A great many things are possible.” And to himself he added: But not practical. - Isaac Asimov

The sum of human knowing is beyond any one man; any thousand men. With the destruction of our social fabric, science will be broken into a million pieces. Individuals will know much of the exceedingly tiny facets of which there is to know. They will be helpless and useless by themselves. The bits of lore, meaningless, will not be passed on. They will be lost through the generations. But, if we now prepare a giant summary of all knowledge, it will never be lost. Coming generations will build on it, and will not have to rediscover it for themselves. One millennium will do the work of thirty thousand.

Since the forthcoming write-up of my Ph.D. dissertation was much in my mind, it was the work of a moment to begin a solemn dissertation containing all the stigmata of academic turgidity about a substance which dissolved in water 1.12 seconds before you added the water.

¡Imagíneselo! Es un mundo del tamaño de un pañuelo, de una uña, con recursos tan escasos, un poder tan pequeño y una población tan microscópica [...] Y, pese a ello, es un pueblo tan altivo y ambicioso que sueña tranquila y metódicamente con el gobierno galáctico. ¡Caramba!, están tan seguros de sí mismos que ni siquiera tienen prisa. Se mueven lenta y flemáticamente, hablan de siglos necesarios. Se tragan mundos a placer y se internan en sistemas con morosa complacencia. Y tienen éxito. Nadie puede detenerles.