The Feeling of Power
by Isaac Asimov · first published 1988
20% recommend77% neutral3% critical
Why HN recommends it
A short science fiction story about a future where people have forgotten basic arithmetic, told as a social drama of a society drifting into ignorance. A quick, thought-provoking read on mental math and lost skills.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
Short story
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"The Feeling of Power", by Isaac Asimov. In this story, humans have forgotten how to do basic math, except for one man, who regards it as a hobby. edit: http://john.regehr.org/reading_list/power.html
on “Ask HN: Whats your favorite Sci-Fi short story?” ↗I don't know what age range "grade school" is, but I remember being taught that method when I was about 7 or 8, although it didn't really "land" properly until I read the short story "The Feeling of Power" by Isaac Asimov. What I'm surprised to see left out here (unless I missed it in the page's horrible formatting) is a mention of the way that computers multiply two integers. They use a technique I saw…
on “Mathematicians still don't know the fastest way to multiply numbers” ↗Arguably The Nine Billion Names of God by Arthur C. Clarke. Feeling of Power by Asimov probably also fits in the vein. I fid it interesting that Chiang ends up in so many recent short story lists. It seems as if there are fewer recent short stories that stack up well with all-time…
…arithmetic is important in a world in which calculators are ubiquitous but rote learning does help give you that ability even if you don't understand deeper mathematical concepts. Asimov's short story "A Feeling of Power" is a fun read by the way. Rote learning also has a role in things like language vocabulary but in that case there are certainly differing approaches to developing language skills. My understanding is…
on “Just teach my kid the math” ↗Your comment very much reminds me of the Isaac Asimov story "The Feeling of Power" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Feeling_of_Power). I think it might be worth the time read or, in my case, re-read it.
on “The AI revolution already transforming education” ↗It's hard to explain without spoilers, but Isaac Asimov's The Feeling of Power (1958) is relevant to this concept of warfare.
on “Ukrainian Drone Holds Position for 6 Weeks” ↗See also The Profession by Isaac Asimov [0] and his small story The Feeling of Power [1]. Both are social dramas about societies that went far down the path of ignorance. [0] http://employees.oneonta.edu/blechmjb/JBpages/m360/Professio... [1] https://s3.us-west-1.wasabisys.com/luminist/EB/A/Asimov%20-%...
on “The threat is comfortable drift toward not understanding what you're doing” ↗Sounds like the first step towards the world described by Issac Asimov in "The Feeling of Power": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Feeling_of_Power
on “Asian-Americans fight back against school discrimination” ↗"The Feeling of Power" by Asimov feels like an appropriate mention here.
on “AI slays top F-16 pilot in DARPA dogfight simulation” ↗…fascinating to see in real life, how science-fiction style AI is becoming a reality, where nobody understands how machines produce their answer. Given a few more decades, I'm sure the Asimov short story - The Feeling of Power - will become culturally relevant.
on “Deep Learning’s Impact on Image Processing, Mathematics, and Humanity” ↗"The Feeling of Power" by Isaac Asimov also has a similar premise. It seems that the idea of forgetting basic mathematics due to computers was quite popular in science fiction at that time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Feeling_of_Power
on “Sweden's cashless society is no longer a utopia” ↗…watching the user perform that task in the application's graphical user interface (GUI), and then perform the automation by repeating those tasks directly in the GUI. Not analogous, but reminds me of The Feeling of Power (Isaac Asimov) https://archive.org/stream/TheFeelingOfPower/The+Feeling+of+...
on “Developer tools can be magic but instead collect dust” ↗Two short stories of his in that vein..."Profession" and "The Feeling of Power". https://www.abelard.org/asimov.php https://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/vl/notes/asimov.html
on “How Tech Loses Out” ↗…rediscovered, only now it's much cheaper to put a human in a missile to perform guidance calculations than using an expensive computer! The HN hive mind will probably remember this better... EDIT: It was "A Feeling of Power" by Asimov - https://archive.org/details/1958-02_IF/page/n5/mode/2up?view...
on “The Army tried to develop a missile guided by pigeons” ↗It's like Isaac Asimov's short story, "A Feeling of Power" about a far future where humanity had forgotten how to do math manually and relied entirely on expensive computers to do it. But then a technician discovered the rules of arithmetic on paper and the…
on “Declarative Shadow DOM” ↗