# Could someone idendify this short story? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [October 21, 2013, 9:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-someone-idendify-this-short-story/671802 "2013-10-21T09:52:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Mr\_Shine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mr_shine/32/464_2.png) [@Mr\_Shine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr_Shine)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2013, 9:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-someone-idendify-this-short-story/671802/1 "2013-10-21T09:52:35Z")
Well I asked this question here about 6 years ago, and nobody knew. I still haven’t encountered it again and so I’ll give it another go in case someone has seen it in the meantime/somebody else sees the thread. The plot is something like this: Two men are in a debate over the most powerful machine ever built. The first one suggests that given 5 minutes alone, (and ask exactly 2 questions, maybe?) with the machine he could completly shut it down, no tools needed. The other man, states it’s completely impossible, the machine is completly immune to all logical paradoxes, nothing that the first guy said could possibly confuse it enough to shut down. Eventually guy 2 accedes to guy 1, and lets him have his 5 minutes just to prove his point, but guy 1 does indeed manage to shut the machine down. I think it turns out guy 1 was hired by some political group opposed to the machine, but that’s not important. I’m also certain that the method was not to damage it physically in any way. He just made some logical argument that caused the machine to shut itself down. I encountered it in a \*Reader’s Digest \*magazine some time in the late 80s. ---
**Author:** ![tellyworth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/977dab/32.png) [@tellyworth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tellyworth)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2013, 10:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-someone-idendify-this-short-story/671802/2 "2013-10-21T10:03:27Z")
This is similar to an episode of The Prisoner called The General. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2013, 11:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-someone-idendify-this-short-story/671802/3 "2013-10-21T11:29:03Z")
I’m pretty sure I have this story in an anthology at home and cannot remember either the anthology or the story name, nor indeed the author. It’ll come to me (or else I’ll check when I get home). In the story I’m thinking of, the two men are in a remote cabin on a mountain in a blizzard, and after the guy ties up the computer’s circuits it’s revealed that the computer controls the building they’re in too - including the heat. And it’s mighty cold outside. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2013, 11:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-someone-idendify-this-short-story/671802/4 "2013-10-21T11:46:03Z")
Aha! Is it “[The Monkey Wrench](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Monkey_Wrench)” by Gordon R. Dickson? It’s set in a [del]cabin[/del] remote outpost in the mountains **on Venus**. (Which is not generally known for being cold, but then again this was written in 1951.) And [this](http://www.amazon.co.uk/Penguin-Science-Fiction-Omnibus/dp/0140031456/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1382355435&sr=1-2&keywords=science+fiction+omnibus) is the anthology I have. ---
**Author:** ![Mr\_Shine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mr_shine/32/464_2.png) [@Mr\_Shine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr_Shine)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2013, 1:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-someone-idendify-this-short-story/671802/5 "2013-10-21T13:05:28Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > Aha! Is it “[The Monkey Wrench](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Monkey_Wrench)” by Gordon R. Dickson? > > It’s set in a [del]cabin[/del] remote outpost in the mountains **on Venus**. (Which is not generally known for being cold, but then again this was written in 1951.) > > And [this](http://www.amazon.co.uk/Penguin-Science-Fiction-Omnibus/dp/0140031456/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1382355435&sr=1-2&keywords=science+fiction+omnibus) is the anthology I have. Yes, that looks like it, thanks a lot! I now remember the name Macintyre. The way he did it wasn’t as impressive as I recalled it though. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2013, 1:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-someone-idendify-this-short-story/671802/6 "2013-10-21T13:19:44Z")
Hey, it worked for Captain Kirk. And I hope that when we build Terminator robots we leave this as an exploit, because it seems to work pretty well against futuristic computers in general.