Project, Chuck, one of the engineers, stars going out one by one. the monks believed the world wouldĬompany to supply his monastery with. World did not come to an end as months, the project would take to complete.ĭ. Rearrange the completed sentences so that they form a summary of the main events in the story.Ī. Clarke's story raises philosophical questions about the nature of God, the purpose of humanity, and the consequences of our actions.Ĭomplete the sentences begun in column A with items selected from column B. The story ends with a haunting image of stars going out in the sky above, suggesting that the project may have had unexpected consequences. As they ride down the mountain, they speculate about the monks' reaction to the project's failure. They succeed in leaving just as the last name is about to be registered. They believe that God will step in and wind things up.Īs the project nears completion, George and Chuck plan to leave before the end to avoid any potential backlash. George and Chuck become increasingly uneasy when they learn that the monks believe that once they have compiled all nine billion names of God, the human race will have achieved its purpose, and there will be no point in continuing. The monks carefully cut and paste the sheets into enormous books. George and Chuck are initially sceptical of the project's validity but agree to help the monks.įor weeks, the Mark V computer has been generating sheets filled with gibberish as it rearranges letters in all their possible combinations. The computer can churn out lists of names much faster than the monks could do it by hand. The monks seek the help of two engineers, George and Chuck, to speed up the project by using an automatic sequence computer, the Mark V. They have been systematically permuting letters to list all possible names.

According to the monks, all of God's names can be written with no more than nine letters in an alphabet they have devised. The project involves compiling a list of all possible names of God. The story revolves around a project that the monks have been working on for three centuries. Clarke is a science fiction story set in a Tibetan monastery. 'The Nine Billion Names of God' by Arthur C.

The nine billion names of god summary