The Last Question

Isaac Asimov
November 1956
The last question was asked for the rst time, half in jest, on May 21, 2061, at a
time when humanity rst stepped into the light. The question came about as a result of
a ve-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, ashing
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 rm 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 supercially, 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 Multivacs.
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, Earths poor resources could
not support the ships. Too much energy was needed for the long trips. Earth exploited
its coal and uranium with increasing eciency, 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 o its burning coal, its ssioning uranium, and ipped 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 suced to dim the glory of it and Adell and Lupov nally ma-
naged 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 conten-
ted 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.
Its 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.
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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.
Thats not forever.
All right, then. Billions and billions of years. Ten billion, maybe. Are you satised?
Lupov put his ngers through his thinning hair as though to reassure himself that some
was still left and sipped gently at his own drink. Ten billion years isnt forever.
Well, it will last our time, wont 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
cant do that on coal and uranium. Ask Multivac, if you dont believe me.
I dont have to ask Multivac. I know that.
Then stop running down what Multivacs done for us, said Adell, blazing up, It did
all right.
Who says it didnt? What I say is that a sun wont last forever. Thats all Im say-
ing. Were safe for ten billion years, but then what? Lupow pointed a slightly shaky
nger at the other. And dont say well switch to another sun.
There was silence for a while. Adell put his glass to his lips only occasionally, and
Lupovs eyes slowly closed. They rested.
Then Lupovs eyes snapped open. Youre thinking well switch to another sun when
ours is done, arent you?
Im not thinking.
Sure you are. Youre weak on logic, thats the trouble with you. Youre 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 wasnt worried, you see, because he gured when one tree got wet
through, he would just get under another one.
I get it, said Adell. Dont 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 cos-
mic explosion, whatever that was, and itll all have an end when all the stars run down.
Some run down faster than others. Hell, the giants wont last a hundred million years.
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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, thats 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 everythings got to run down someday.
All right. Who says they wont?
You did, you poor sap. You said we had all the energy we needed, forever. You said
forever.
It was Adells 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 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 entro-
py of the universe be massively decreased?
Multivac fell dead and silent. The slow ashing 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.
3
By next morning, the two, plagued with throbbing head and cottony mouth, had for-
gotten the incident.

Jerrodd, Jerrodine, and Jerrodette I and II watched the starry picture in the visi-
plate 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.
Thats X-23, said Jerrodd condently. His thin hands clamped tightly behind his back
and the knuckles whitened.
The little Jerrodettes, both girls, had experienced the hyperspace passage for the rst
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,
Weve reached X-23 weve reached X-23 weve
Quiet, children. said Jerrodine sharply. Are you sure, Jerrodd?
What is there to be but sure? asked Jerrodd, glancing up at the bulge of feature-
less 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 cal-
led 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.
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.
Jerrodines eyes were moist as she watched the visiplate. I cant help it. I feel fun-
ny about leaving Earth.
Why, for Petes sake? demanded Jerrodd. We had nothing there. Well have ever-
ything on X-23. You wont be alone. You wont 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 reective pause, I tell you, its
a lucky thing the computers worked out interstellar travel the way the race is growing.
I know, I know, said Jerrodine miserably.
4
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 fathers 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 renement. 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
rst tamed the Sun, and almost as complicated as Earths Planetary AC (the largest)
that had rst 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 billi-
ons of years. Many billions. Even the stars run down, you know. Entropy must increase.
Whats 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, remem-
ber?
Cant you just put in a new power-unit, like with my robot?
The stars are the power-units. dear. Once theyre gone, there are no more power- units.
Jerrodette I at once set up a howl. Dont let them, daddy. Dont let the stars run down.
Now look what youve 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.)
Jerrodd shrugged. Now, now, honeys. Ill ask Microvac. Dont worry, hell tell us.
5
He asked the Microvac, adding quickly, Print the answer.
Jerrodd cupped the strip or thin cellulm and said cheerfully, See now, the Micro-
vac says it will take care of everything when the time comes so dont worry.
Jerrodine said, And now, children, its time for bed. Well be in our new home soon.
Jerrodd read the words on the cellulm again before destroying it: INSUFICIENT DA-
TA FOR 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 lled
in ve 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 Coun-
cil.
I wouldnt consider any other kind of report. Stir them up a bit. Weve got to stir
them up.
VJ-23X sighed. Space is innite. A hundred billion Galaxies are there for the taking.
More.
A hundred billion is not innite and its getting less innite all the time. Consider!
Twenty thousand years ago, mankind rst solved the problem of utilizing stellar energy,
and a few centuries later, interstellar travel became possible. It took mankind a million
years to ll one small world and then only fteen thousand years to ll 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 problem of preventing old age and death, it has undone all its other solutions.
Yet you wouldnt want to abandon life, I suppose.
6
Not at all, snapped MQ-17J, softening it at once to, Not yet. Im by no means old
enough. How old are you?
Two hundred twenty-three. And you?
Im still under two hundred. But to get back to my point. Population doubles eve-
ry ten years. Once this GaIaxy is lled, well have lled another in ten years. Another
ten years and well have lled two more. Another decade, four more. In a hundred years,
well have lled 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, theres 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 its 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 eciency, we only stave o the end. Our
energy requirements are going up in a geometric progression even faster than our popu-
lation. Well run out of energy even sooner than we run out of Galaxies. A good point.
A very good point.
Well 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.
Ive half a mind to, he said. Its something the human race will have to face so-
meday.
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 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.
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MQ-17J asked suddenly of his AC-contact, Can entropy ever be reversed?
VJ-23X looked startled and said at once, Oh, say, I didnt really mean to have you
ask that.
Why not?
We both know entropy cant be reversed. You cant 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 be-
autiful 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 Primes 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.
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Not all Galaxies. On one particular Galaxy the race of man must have originated.
That makes it dierent.
Zee Prime said, On which one?
I cannot say. The Universal AC would know.
Shall we ask him? I am suddenly curious.
Zee Primes perceptions broadened until the Galaxies themselves shrank and became
a new, more diuse powdering on a much larger background. So many hundreds of billi-
ons 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.
Zee Prime was consumed with curiosity to see this Galaxy and he called out: Uni-
versal AC! On which Galaxy did mankind originate?
The Universal AC heard, for on every world and throughout space, it had its recep-
tors ready, and each receptor led 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 distan-
ce of Universal AC, and he reported only a shining globe, two feet across, dicult 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 can-
not 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 con-
structed 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 Primes wandering thoughts, not with words, but
with guidance. Zee Primes mentality was guided into the dim sea of Galaxies and one
in particular enlarged into stars.
A thought came, innitely distant, but innitely clear. THIS IS THE ORIGINAL GA-
LAXY OF MAN.
9
But it was the same after all, the same as any other, and Lee Prime stied his dis-
appointment.
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, MANS ORIGINAL STAR HAS GONE NOVA. IT IS A WHI-
TE DWARF
Did the men upon it die? asked Lee Prime, startled and without thinking.
The Universal AC said, A NEW WORLD, AS IN SUCH CASES WAS CONSTRUC-
TED FOR THEIR PHYSICAL BODIES IN TlME.
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 nally 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, Youre asking how entropy might be reversed in
direction.
And the Universal AC answered: THERE IS AS YET INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A
MEANINGFUL ANSWER.
Zee Primes thoughts ed 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.
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
10
a trillion, trillion, trillion ageless bodies, each in its place, each resting quiet and incor-
ruptible, 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 forever 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 in 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 MEA-
NINGFUL ANSWER.
Man said, Collect additional data.
The Cosmic AC said, I WILL DO S0. I HAVE BEEN DOING SO FOR A HUN-
DRED BILLION YEARS. MY PREDECESORS AND I HAVE BEEN ASKED THIS
QUESTION MANY TlMES. ALL THE DATA I HAVE REMAINS INSUFFICIENT.
Will there come a time, said Man, when data will be sucient or is the problem
insoluble in all conceivable circumstances?
The Cosmic AC said, NO PROBLEM IS INSOLUBLE IN ALL CONCEIVABLE CIR-
CUMSTANCES.
11
Man said, When will you have enough data to answer the question?
The Cosmic AC said, THERE IS AS YET INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEA-
NINGFUL 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 snued 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.
Mans 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 ANS-
WER.

Mans 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- drun-
ken 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.
All other questions had been answered, and until this last question was answered al-
so, AC might not release his consciousness.
All collected data had come to a nal end. Nothing was left to be collected. But all
collected data had yet to be completely correlated and put together in all possible rela-
tionships.
A timeless interval was spent in doing that.
And it came to pass that AC learned how to reverse the direction of entropy.
12
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 orga-
nized 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
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