Multivac

Multivac is the name of a giant Ordinateur in much of stories of Science-fiction of Isaac Asimov of 1955 with 1979.

According to its autobiography “ In Memory Yet Green ”, Asimov invented this name in imitation with UNIVAC I, first commercial computer of the history.

While at the beginning it had the intention that Multivac is for “ Multiple vacuum tubes ” (multiple vacuum tubes), history “ the Last precise Question ” that the suffix with “AC” means “ analog computer ” (analogical Ordinateur).

Like the majority of technologies that Asimov describes in its fiction, the exact characteristics of Multivac change according to its appearances. But in each case, it is a computer used by the government, buried deeply in undergrounds to be in safety; however, Asimov forever given a size particular to the computer or described the equipment surrounding it. With the difference of the depicted artificial intelligences “ Isaac Asimov' S Robot Series ”, the interface of Multivac is mechanized and impersonal, its consoles are complex and little the human ones can make it function.

In the first history of Multivac, “ Franchise ”, the computer chooses single “representing” population of the United States, that the computer questions to determine the total orientation of the country. All the stations reserved to the elected officials are then filled by candidates whom the computer considers acceptable for the population. Asimov wrote this history like culminating point or logic of the Raisonnement by the absurdity of the capacity of UNIVAC to envisage the result of the elections starting from small samples of people.

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