One of my favorite parts about this story is how each section in time is defined by Man's curiosity. In the beginning, constructing a massive, super-impressive machine in order to ask it questions and work on things we can't. Continuing to make the machine better and better so we can ask harder and harder questions and do ever increasingly complicated tasks. All so that we can satisfy our irreparable desire to know what is unknowable. I think this trait of humanity is what keeps science fiction in our hearts generation after generation. The fact that even though a portrayal of the future from something created over fifty years ago looks so different from a portrayal of the future created in the present time; it retains this same sense of curiosity about what is to come, what kind of tasks will need to be accomplished. One could probably argue that for a lot of stories/genres, I suppose. To me though, the curiosity of science fiction will always be my favorite aspect of it.