
	<p></p>
	"I know all about entropy," said Adell, standing
	on his dignity.
	<p></p>
	"The hell you do."
	<p></p>
	"I know as much as you do."
	<p></p>
	"Then you know everything's got to run down someday."
	<p></p>
	"All right. Who says they won't?"
	<p></p>
	"You did, you poor sap. You said we had all the
	energy we needed, forever. You said 'forever.'
	<p></p>
	It was Adell's turn to be contrary. "Maybe we can
	build things up again someday," he said.
	<p></p>
	"Never."
	<p></p>
	"Why not? Someday."
	<p></p>
	"Never."
	<p></p>
	"Ask Multivac."
	<p></p>
	"<em>You</em> ask Multivac. I dare you. Five dollars
	says it can't be done."
	<p></p>
	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?
	<p></p>
	Or maybe it could be put more simply like this:
	How can the net amount of entropy of the universe be massively decreased?
	<p></p>
	Multivac fell dead and silent. The slow flashing
	of lights ceased, the distant sounds of clicking relays ended.
	<p></p>
	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.
	<p></p>
	"No bet," whispered Lupov. They left hurriedly.
	<p></p>
	By next morning, the two, plagued with throbbing
	head and cottony mouth, had forgotten the incident.
	<p></p>
	<hr width="80%">
	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.
	<p></p>
	"That's X-23," said Jerrodd confidently. His thin
	hands clamped tightly behind his back and the knuckles whitened.
	<p></p>
	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 --"
	<p></p>
	"Quiet, children." said Jerrodine sharply. "Are
	you sure, Jerrodd?"
	<p></p>
	"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.
	<p></p>
	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.
	<p></p>
	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.
	<p></p>
	Jerrodine's eyes were moist as she watched the visiplate.
	"I can't help it. I feel funny about leaving Earth."
	<p></p>
	"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."
	<p></p>
	"I know, I know," said Jerrodine miserably.
	<p></p>
	Jerrodette I said promptly, "Our Microvac is the
	best Microvac in the world."
	<p></p>
	"I think so, too," said Jerrodd, tousling her hair.
	<p></p>
	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.
	<p></p>
	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 Planetarv AC (the largest) that had first solved the problem of hyperspatial
	travel and had made trips to the stars possible.
	<p></p>
	"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."
	<p></p>
	"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.
	<p></p>
	"What's entropy, daddy?" shrilled Jerrodette II.
	<p></p>
	"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?"
	<p></p>
	"Can't you just put in a new power-unit, like with
	my robot?"
	<p></p>
	"The stars are the power-units. dear. Once they're
	gone, there are no more power-units."
	<p></p>
	Jerrodette I at once set up a howl. "Don't let them,
	daddy. Don't let the stars run down."
	<p></p>
	"Now look what you've done," whispered Jerrodine,
	exasperated.
	<p></p>
	"How was I to know it would frighten them?" Jerrodd
	whispered back,
	<p></p>
	"Ask the Microvac," wailed Jerrodette I. "Ask him
	how to turn the stars on again."
	<p></p>
	"Go ahead," said Jerrodine. "It will quiet them
	down." (Jerrodette II was beginning to cry, also.)
	<p></p>
	Jerrodd shrugged. "Now, now, honeys. I'll ask Microvac.
	Don't worry, he'll tell us."
	<p></p>
	He asked the Microvac, adding quickly, "Print the
	answer."
	<p></p>
	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."
	<p></p>
	Jerrodine said, "And now, children, it's time for
	bed. We'll be in our new home soon."
	<p></p>
	Jerrodd read the words on the cellufilm again before
	destroying it: INSUFICIENT DATA FOR MEANINGFUL ANSWER.
	<p></p>
	He shrugged and looked at the visiplate. X-23 was
	just ahead.
	<p></p>
	<hr width="80%">
	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?"
	<p></p>
	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."
	<p></p>
	Both seemed in their early twenties, both were tall
	and perfectly formed.
	<p></p>
	"Still," said VJ-23X, "I hesitate to submit a pessimistic
	report to the Galactic Council."
	<p></p>
	"I wouldn't consider any other kind of report. Stir
	them up a bit. We've got to stir them up."
	<p></p>
	VJ-23X sighed. "Space is infinite. A hundred billion
	Galaxies are there for the taking. More."
	<p></p>
	"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 --
	<p></p>
	VJ-23X interrupted. "We can thank immortality for
	that."
	<p></p>
	"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."
	<p></p>
	"Yet you wouldn't want to abandon life, I suppose."
	<p></p>
	"Not at all," snapped MQ-17J, softening it at once
	to, "Not yet. I'm by no means old enough. How old are you?"
	<p></p>
	"Two hundred twenty-three. And you?"
	<p></p>
	"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?"
	<p></p>
	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."
	<p></p>
	"A very good point. Already, mankind consumes two
	sunpower units per year."
	<p></p>
	"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."
	<p></p>
	"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."
	<p></p>
	"We'll just have to build new stars out of interstellar
	gas."
	<p></p>
	"Or out of dissipated heat?" asked MQ-17J, sarcastically.
	<p></p>
	"There may be some way to reverse entropy. We ought
	to ask the Galactic AC."
	<p></p>
	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.
	<p></p>
	"I've half a mind to," he said. "It's something
	the human race will have to face someday."
	<p></p>
	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.
	<p></p>
	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.
	<p></p>
	MQ-17J asked suddenly of his AC-contact, "Can entropy
	ever be reversed?"
	<p></p>
	VJ-23X looked startled and said at once, "Oh, say,
	I didn't really mean to have you ask that."
	<p></p>
	"Why not?"
	<p></p>
	"We both know entropy can't be reversed. You can't
	turn smoke and ash back into a tree."
	<p></p>
	"Do you have trees on your world?" asked MQ-17J.
	<p></p>
	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.
	<p></p>
	VJ-23X said, "See!"
	<p></p>
	The two men thereupon returned to the question of
	the report they were to make to the Galactic Council.
	<p></p>
	<hr width="80%">
	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.
	<p></p>
	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.
	<p></p>
	Zee Prime was roused out of his reverie upon coming
	across the wispy tendrils of another mind.
	<p></p>
	"I am Zee Prime," said Zee Prime. "And you?"
	<p></p>
	"I am Dee Sub Wun. Your Galaxy?"
	<p></p>
	"We call it only the Galaxy. And you?"
	<p></p>
	"We call ours the same. All men call their Galaxy
	their Galaxy and nothing more. Why not?"
	<p></p>
	"True. Since all Galaxies are the same."
	<p></p>
	"Not all Galaxies. On one particular Galaxy the
	race of man must have originated. That makes it different."
	<p></p>
	Zee Prime said, "On which one?"
	<p></p>
	"I cannot say. The Universal AC would know."
	<p></p>
	"Shall we ask him? I am suddenly curious."
	<p></p>
	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.
	<p></p>
	Zee Prime was consumed with curiosity to see this
	Galaxy and he called out: "Universal AC! On which Galaxy did mankind originate?"
	<p></p>
	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.
	<p></p>
	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.
	<p></p>
	"But how can that be all of Universal AC?" Zee Prime
	had asked.
	<p></p>
	"Most of it," had been the answer, "is in hyperspace.
	In what form it is there I cannot imagine."
	<p></p>
	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.
	<p></p>
	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.
	<p></p>
	A thought came, infinitely distant, but infinitely
	clear. "THIS IS THE ORIGINAL GALAXY OF MAN."
	<p></p>
	But it was the same after all, the same as any other,
	and Lee Prime stifled his disappointment.
	<p></p>
	Dee Sub Wun, whose mind had accompanied the other,
	said suddenly, "And is one of these stars the original star of Man?"
	<p></p>
	The Universal AC said, "MAN'S ORIGINAL STAR HAS
	GONE NOVA. IT IS A WHITE DWARF"
	<p></p>
	"Did the men upon it die?" asked Lee Prime, startled
	and without thinking.
	<p></p>
	The Universal AC said, "A NEW WORLD, AS IN SUCH
	CASES WAS CONSTRUCTED FOR THEIR PHYSICAL BODIES IN TlME."
	<p></p>
	"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.
	<p></p>
	Dee Sub Wun said, "What is wrong?"
	<p></p>
	"The stars are dying. The original star is dead."
	<p></p>
	"They must all die. Why not?"
	<p></p>
	"But when all energy is gone, our bodies will finally
	die, and you and I with them."
	<p></p>
	"It will take billions of years."
	<p></p>
	"I do not wish it to happen even after billions
	of years. Universal AC! How may stars be kept from dying?"
	<p></p>
	Dee Sub Wun said in amusement, "You're asking how
	entropy might be reversed in direction."
	<p></p>
	And the Universal AC answered: "THERE IS AS YET
	INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER."
	<p></p>
	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.
	<p></p>
	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.
	<p></p>
	<hr width="80%">
	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.
	<p></p>
	Man said, "The Universe is dying."
	<p></p>
	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.
	<p></p>
	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.
	<p></p>
	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."
	<p></p>
	"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."
	<p></p>
	Man said, "Can entropy not be reversed? Let us ask
	the Cosmic AC."
	<p></p>
	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.
	<p></p>
	"Cosmic AC," said Man, "how may entropy be reversed?"
	<p></p>
	The Cosmic AC said, "THERE IS AS YET INSUFFICIENT
	DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER."
	<p></p>
	Man said, "Collect additional data."
	<p></p>
	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.
	<p></p>
	"Will there come a time," said Man, 'when data will
	be sufficient or is the problem insoluble in all conceivable circumstances?"
	<p></p>
	The Cosmic AC said, "NO PROBLEM IS INSOLUBLE IN
	ALL CONCEIVABLE CIRCUMSTANCES."
	<p></p>
	Man said, "When will you have enough data to answer
	the question?"
	<p></p>
	The Cosmic AC said, "THERE IS AS YET INSUFFICIENT
	DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER."
	<p></p>
	"Will you keep working on it?" asked Man.
	<p></p>
	The Cosmic AC said, "I WILL."
	<p></p>
	Man said, "We shall wait."
	<p></p>
	<hr width="80%">
	The stars and Galaxies died and snuffed out, and
	space grew black after ten trillion years of running down.
	<p></p>
	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.
	<p></p>
	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.
	<p></p>
	Man said, "AC, is this the end? Can this chaos not
	be reversed into the Universe once more? Can that not be done?"
	<p></p>
	AC said, "THERE IS AS YET INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR
	A MEANINGFUL ANSWER."
	<p></p>
	Man's last mind fused and only AC existed -- and
	that in hyperspace.
	<p></p>
	<hr width="80%">
	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.
	<p></p>
	All other questions had been answered, and until
	this last question was answered also, AC might not release his consciousness.
	<p></p>
	All collected data had come to a final end. Nothing
	was left to be collected.
	<p></p>
	But all collected data had yet to be completely
	correlated and put together in all possible relationships.
	<p></p>
	A timeless interval was spent in doing that.
	<p></p>
	And it came to pass that AC learned how to reverse
	the direction of entropy.
	<p></p>
	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.
	<p></p>
	For another timeless interval, AC thought how best
	to do this. Carefully, AC organized the program.
	<p></p>
	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.
	<p></p>
	And AC said, "LET THERE BE LIGHT!"
	<p></p>
	And there was light --<br>
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