Isaac asimov profession pdf

Internet Archive's 25th Anniversary Logo. Search icon An illustration of a magnifying glass. User icon An illustration of a person's head and chest. Sign up Log in. Web icon An illustration of a computer application window Wayback Machine Texts icon An illustration of an open book. Books Video icon An illustration of two cells of a film strip.

Five dollars says it cant 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. If you too are an Asimov fan then you will probably enjoy this story. It is written in classic Asimov style: lots of dialog, with few details and it tackles a very interesting question.

The good: A classic Asimov short story from the Golden Age of science fiction! It is broken up into seven tiny stories about people who eventually ask Multivac the same question this makes the story really easy to read. Personally I loved seeing Asimovs predictions of the future of computing we still have huge room sized mainframes in the year !

Woo hoo! The bad: This is a thinking story there is not much if any action in it. It consists almost entirely of dialog just lots of people speculating about the end of the universe. It was written in so there are some quaint notions of computing like the future computer that still prints out answers on a teletype! Fact Sheet: Page count: It addresses the ultimate question and what I believe gives the very meaning to our existence.

While at the moment my mind is full of philosophy about human existence etc I will avoid going tangential. Summary of the Story Coming back to this story, it basically starts off with a question to which no one has an answer i.

Can entropy be reversed? This question is posed to a super computer called Multivac which is the first true super computer with its own consciousness of sorts: Multivac was self-adjusting and self-correcting.

I mean please read the story to get a sense; its very tough for me to explain this : However even after all those evolutions; the main computer called AC at the last stage of the story is unable to find an answer to the question. For trillions of years the computer continues to collect data and try to solve this problem but is unable to do so. Man said, Collect additional data.

Will there come a time, said Man, when data will be sufficient or is the problem insoluble in all conceivable circumstances? Man said, When will you have enough data to answer the question?

Will you keep working on it? Man said, We shall wait. Long after all humanity is gone due to exhaustion of all energy in the universe, the Cosmic AC continues to process data to find answer to this question. It finally finds an answer and then decides to demonstrate the solution as there was no human left to give the solution to. It says Let there be light According to Christianity, Let there be light are the words uttered by God after which Universe came into being or let me say what I want to say: Big bang occurred and the natural processes unfolded and formed what we know and can see today What intrigues me?

Firstly any association of science and religion is something that I always find very interesting to read. And when its done by a master like Isaac Asimov, I have to write about it : Secondly it is very intriguing to read about various sci-fi concepts that are discussed in this story.

Let me explain these and my thoughts about it by quoting from the story. Minds, not bodies! The immortal bodies remained back on the planets, in suspension over the eons. It instantly reminded me of two things: 1.

Matrix: In this Hollywood blockbuster, most of the humans are plugged into the matrix and their bodies are actually immaterial. It is the prime program and the role of the mind in the simulated world that matters.

Bhagavad Gita: In Gita, Lord Krishna says that the loss of material bodies is not worthy of grief and one should not allow it to inhibit ones performance of duty. It is the soul that matters the most and the soul is eternal, indestructible and insoluble. Well this is not to say that they borrowed from each other. I really dont know about that. I am only trying to connect things in my mind.

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.

Again it obviously reminds me of Matrix where the human bodies are fused with a main computer that simulates the virtual world for the human minds while drawing power from their bodies An interesting symbiotic relationship which is certainly beneficial for both the parties. Machines get access to a virtually unlimited source of power while Humans are saved from their own selfdestructive nature and get to survive as a race.

In the Virat Roop, the. He is responsible for the life, death, calamity, success, happiness, grief etc. Two cool points arise out of this: 1.

Matrixs main computer does the same kind of simulation that god claims to do for us in his discourse in Bhagavad Gita. In addition, the AC somehow derived its consciousness from the collective consciousness of the minds attached to it. Consider the excerpts below from the story based on which I have made the above-mentioned conclusions: 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. Zee Primes 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 Primes own.

It didnt matter. I might make additions to this post if I have any more thoughts and free time like I had today I thought out and wrote the whole thing in office coz there is no other work :P The Last Question is a short science fiction story written by Isaac Asimov in The good doctor considered this to be his best short story.

It tell several trillion years of human history and in the end it has one of the strongest endings of any science fiction story. Scale is one of the things that is often hard to get right in a story, as is trying to make anything that is not human a main character but Isaac Asimov is a master of science fiction and he was able to do both in one of the best of his science fiction stories the Last question in which the main character is effectively a super computer and the story extends over eons showing humans as transitory and ever changing species even as the computer continues to grow and improve.

The story begins with an idle question, one that came about because of a human discovery that would eliminate all energy problems so long as the sun existed. It was more or less a joke but the attendant asked how can you massively decrease the amount of entropy in the universe.. The computer it asks is the massive multi vac that is in so many of Asimovs stories that sometimes it feels like he assumes that will be the ultimate end for computers a lack of foresight that is not common for Asimov but this story proves that lack didnt actually exist as the story leaps forward each time with a new computer that is still in a way multi vac.

The only real problem in this story is the story that is common in a lot of Asimovs stories and a lot of older science fiction in general and that is that there is not a lot of strong characters in this story, but there really is no good way to have a good human character in a story that covers this much time and in some ways the character of multivac is better explained here than in any other story and the fantastic ideas and good endings makes up more than enough for that.

You dont have to have read any science fiction to understand and enjoy this story though it certainly doesnt hurt and if you do enjoy science fiction then you owe it to yourself to read this story because it is one of the best written stories in the genre Open navigation menu.

I really think I shouldn't try old days' science fiction books at all unless it's by Jules Verne. Dec 20, Kim rated it liked it. Thought provoking, as are all of Asimov's books. He poses some interesting questions about the nature and purpose of education which I, as a science teacher, can appreciate. The plot was prototypical Asimov, a morality story set in the future. Unfortunately, Profession suffers from an even more conspicuous sexism than many of Asimov's other works.

Other commenters here have complained that little of the setting seems to indicate a futuristic society, and I argue that the invisibility of women in Thought provoking, as are all of Asimov's books.

Other commenters here have complained that little of the setting seems to indicate a futuristic society, and I argue that the invisibility of women in this book is another symptom of that problem. I know, I know, the book was written in the s and all, but Asimov seems to go out of his way to exclude women from the story with phrases like "tape-Educated man" and "a hometown boy to cheer for.

Surely, even in , Asimov knew enough intelligent women to assume that, thousands of years in the future, we might deserve at least one named character in a book about men? Nov 14, Oleksandr Valetsky rated it it was amazing. Great novel. The fact it was written half of a century ago makes it even greater. The problem of education and choosing profession which Asimov arose at that time only became more pressing nowadays. Being a part-time instructor in university I can relate to that - every day i see youth that doesn't know what they want to do in their life and study mainly because parents made them or it's just "common" in modern society standards.

Majority of them would love to have a button or tape like in nove Great novel. Majority of them would love to have a button or tape like in novel that will provide them all needed knowledge to earn money and get some level of certainty in their lives. Without thinking. Without creating something new, they would love to be just another brick in the wall. That's sad. Especially regarding current level of technology and development pace that soon can enable such possibility.

Science fiction writers have 3 very big problems. One is to write a good and compelling story. The second one, and often the defining one, is to choose a very, very specific setting for it. It has to be in a place and time we can relate to, that we have a reference for. The social structures, the characters must seem as human as possible, for then it is possible to present the ordinary as extraordinary, and this generates great pleasure with the readers.

And finally, the combination of story and s Science fiction writers have 3 very big problems. And finally, the combination of story and setting must be believably possible. This is the source of which all great science fiction writers draw stories from. It is entirely possible that me becoming a software engineer was inspired by this very story.

Jan 03, Hemant Jain rated it it was amazing. So what happens when the results of seemingly smart guys tell that he can not be educated??? What follows this finding is the boy's journey of discovering himself and the the true nature of his 'problem'. A superb piece of work by Asimov. As i read story after story by Asimov, I am surprised and startled at Asimov's thought process and his ability to raise fundamental questions and make us, force us to THINK under the disguise of sci-fi short stories.

Super Awesome!! Aug 14, Laurence rated it really liked it Shelves: makes-you-think , science-fiction , classics. Had to read this short story for an English class.

The theme fit with our major, so I can see why the teacher chose it. I was a bit nonplussed by the beginning and all the info about tapes and machines and so on, but then when the "twist" I don't want to say twist because it was easy to guess but I still didn't see it coming because my brain is smooth happened I was much more interested.

However I'm afraid I'm one of the "buy the new tape and follow the trends" type of person. Feb 20, Kakha rated it it was amazing. This is cute, by the way, the expressive story of my favorite author. It fascinatingly describes some of the events that occur may well occur on earth after thousand years.

I was always fascinated by such stories; I have always been extremely interested in the vision of genius people-writers about how everything can be in such a distant future. SciFi story - People have discovered how to load knowledge to their brain digitally. Read in the s. Readers also enjoyed. Science Fiction. Short Stories. Science Fiction Fantasy. About Isaac Asimov. Isaac Asimov. Isaac Asimov was a Russian-born, American author, a professor of biochemistry, and a highly successful writer, best known for his works of science fiction and for his popular science books.

Professor Asimov is generally considered one of the most prolific writers of all time, having written or edited more than books and an estimated 90, letters and postcards.

He has works published in nine o Isaac Asimov was a Russian-born, American author, a professor of biochemistry, and a highly successful writer, best known for his works of science fiction and for his popular science books.

He has works published in nine of the ten major categories of the Dewey Decimal System lacking only an entry in the s category of Philosophy. Asimov is widely considered a master of the science-fiction genre and, along with Robert A. Heinlein and Arthur C. Clarke, was considered one of the "Big Three" science-fiction writers during his lifetime. Asimov's most famous work is the Foundation Series; his other major series are the Galactic Empire series and the Robot series, both of which he later tied into the same fictional universe as the Foundation Series to create a unified "future history" for his stories much like those pioneered by Robert A.

Heinlein and previously produced by Cordwainer Smith and Poul Anderson. He penned numerous short stories, among them "Nightfall", which in was voted by the Science Fiction Writers of America the best short science fiction story of all time, a title many still honor. He also wrote mysteries and fantasy, as well as a great amount of nonfiction. Asimov wrote the Lucky Starr series of juvenile science-fiction novels using the pen name Paul French.

Most of Asimov's popularized science books explain scientific concepts in a historical way, going as far back as possible to a time when the science in question was at its simplest stage. He often provides nationalities, birth dates, and death dates for the scientists he mentions, as well as etymologies and pronunciation guides for technical terms.

Asimov was a long-time member and Vice President of Mensa International, albeit reluctantly; he described some members of that organization as "brain-proud and aggressive about their IQs" He took more joy in being president of the American Humanist Association.

In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Books by Isaac Asimov. Related Articles. Need another excuse to treat yourself to a new book this week? We've got you covered with the buzziest new releases of the day. To create our Read more Trivia About Profession. No trivia or quizzes yet. Add some now ». Quotes from Profession. Welcome back.