There was a little boy who had a very gifted mind.
When he was about 12 his dad passed away. Like many children he wondered from time to
time whether his dad went to heaven or elsewhere. The question continued
to surface throughout the years. Eventually this gifted youngster graduated at
the head of his class at MIT with dual BS, MS and PhD degrees in electrical engineering
and computer science. Subsequently, he went to work for a firm that had the most powerful,
complex, sophisticated computer that one could possibly imagine. Even with his superior
intelligence, he was amazed at what the computer would do. It never failed any task
assigned to it. One day during lunch hour the question regarding his father surfaced
once again. He thought: "Oh, what the heck!" , sat down at the console and typed
in the following question: "Where is my father?" After a few seconds of computing,
the computer produced a printed report which read: "Your father ! is fishing in the Bahamas."
The young man was shocked. "This thing has never failed me before!" he thought.
He decided to give it another try and got the same response. He was totally frustrated.
Then he thought: "Wait a minute! Computers work on logic and I'm not asking a logical question."
He thought for a few minutes and typed in the following question: "Where is my mother's husband."
After several seconds of computing the printer produced the following response:
"Your mother's husband died in 1977 and went to heaven.
And your father's still fishing in the Bahamas!".