Entropy - Interdisciplinary Applications of Entropy - Science Fiction About Entropy

Science Fiction About Entropy

"The Last Question"(1956) is a science fiction short story by Issac Asimov about the ability of humankind to cope with and potentially reverse the process of entropy.

In the story, people asks a super-computer named AC(Multivacs) again and again:" How can the net amount of entropy of the universe be massively decreased?" Each time AC's answer is:"INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER." In the last scene, humanity disappears; space and time cease to exist; the universe is already dead. However, AC somehow continues to ponder the question. Eventually, AC discovers the answer and decides to show it by demonstrating the reversal of entropy: "And AC said:"LET THERE BE LIGHT!" And there was light."

Read more about this topic:  Entropy, Interdisciplinary Applications of Entropy

Famous quotes containing the words science fiction, science, fiction and/or entropy:

    Everything is becoming science fiction. From the margins of an almost invisible literature has sprung the intact reality of the 20th century.
    —J.G. (James Graham)

    Imagination could hardly do without metaphor, for imagination is, literally, the moving around in one’s mind of images, and such images tend commonly to be metaphoric. Creative minds, as we know, are rich in images and metaphors, and this is true in science and art alike. The difference between scientist and artist has little to do with the ways of the creative imagination; everything to do with the manner of demonstration and verification of what has been seen or imagined.
    Robert A. Nisbet (b. 1913)

    ... if we can imagine the art of fiction come alive and standing in our midst, she would undoubtedly bid us to break her and bully her, as well as honour and love her, for so her youth is renewed and her sovereignty assured.
    Virginia Woolf (1882–1941)

    Just as the constant increase of entropy is the basic law of the universe, so it is the basic law of life to be ever more highly structured and to struggle against entropy.
    Václav Havel (b. 1936)