The Answer (short story)

"The Answer" is a science fiction short story written by H. Beam Piper. It is not a part of either Piper’s Terro-Human Future History series nor his Paratime series.

It made its first appearance in the December 1959 issue of Fantastic Universe Science Fiction.

Synopsis

It is 1984, fifteen years since the nuclear war between the United States and the Soviet Union devastated the entire northern half of the planet Earth, and now nuclear scientists Professor Doctor Lee Richardson and Comrade Professor Alexis Petrovitch Pitov are working together on a project in Argentina. During their research, they have created fifteen kilograms of negamatter iron, and they are going to drop it from space to see what happens.

The resulting explosion has a very distinctive signature, and Dr. Richardson realizes that that signature is the same as the one that occurred at Auburn, New York. The American government had assumed that the explosion was the result of a premeditated attack by the Soviets, and had retaliated, resulting in a general exchange of nuclear weapons. During the course of analyzing the Argentinean explosion Dr. Richardson realizes that the “Auburn Bomb” was not a bomb after all, but a negamatter meteor.

The Answer

The Answer may refer to:

Music

Other uses

The Answer (album)

The Answer is the sixteenth album by singer-songwriter Gloria Gaynor. It was released in France on October 24, 1997. A version with a slightly different track list was released the following year in Germany, under the title What a Life. The Answer includes the singles "Oh, What a Life", "Rippin' It Up", "Perfect World" and "Set Me Free". It was re-released under the original title in 2004.

Singles

"Oh, What a Life" was released as single from the album. The single was more successful in Europe than America, reaching No.14 on the Italian chart and being remixed and covered as club versions. The success of the single in Europe led to the album being re-released in Europe as What a Life the next year.

Track listing

All tracks composed by Christian P. Schneider and Don Oriolo; except where indicated