{"id":8044,"date":"2024-07-19T16:47:59","date_gmt":"2024-07-19T20:47:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lecturia.org\/?p=8044"},"modified":"2025-11-11T12:15:12","modified_gmt":"2025-11-11T16:15:12","slug":"arthur-c-clarke-the-nine-billion-names-of-god","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lecturia.org\/en\/short-stories\/arthur-c-clarke-the-nine-billion-names-of-god\/8044\/","title":{"rendered":"Arthur C. Clarke: The Nine Billion Names of God"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Synopsis: <\/strong>\u201cThe Nine Billion Names of God\u201d is a short story by Arthur C. Clarke, published in February 1953 in the collection Star Science Fiction Stories<\/em>. A Tibetan monastery acquires an advanced computer to complete its century-long project: listing all possible names of God in a special alphabet. The monks believe that by completing this list, they will fulfill humanity’s divine purpose. Two Western engineers are hired to install and operate the machine, and as they approach the end of the project, they are torn between logic and faith, grappling with the potential impact of completing this momentous task.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\n
\"Arthur<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

The Nine Billion Names of God<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

By Arthur C. Clarke
(Full story)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is a slightly unusual request,\u201d said Dr. Wagner, with what he hoped was commendable restraint. \u201cAs far as I know, it\u2019s the first time anyone\u2019s been asked to supply a Tibetan monastery with an Automatic Sequence Computer. I don\u2019t wish to be inquisitive, but I should hardly have thought that your\u2014ah\u2014establishment had much use for such a machine. Could you explain just what you intend to do with it?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGladly,\u201d replied the lama, readjusting his silk robes and carefully putting away the slide rule he had been using for currency conversions. \u201cYour Mark V Computer can carry out any routine mathematical operation involving up to ten digits. However, for our work we are interested in letters,<\/em> not numbers. As we wish you to modify the output circuits, the machine will be printing words, not columns of figures.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI don\u2019t quite understand\u2026.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is a project on which we have been working for the last three centuries\u2014since the lamasery was founded, in fact. It is somewhat alien to your way of thought, so I hope you will listen with an open mind while I explain it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNaturally.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt is really quite simple. We have been compiling a list which shall contain all the possible names of God.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI beg your pardon?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe have reason to believe,\u201d continued the lama imperturbably, \u201cthat all such names can be written with not more than nine letters in an alphabet we have devised.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnd you have been doing this for three centuries?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYes: we expected it would take us about fifteen thousand years to complete the task.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOh,\u201d Dr. Wagner looked a little dazed. \u201cNow I see why you wanted to hire one of our machines. But exactly what is the purpose<\/em> of this project?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The lama hesitated for a fraction of a second, and Wagner wondered if he had offended him. If so, there was no trace of annoyance in the reply.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCall it ritual, if you like, but it\u2019s a fundamental part of our belief. All the many names of the Supreme Being\u2014God, Jehovah, Allah, and so on\u2014they are only man-made labels. There is a philosophical problem of some difficulty here, which I do not propose to discuss, but somewhere among all the possible combinations of letters that can occur are what one may call the real<\/em> names of God. By systematic permutation of letters, we have been trying to list them all.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI see. You\u2019ve been starting at AAAAAAA \u2026 and working up to ZZZZZZZZ\u2026.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cExactly\u2014though we use a special alphabet of our own. Modifying the electromatic typewriters to deal with this is, of course, trivial. A rather more interesting problem is that of devising suitable circuits to eliminate ridiculous combinations. For example, no letter must occur more than three times in succession.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThree? Surely you mean two.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThree is correct: I am afraid it would take too long to explain why, even if you understood our language.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m sure it would,\u201d said Wagner hastily. \u201cGo on.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLuckily, it will be a simple matter to adapt your Automatic Sequence Computer for this work, since once it has been programed properly it will permute each letter in turn and print the result. What would have taken us fifteen thousand years it will be able to do in a hundred days.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr. Wagner was scarcely conscious of the faint sounds from the Manhattan streets far below. He was in a different world, a world of natural, not man-made, mountains. High up in their remote aeries these monks had been patiently at work, generation after generation, compiling their lists of meaningless words. Was there any limit to the follies of mankind? Still, he must give no hint of his inner thoughts. The customer was always right\u2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no doubt,\u201d replied the doctor, \u201cthat we can modify the Mark V to print lists of this nature. I\u2019m much more worried about the problem of installation and maintenance. Getting out to Tibet, in these days, is not going to be easy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe can arrange that. The components are small enough to travel by air\u2014that is one reason why we chose your machine. If you can get them to India, we will provide transport from there.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnd you want to hire two of our engineers?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYes, for the three months that the project should occupy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019ve no doubt that Personnel can manage that.\u201d Dr. Wagner scribbled a note on his desk pad. \u201cThere are just two other points\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before he could finish the sentence the lama had produced a small slip of paper.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is my certified credit balance at the Asiatic Bank.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThank you. It appears to be\u2014ah\u2014adequate. The second matter is so trivial that I hesitate to mention it\u2014but it\u2019s surprising how often the obvious gets overlooked. What source of electrical energy have you?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cA diesel generator providing fifty kilowatts at a hundred and ten volts. It was installed about five years ago and is quite reliable. It\u2019s made life at the lamasery much more comfortable, but of course it was really installed to provide power for the motors driving the prayer wheels.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOf course,\u201d echoed Dr. Wagner. \u201cI should have thought of that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n


The view from the parapet was vertiginous, but in time one gets used to anything. After three months, George Hanley was not impressed by the two-thousand-foot swoop into the abyss or the remote checkerboard of fields in the valley below. He was leaning against the wind-smoothed stones and staring morosely at the distant mountains whose names he had never bothered to discover.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This, thought George, was the craziest thing that had ever happened to him. \u201cProject Shangri-La,\u201d some wit back at the labs had christened it. For weeks now the Mark V had been churning out acres of sheets covered with gibberish. Patiently, inexorably, the computer had been rearranging letters in all their possible combinations, exhausting each class before going on to the next. As the sheets had emerged from the electromatic typewriters, the monks had carefully cut them up and pasted them into enormous books. In another week, heaven be praised, they would have finished. Just what obscure calculations had convinced the monks that they needn\u2019t bother to go on to words of ten, twenty, or a hundred letters, George didn\u2019t know. One of his recurring nightmares was that there would be some change of plan, and that the high lama (whom they\u2019d naturally called Sam Jaffe, though he didn\u2019t look a bit like him) would suddenly announce that the project would be extended to approximately A.D. 2060. They were quite capable of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

George heard the heavy wooden door slam in the wind as Chuck came out onto the parapet beside him. As usual, Chuck was smoking one of the cigars that made him so popular with the monks\u2014who, it seemed, were quite willing to embrace all the minor and most of the major pleasures of life. That was one thing in their favor: they might be crazy, but they weren\u2019t bluenoses. Those frequent trips they took down to the village, for instance \u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cListen, George,\u201d said Chuck urgently. \u201cI\u2019ve learned something that means trouble.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s wrong? Isn\u2019t the machine behaving?\u201d That was the worst contingency George could imagine. It might delay his return, and nothing could be more horrible. The way he felt now, even the sight of a TV commercial would seem like manna from heaven. At least it would be some link with home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo\u2014it\u2019s nothing like that.\u201d Chuck settled himself on the parapet, which was unusual because normally he was scared of the drop. \u201cI\u2019ve just found what all this is about.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat d\u2019ya mean? I thought we knew.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSure\u2014we know what the monks are trying to do. But we didn\u2019t know why.<\/em> It\u2019s the craziest thing\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTell me something new,\u201d growled George.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201c\u2014but old Sam\u2019s just come clean with me. You know the way he drops in every afternoon to watch the sheets roll out. Well, this time he seemed rather excited, or at least as near as he\u2019ll ever get to it. When I told him that we were on the last cycle he asked me, in that cute English accent of his, if I\u2019d ever wondered what they were trying to do. I said, \u2018Sure\u2019\u2014and he told me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGo on: I\u2019ll buy it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWell, they believe that when they have listed all His names\u2014and they reckon that there are about nine billion of them\u2014God\u2019s purpose will be achieved. The human race will have finished what it was created to do, and there won\u2019t be any point in carrying on. Indeed, the very idea is something like blasphemy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThen what do they expect us to do? Commit suicide?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no need for that. When the list\u2019s completed, God steps in and simply winds things up \u2026 bingo!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOh, I get it. When we finish our job, it will be the end of the world.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chuck gave a nervous little laugh.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat\u2019s just what I said to Sam. And do you know what happened? He looked at me in a very queer way, like I\u2019d been stupid in class, and said, \u2018It\u2019s nothing as trivial as that.\u2019<\/em> \u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

George thought this over for a moment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat\u2019s what I call taking the Wide View,\u201d he said presently. \u201cBut what d\u2019you suppose we should do about it? I don\u2019t see that it makes the slightest difference to us. After all, we already knew that they were crazy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYes\u2014but don\u2019t you see what may happen? When the list\u2019s complete and the Last Trump doesn\u2019t blow\u2014or whatever it is they expect\u2014we<\/em> may get the blame. It\u2019s our machine they\u2019ve been using. I don\u2019t like the situation one little bit.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI see,\u201d said George slowly. \u201cYou\u2019ve got a point there. But this sort of thing\u2019s happened before, you know. When I was a kid down in Louisiana we had a crackpot preacher who once said the world was going to end next Sunday. Hundreds of people believed him\u2014even sold their homes. Yet when nothing happened, they didn\u2019t turn nasty, as you\u2019d expect. They just decided that he\u2019d made a mistake in his calculations and went right on believing. I guess some of them still do.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWell, this isn\u2019t Louisiana, in case you hadn\u2019t noticed. There are just two of us and hundreds of these monks. I like them, and I\u2019ll be sorry for old Sam when his lifework backfires on him. But all the same, I wish I was somewhere else.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been wishing that for weeks. But there\u2019s nothing we can do until the contract\u2019s finished and the transport arrives to fly us out.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOf course,\u201d said Chuck thoughtfully, \u201cwe could always try a bit of sabotage.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLike hell we could! That would make things worse.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNot the way I meant. Look at it like this. The machine will finish its run four days from now, on the present twenty-hours-a-day basis. The transport calls in a week. O.K.\u2014then all we need to do is to find something that needs replacing during one of the overhaul periods\u2014something that will hold up the works for a couple of days. We\u2019ll fix it, of course, but not too quickly. If we time matters properly, we can be down at the airfield when the last name pops out of the register. They won\u2019t be able to catch us then.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI don\u2019t like it,\u201d said George. \u201cIt will be the first time I ever walked out on a job. Besides, it would make them suspicious. No, I\u2019ll sit tight and take what comes.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n


\u201cI still<\/em> don\u2019t like it,\u201d he said, seven days later, as the tough little mountain ponies carried them down the winding road. \u201cAnd don\u2019t you think I\u2019m running away because I\u2019m afraid. I\u2019m just sorry for those poor old guys up there, and I don\u2019t want to be around when they find what suckers they\u2019ve been. Wonder how Sam will take it?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s funny,\u201d replied Chuck, \u201cbut when I said good-by I got the idea he knew we were walking out on him\u2014and that he didn\u2019t care because he knew the machine was running smoothly and that the job would soon be finished. After that\u2014well, of course, for him there just isn\u2019t any After That\u2026.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

George turned in his saddle and stared back up the mountain road. This was the last place from which one could get a clear view of the lamasery. The squat, angular buildings were silhouetted against the afterglow of the sunset: here and there, lights gleamed like portholes in the side of an ocean liner. Electric lights, of course, sharing the same circuit as the Mark V. How much longer would they share it? wondered George. Would the monks smash up the computer in their rage and disappointment? Or would they just sit down quietly and begin their calculations all over again?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He knew exactly what was happening up on the mountain at this very moment. The high lama and his assistants would be sitting in their silk robes, inspecting the sheets as the junior monks carried them away from the typewriters and pasted them into the great volumes. No one would be saying anything. The only sound would be the incessant patter, the never-ending rainstorm of the keys hitting the paper, for the Mark V itself was utterly silent as it flashed through its thousands of calculations a second. Three months of this, thought George, was enough to start anyone climbing up the wall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere she is!\u201d called Chuck, pointing down into the valley. \u201cAin\u2019t she beautiful!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She certainly was, thought George. The battered old DC3 lay at the end of the runway like a tiny silver cross. In two hours she would be bearing them away to freedom and sanity. It was a thought worth savoring like a fine liqueur. George let it roll round his mind as the pony trudged patiently down the slope.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The swift night of the high Himalayas was now almost upon them. Fortunately, the road was very good, as roads went in that region, and they were both carrying torches. There was not the slightest danger, only a certain discomfort from the bitter cold. The sky overhead was perfectly clear, and ablaze with the familiar, friendly stars. At least there would be no risk, thought George, of the pilot being unable to take off because of weather conditions. That had been his only remaining worry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He began to sing, but gave it up after a while. This vast arena of mountains, gleaming like whitely hooded ghosts on every side, did not encourage such ebullience. Presently George glanced at his watch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cShould be there in an hour,\u201d he called back over his shoulder to Chuck. Then he added, in an afterthought: \u201cWonder if the computer\u2019s finished its run. It was due about now.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chuck didn\u2019t reply, so George swung round in his saddle. He could just see Chuck\u2019s face, a white oval turned toward the sky.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLook,\u201d whispered Chuck, and George lifted his eyes to heaven. (There is always a last time for everything.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Overhead, without any fuss, the stars were going out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

THE END<\/p>\n\n\n