For anyone who has not read Isaac Asimov's "The Last Question."
Go. Here. Now. And READ it! It's a very short story.
And yes, it's sci-fi. But my opinion is that even someone who is not a sci-fi fan will be impacted by the story (don't want to say more). So if you are not into sci-fi, try to get "over it" and read through the story to the end. It really is short.
If you do read it (or have read it in the past), I'd love to here what you think of it. If you aren't a sci-fi fan and you read it, I'd also like to know that and how you liked it.
I've been carrying this story around in xerox form for about 20 years. Every year or so I used to hand it out to folks saying--Hey, Read THIS!
Since the INTERNETZ, I no longer have to xerox. I just send the link.
Note the Asimov comment excerpt at the beginning of the link. Years after I first heard the story (I heard it recited first), I picked up a book of Asimov short stories to read while in college. Asimov had written an intro to each story. At the beginning of this story he wrote:
It is a curious fact that innumerable readers have asked me if I wrote this story. They seem never to remember the title of the story or (for sure) the author, except for the vague thought it might be me. But, of course, they never forget the story itself especially the ending. The idea seems to drown out everything -- and I'm satisfied that it should.
This was EXACTLY my experience. As soon as I read that intro, I KNEW I had found the story I was always trying to remember the name of.