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"We'd have most of what we predicted of the conquest of space, if we hadn't ignored parasite control."
- Larry Niven
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| Supercalculator | ||
| Connecting all the computing machines of the universe! |
Well, nobody ever accused science fiction writers of thinking small...
| He straightened and nodded to Dwar Reyn, then moved to a position beside the switch that would complete the contact when he threw it. The switch that would connect, all at once, all of the monster computing machines of all the populated planets in the universe—ninety-six billion planets—into the supercircuit that would connect them all into one supercalculator, one cybernetics machine that would combine all the knowledge of all the galaxies.Dwar Reyn spoke briefly to the watching and listening trillions. Then after a moment’s silence he said, “Now, Dwar Ev.”Dwar Ev threw the switch. There was a mighty hum, the surge of power from ninety-six billion planets. Lights flashed and quieted along the miles-long panel. |
| Technovelgy from Answer,
by Frederic Brown. Published by Dutton in 1954 Additional resources -
|
Thanks to @SFFaudio, here's a brief clip of Michael Crichton describing the Turing test, and Chuck Heston giving away the ending of this very short story.
Michael Crichton talking about ai - then Charlton Heston recounts the end of ANSWER by Fredric Brown pic.twitter.com/wTAmu0L4HX
— SFFaudio (@SFFAudio) May 17, 2026
Compare to metal calculator planet from Limiting Factor (1949) by Clifford Simak and gigagnostotron from The Cyberiad: Fables for the Cybernetic Age (1965) by Stanislaw Lem.
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Additional
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More Ideas
and Technology from Answer
More Ideas
and Technology by Frederic Brown
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Tech news articles related to works by Frederic Brown
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'Drake was the young spatial engineer he employed to terraform the little rock...'
'It diverts integers of the data, the fundamental message-units, so that they no longer agree.'
'Clothes are no longer made from dead fibers of fixed color and texture that can approximate only crudely to the vagrant human figure...'
'Books were just a commodity that had to be produced, like jam or bootlaces.'
'...it rears and spreads its fan. It can pick one man out of a crowd.'
