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All The Troubles Of The World
"All the Troubles of the World" is a science fiction short story by American writer Isaac Asimov. The story first appeared in the April 1958 issue of '' Super-Science Fiction'', and was reprinted in the 1959 collection '' Nine Tomorrows''. It is one of a loosely connected series of stories by Asimov concerning the fictional supercomputer Multivac. The story was adapted into a short movie in 1978. Multivac Multivac, the world's largest supercomputer A supercomputer is a computer with a high level of performance as compared to a general-purpose computer. The performance of a supercomputer is commonly measured in floating-point operations per second ( FLOPS) instead of million instructions ..., is given the responsibility of analyzing the entire sum of data on the planet Earth. It is used to determine solutions to economic, social and political problems, as well as more specific crises as they arise. It receives a precise set of data on every citizen of the world, ext ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Isaac Asimov
yi, יצחק אזימאװ , birth_date = , birth_place = Petrovichi, Russian SFSR , spouse = , relatives = , children = 2 , death_date = , death_place = Manhattan, New York City, U.S. , nationality = Russian (1920–1922)Soviet (1922–1928)American (1928–1992) , occupation = Writer, professor of biochemistry , years_active = 1939–1992 , genre = Science fiction (hard SF, social SF), mystery, popular science , subject = Popular science, science textbooks, essays, history, literary criticism , education = Columbia University ( BA, MA, PhD) , movement = Golden Age of Science Fiction , module = , signature = Isaac Asimov signature.svg Isaac Asimov ( ; 1920 – April 6, 1992) was an American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University. During his lifetime, Asimov was considered one of the "Big Three" science fiction writers, along with Robert A. Heinlein and Arthur C. Clarke. A prolific writer, he wrote or edited more than 500 books ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Short Story
A short story is a piece of prose fiction that typically can be read in one sitting and focuses on a self-contained incident or series of linked incidents, with the intent of evoking a single effect or mood. The short story is one of the oldest types of literature and has existed in the form of legends, mythic tales, folk tales, fairy tales, tall tales, fables and anecdotes in various ancient communities around the world. The modern short story developed in the early 19th century. Definition The short story is a crafted form in its own right. Short stories make use of plot, resonance, and other dynamic components as in a novel, but typically to a lesser degree. While the short story is largely distinct from the novel or novella/short novel, authors generally draw from a common pool of literary techniques. The short story is sometimes referred to as a genre. Determining what exactly defines a short story has been recurrently problematic. A classic definition of a short story ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Multivac Short Stories By Isaac Asimov
Multivac is the name of a fictional supercomputer appearing in over a dozen science fiction stories by American writer Isaac Asimov. Asimov's depiction of Multivac, a mainframe computer accessible by terminal, originally by specialists using machine code and later by any user, and used for directing the global economy and humanity's development, has been seen as the defining conceptualization of the genre of computers for the period (1950s–1960s). Multivac has been described as the direct ancestor of HAL 9000. Description Like most of the technologies Asimov describes in his fiction, Multivac's exact specifications vary among appearances. In all cases, it is a government-run computer that answers questions posed using natural language, and it is usually buried deep underground for security purposes. According to his autobiography ''In Memory Yet Green'', Asimov coined the name in imitation of UNIVAC, an early mainframe computer. Asimov had assumed the name "Univac" denoted a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Minority Report
"The Minority Report" is a 1956 science fiction novella by American writer Philip K. Dick, first published in ''Fantastic Universe''. In a future society, three mutants foresee all crime before it occurs. Plugged into a great machine, these " precogs" allow a division of the police called Precrime to arrest suspects before they can commit any actual crimes. When the head of Precrime, John Anderton, is himself predicted to murder a man whom he has never heard of, Anderton is convinced a great conspiracy is afoot. The story reflects many of Philip K. Dick's personal Cold War anxieties, particularly questioning the relationship between authoritarianism and individual autonomy. Like many stories dealing with knowledge of future events, "The Minority Report" questions the existence of free will. The title refers to the dissenting opinion of one of the precogs. In 2002, the story was adapted into a film directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Tom Cruise, Colin Farrell, Samantha Mo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sapience
Wisdom, sapience, or sagacity is the ability to contemplate and act using knowledge, experience, understanding, common sense and insight. Wisdom is associated with attributes such as unbiased judgment, compassion, experiential self-knowledge, self-transcendence and non-attachment, and virtues such as ethics and benevolence. Wisdom has been defined in many different ways, including several distinct approaches to assess the characteristics attributed to wisdom. Definitions The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' defines wisdom as "Capacity of judging rightly in matters relating to life and conduct; soundness of judgment in the choice of means and ends; sometimes, less strictly, sound sense, esp. in practical affairs: opp. to folly;" also "Knowledge (esp. of a high or abstruse kind); enlightenment, learning, erudition." Charles Haddon Spurgeon defined wisdom as "the right use of knowledge". Robert I. Sutton and Andrew Hargadon defined the "attitude of wisdom" as "acting with knowle ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Major Depressive Disorder
Major depressive disorder (MDD), also known as clinical depression, is a mental disorder characterized by at least two weeks of pervasive low mood, low self-esteem, and loss of interest or pleasure in normally enjoyable activities. Introduced by a group of US clinicians in the mid-1970s, the term was adopted by the American Psychiatric Association for this symptom cluster under mood disorders in the 1980 version of the ''Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders'' (DSM-III), and has become widely used since. The diagnosis of major depressive disorder is based on the person's reported experiences, behavior reported by relatives or friends, and a mental status examination. There is no laboratory test for the disorder, but testing may be done to rule out physical conditions that can cause similar symptoms. The most common time of onset is in a person's 20s, with females affected about twice as often as males. The course of the disorder varies widely, from one epis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Supercomputer
A supercomputer is a computer with a high level of performance as compared to a general-purpose computer. The performance of a supercomputer is commonly measured in floating-point operations per second ( FLOPS) instead of million instructions per second (MIPS). Since 2017, there have existed supercomputers which can perform over 1017 FLOPS (a hundred quadrillion FLOPS, 100 petaFLOPS or 100 PFLOPS). For comparison, a desktop computer has performance in the range of hundreds of gigaFLOPS (1011) to tens of teraFLOPS (1013). Since November 2017, all of the world's fastest 500 supercomputers run on Linux-based operating systems. Additional research is being conducted in the United States, the European Union, Taiwan, Japan, and China to build faster, more powerful and technologically superior exascale supercomputers. Supercomputers play an important role in the field of computational science, and are used for a wide range of computationally intensive tasks in var ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nine Tomorrows
''Nine Tomorrows'' is a collection of nine short stories and two pieces of comic verse by American writer Isaac Asimov. The pieces were all originally published in magazines between 1956 and 1958, with the exception of the closing poem, "Rejection Slips", which was original to the collection. The book was first published in the United States in 1959 and in the UK in 1963. It includes two of Asimov's favorite stories, "The Last Question" and "The Ugly Little Boy". ''Nine Tomorrows'' has been reprinted several times. The most recent publication appears to be a 1987 Del Rey reissue; . Contents *" I Just Make Them Up, See!", poem *"Profession", novella *"The Feeling of Power" *"The Dying Night", novelette, part of the '' Wendell Urth'' series *"I'm in Marsport Without Hilda" *"The Gentle Vultures" *"All the Troubles of the World", part of the ''Multivac'' series *"Spell My Name with an S" *"The Last Question", loosely part of the ''Multivac'' series *"The Ugly Little Boy", novelette ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Science Fiction
Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel universes, extraterrestrial life, sentient artificial intelligence, cybernetics, certain forms of immortality (like mind uploading), and the singularity. Science fiction predicted several existing inventions, such as the atomic bomb, robots, and borazon, whose names entirely match their fictional predecessors. In addition, science fiction might serve as an outlet to facilitate future scientific and technological innovations. Science fiction can trace its roots to ancient mythology. It is also related to fantasy, horror, and superhero fiction and contains many subgenres. Its exact definition has long been disputed among authors, critics, scholars, and readers. Science fiction, in literature, film, television, and other media, has beco ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Multivac
Multivac is the name of a fictional supercomputer appearing in over a dozen science fiction stories by American writer Isaac Asimov. Asimov's depiction of Multivac, a mainframe computer accessible by terminal, originally by specialists using machine code and later by any user, and used for directing the global economy and humanity's development, has been seen as the defining conceptualization of the genre of computers for the period (1950s–1960s). Multivac has been described as the direct ancestor of HAL 9000. Description Like most of the technologies Asimov describes in his fiction, Multivac's exact specifications vary among appearances. In all cases, it is a government-run computer that answers questions posed using natural language, and it is usually buried deep underground for security purposes. According to his autobiography ''In Memory Yet Green'', Asimov coined the name in imitation of UNIVAC, an early mainframe computer. Asimov had assumed the name "Univac" denoted a com ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anniversary (Asimov)
"Anniversary" is a science fiction short story by American writer Isaac Asimov. It was first published in the March 1959 issue of ''Amazing Stories'' and subsequently appeared in the collections ''Asimov's Mysteries'' (1968) and ''The Best of Isaac Asimov'' (1973). The story was written for the twentieth anniversary of Asimov's first published story, "Marooned off Vesta", in the March 1939 issue of ''Amazing''. The magazine reprinted the earlier story with the new one, and he feared that someone would write a letter stating that the earlier's writing was better, but no one did. The story is also part of a loosely connected series of stories by Asimov about the supercomputer Multivac. Plot summary Warren Moore and Mark Brandon are two of the three survivors of the wreck of the ''Silver Queen'' in the asteroid belt. Every year, they meet on the anniversary of the disaster to celebrate their survival. On the 20th anniversary, Brandon has a surprise: he appears at Moore's house w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jokester (Asimov)
"Jokester" is a science fiction short story by American writer Isaac Asimov. It first appeared in the December 1956 issue of ''Infinity Science Fiction'', and was reprinted in the collections ''Earth Is Room Enough'' (1957) and ''Robot Dreams'' (1986). It is one of a loosely connected series of stories concerning a fictional computer called Multivac. Plot summary Noel Meyerhof is a "Grand Master", one of a small cadre of Earth's recognised geniuses, who has the insight to know what questions to ask Multivac. But a computer scientist is concerned that Meyerhof is acting erratically. As a known joke-teller, he has been discovered feeding jokes and riddles into Multivac. By computer analysis, the characters in the story investigate the origin of humour, particularly why there seems to be no such thing as an original joke, except for puns. Every normal joke is something that was originally heard from someone else. The computer eventually tells them that humour is actually a psych ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
