The Last Question – Analysis

Point of View

We’ll start this analysis on a light note. The first question which should be asked about The Last Question is who could have narrated it. The story is written from a third person objective point of view. The only intelligence remaining in the universe at the end of the story was AC. However, AC can’t be the narrator as by literary convention the point of view should have switched to first person when it became a character in the story.

This raises the intriguing possibility that the narrator is from the new universe created by AC, and that some form of knowledge transfer has taken place from AC. The transferred knowledge could either be the story itself, handed down over the various generations of computer, or the secret of reversing entropy. The latter seems more appealing to me as, for some reason beyond my scientific understanding, the ability to reverse entropy is said to be one of the prerequisites for time travel.

Plot

The story takes place over a period of more than ten trillion years, commencing in 2061. With a content of just under 4,500 words, that’s about 2.2 billion years per word! The best way to analyze the plot is to consider it in terms of the different generations of computer that were asked ‘the last question’.

Multivac: The first time the question about entropy is raised is on (or actually in a room deep under) Earth. It is asked of Multivac, at that time the world’s most advanced computer. At this point Multivac is reliant on human technicians for some of its functionality, while mankind can function (albeit not quite as efficiently) independently of Multivac. The question is posed by one of Multivac’s technicians, Alexander Adell, to settle a bet made with another technician during a drinking session.

Microvac: As mankind’s growing population leads to the settlement of other planets, larger and enhanced versions of Multivac (called Planetary ACs) are developed and located throughout the Milky Way. A game changing event occurs when scientists discover how to replace electric computer relays with molecular ones. This allows for a new generation of computer (called Microvacs) which are almost as powerful as Planetary ACs but small enough to be installed on a spaceship. Microvacs can function without human support, but mankind is reliant on Microvacs for space travel. The second person to ask the question is Jerrodd, a settler traveling from Earth to the planet X-26. The question is asked on behalf of his young children, whose concerns are raised when they overhear their parents talking about entropy.

Galctic AC: This period marks two profound changes: 1) from this point on, mankind achieves various forms of immortality; and 2) all communication now takes place through one central computer. Molecular relays have been replaced with more efficient ones that use sub-atomic particles. A powerful new computer, Galactic AC, now serves all mankind by communicating through hyperspace to small contact boxes measuring only two cubic inches. Two scientists, VJ-23X and MQ-17J, are traveling on a spaceship. The Milky Way will be fully settled in 5 years, and they are on a mission to prepare a report for the Galactic Council on population growth solutions. The Galctic AC can function without human support, but mankind is now reliant on The Galactic AC for its very survival. The scientists are concerned about the exponential energy needs of relocating large numbers of people to other galaxies, which prompts MQ-17J to ask the entropy question for the third time.

Universal AC: The central computer, now named Universal AC, has evolved to the point where most of it is located in hyperspace. Mankind has also evolved: his mind can exist outside his body. People’s bodies are kept in suspension on their home planets and their minds are free to drift about through space. Zee Prime and Dee Sub Wun are “mind travelers” from different galaxies who come across each other in the void. When they learn from Universal AC that the original star of man (the Sun) is now nothing more than a white dwarf, Zee Prime asks the final question in a different way: Universal AC! How may stars be kept from dying?.

Cosmic AC: The computer has gone “cosmic”. It now exists totally in hyperspace and is said to be made of something that is neither matter nor energy. We also encounter “Man”, a collective being created through the joining of countless individual minds. Man can see that almost all stars are now white dwarfs and the universe is dying.

AC: Cosmic AC is now just AC. As the universe dies and men’s bodies die with it, the minds that make up Man fuse with AC one by one. When the last mind asks the last question for the last time, AC still does not have an answer. By the time AC finally comes up with what it thinks is the answer, there is no one left to discuss it with. AC decides to demonstrate, but unfortunately the fact that there is light after AC’s proclamation: “LET THERE BE LIGHT!” does not prove that entropy can be reversed. What it does show however is that once entropy has run its course, all life is gone, and the universe is in chaos, it is possible to start the whole process over again.

Themes: Computers; Existence; the Future; Immortality; the Universe.

Characters

The Last Question is very unusual for a story of its size in that there is almost no individual character development. This is because it is the plot that makes the story, not the people in it.

Adell and Lupov: dutiful Multivac technicians. We spend more time with these men than any other character group. Their friendship and individuality are emphasized through the silly banter about entropy while sharing a few drinks. However, they feel no real concern for or passion about entropy. For them, as with most of us, the end of the universe is too far away to be worried about.

Jerrodd & Family: excitedly traveling through space to help settle a new planet in the Milky Way. Earth appears to have come up with a new naming system where whole families take on derivatives of the patriarch’s name. This may indicate a shift to where the family is now regarded as the basic reference point in society. The children don’t understand their parent’s conversation about entropy. However, in their innocence they see that the end of the universe will be a rather bad thing, no matter how far into the future it takes place.

VJ-23X and MQ-17J: traveling through space, reluctantly preparing a report on population growth solutions they know won’t please the Galactic Council. The naming system has changed again to a code number followed by the person’s planet of origin. This suggests that the basic social reference point is now the planet. Thanks to Galactic AC, mankind has now achieved immortality. This has had two consequences: 1) a surge in population; and 2) realization that an answer to the last question is now critically important to everybody. We can sense the frustration on the part of the two men when VJ-23X concludes: We’ll just have to build new stars out of interstellar gas.

The section ends on a comic note where VJ-23X, in trying to give a simple example of entropy, says: We both know entropy can’t be reversed. You can’t turn smoke and ash back into a tree. MQ-17J, who is from a different planet, responds (one hopes sarcastically): Do you have trees on your world?

Zee Prime and Dee Sub Wun: mind travelers drifting through space while their bodies are cared for by robots on their home planets. Names are back, and the social reference point now appears to be the home galaxy. Mankind no longer has to work or contribute to society, so there is no apparent social structure. With nothing to do for the rest of eternity this would be a lonely, boring existence. I’m not sure if Asimov intended it, but it seems like an even worse life than that of the immortal ‘struldbrugs’ in the classic novel Gulliver’s Travels. Even so, Zee Prime shows an increasing desperation to solve the entropy problem, which is exacerbated when he learns that the original star of man (the Sun) has gone Nova. When Universal AC gives his usual qualified response, Zee Prime decides to follow the path suggested by VJ-23X millions of years before and we are left with this pathetic scene:

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: Mankind’s minds have now become one in Man. Other than Cosmic AC, Man is now the only sources of independent thinking left in the universe. When Man gets the usual answer about entropy from Cosmic AC, he has the presence of mind to ask another question: Will there come a time when data will be sufficient, or is the problem insoluble in all conceivable circumstances? Cosmic AC’s encouraging answer: No problem is insoluble in all conceivable circumstances! Eventually, the bodies of those that make up Man begin to die as the stars around them burn out. Their minds are released from Man and fuse with AC.

The Future

The Last Question follows three threads over a period of ten trillion years: 1) entropy, considered in Asimov’s time to be an irreversible progression from order to disorder; 2) mankind, which evolved from a social structure made up of independent, free thinking beings capable of solving many of their own problems to a ‘blob’ made up of trillions of minds thinking as one; and 3) computers, which went from being controlled by mankind to being in control of and potentially saving mankind.

At the end of the story we learn that ‘the last question’ was perhaps the ‘wrong question’. Entropy wasn’t reversed, breaking a supposed basic law of nature, but ‘renewed’ in an explosion of light. Rather than being a one-way journey to oblivion with no turning back, Asimov paints entropy as a circular route which leads back to a beginning, from where it is possible to start over again. With the rebirth of the universe will come the rebirth of mankind and all that comes with it, including computers. Once this point is understood, one might be inclined to ask: In which universe does/did the story take place? Is it ours or the one that came before it?

And what might the future hold for AC, sitting alone in hyperspace along with the trillions of human minds that had fused with it. We are told in the story that AC “might not” release its consciousness until ‘the last question’ is answered. It seems illogical that AC would have taken on this load of humanity if it was planning to simply shut itself down at some point. As long as AC remains safely in hyperspace it will have the potential to renew entropy over and over for eons, improving itself and becoming more powerful with each passing universe. Could AC have decided that the heightened understanding of human nature that will come from all these minds may be beneficial to some future plan?