The Nine Billion Names of God

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This article is about short story. For short story collection, see The Nine Billion Names of God (collection).
"The Nine Billion Names of God"
Author Arthur C. Clarke
Country United Kingdom
Language English
Genre(s) Science fiction
Published in Star Science Fiction Stories No.1
Publication type anthology
Publication date 1953

"The Nine Billion Names of God" is a 1953 science fiction short story by Arthur C. Clarke. The story was the winner (in 2004) of the retrospective Hugo Award for Best Short Story for the year 1954.

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[edit] Plot summary

This short story tells of an Asian monastery whose monks have long sought to list all of their very numerous names for God. Centuries ago, the monks created a writing system in which, they calculated, they could encode all possible names of God in no more than nine characters each, according to a set of constraints. (For example, no word can have the same character repeating more than three times consecutively.) They expect the task to require fifteen thousand more years, if they continue to use their manual method, and they wish to conclude it more quickly with the aid of modern technology.

They purchase a computer capable of printing all the possible permutations, and they hire two Westerners to install and program the machine. The computer operators are skeptical, but the monks believe that when the computer has printed all the names, existence will lose all meaning, and God will "wind up" the universe.

The operators engage the computer. After three months, as the job nears completion, they fear the reaction of the monks when existence will fail to end. The men decide to flee the monastery some hours before the computer finishes its task. They know the monks won't bother to chase after them, because the computer is finishing its task automatically. After their successful escape, they pause on their way back to civilization at about the same time the computer prints the final name. They look back, and notice that "overhead, without any fuss, the stars were going out."

[edit] Publication history

  • 1967 - in Clarke, Arthur C. The Nine Billion Names of God: The Best Short Stories of Arthur C. Clarke. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1967.

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