Answer
By
Fredric Brown
Level: pre-intermediate and up
Dwar Ev made the final connection to the machine with a piece of golden cable. Many
television cameras watched him and sent pictures through the universe of what
he was doing.
He gave a sign to Dwar Reyn, then moved to a position next to the
button that would turn on the machine when he pressed it. The button that would
connect all of the supercomputers of all the planets in the universe—ninety-six
billion planets—into the super-link that would connect them all into one great
supercomputer, one machine that would combine all the knowledge of all the
galaxies.
Dwar Reyn spoke briefly to the trillions of people who were watching and listening.
Then after a silence he said, "Now, Dwar Ev."
Dwar Ev pressed the button. There was a loud sound, the great flow
of power from ninety-six billion planets. Lights flashed along the computer, which was as big as a city.
Dwar Ev stepped back and breathed deeply. "Dwar Reyn, you have the honor to ask the first question."
The great voice of the machine answered without pause, without any of its lights
flashing to calculate the answer.
A flash of lightning from the cloudless sky hit him and broke
the button, so that they could not turn off the computer.
Vocabulary: To help learners fully understand the audio
and transcript, most vocabulary that might be unknown for this lesson’s level
is provided. Vocab in bold is more useful for
learners at the lesson’s target level. Try to choose 8 to 10 new words to learn
from the story (in general, it’s best to try to learn no more than 8-10 new
words a day).
Definitions
are written with the help of various sources including Merriam-Webster’s Learner’s
Dictionary
Science fiction: stories
about how people and societies are affected by imaginary scientific
developments in the future.
Intelligence: the ability to learn or
understand things or to deal with new or difficult situations: smart.
Artificial intelligence: an area
of computer science that deals with giving machines the ability to have
intelligence.
To imagine: to think of or create
(something that is not real) in your mind.
Connection: something that joins or connects two or more things.
Golden: made of gold.
Universe: all of space and
everything in it including stars, planets, galaxies, etc.
Button: a small part of a machine
that you push to make the machine work.
To press: the act of pushing or
flattening something with your finger or hand or with a device (such as an
iron) — usually singular.
Galaxy: any one of the very large
groups of stars that make up the universe.
Flow: to move in a steady and
continuous way.
Pause: a temporary stop: a period
of time in which something is stopped before it is started again.
To flash: to appear quickly or
suddenly.
To calculate: to get a general idea
about the value, size, or cost of (something).
Suddenly: very quickly in usually
an unexpected way: in a sudden way.
To turn off: to stop the operation or
flow of (something) by pressing a button, moving a switch, etc.
Lightning: the flashes of light that
are produced in the sky during a storm.
Broke: past tense of ‘to break’: to
separate (something) into parts or pieces often in a sudden and forceful or
violent way.
Discussion Questions:
1.
Computers are getting more intelligent. What are the good and bad sides to
this?
2. Will
computers ever be able to be as intelligent or more than humans?
3. Do you
think a computer could ever become almost like a ‘god’, almost all knowing and
all powerful?
4. If a
computer could be created like the one in the story, what do you think it would
do and how would it act?
5. What
question would you ask the computer in the story?
