elected offices are then filled by the candidates the computer calculates as acceptable to the populace. Asimov wrote this story as the logical culmination – and/or possibly the reductio ad absurdum – of UNIVAC's ability to forecast election results from small samples. In possibly the most famous Multivac story, "The Last Question", two slightly drunken technicians ask Multivac if humanity can reverse the increase of entropy. Multivac fails, displaying the error message "INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR MEANINGFUL ANSWER". The story continues through many iterations of computer technology, each more powerful and ethereal than the last. Each of these computers is asked the question, and each returns the same response until finally the universe dies. At that point Multivac's final successor, the Cosmic AC (which exists entirely in hyperspace) has collected all the data it can, and so poses the question to itself. As the universe died, Cosmic AC drew all of humanity into hyperspace in order to preserve them until it could finally answer the Last Question. Ultimately, Cosmic AC did decipher the answer, announcing "Let there be light!" and essentially ascending to the state of the God of the Old Testament. Asimov claimed this to be the favorite of his stories. In "All the Troubles of the World", the version of Multivac depicted reveals a very unexpected problem. Having had the weight of the whole of humanity's problems on its figurative shoulders for ages it has grown tired, and it sets plans in motion to cause its own death. Significance Asimov's depiction of Multivac has been seen as the defining conceptualization of the genre of computers for the period, just as his development of robots defined a subsequent generation of thinking machines, and Multivac has been described as the direct ancestor of HAL 9000. Though the technology initially depended on bulky vacuum tubes, the concept – that all information could be contained on computer(s) and accessed from a domestic terminal – constitutes an early reference to the possibility of the Internet (as in "Anniversary"). Multivac has been considered within the context of public access information systems and used in teaching computer science, as well as with regard to the nature of an electoral democracy, as its influence over global democracy and the directed economy increased ("Franchise"). Asimov stories featuring Multivac have also been taught in literature classes. In AI control terms, Multivac has been described as both an 'oracle' and