"The Monkey Wrench" is a science fiction short story by American writer Gordon R. Dickson.
In this story, Lowland society lawyer Cary Harmon drops in unannounced on the weather station of meteorologist Burke McIntyre, high in the Lonesome Mountains, a jagged chain of the deserted shorelands of Venus's Northern Sea.
Cary tries to find fault in the machine, but Burke proudly argues that the Brain, "A big tin god", is invulnerable, that it can never break down.
The banks would just go on to considering the problem until they had evolved a theory that explained why we were flying through the air and what to do about returning us to our proper place and functions.Despite that, Cary happily makes a bet that he could gimmick the machine in one minute.
He successfully does so by throwing at the machine a metaphoric monkey wrench - a paradox: You must reject the statement I am now making to you, because all the statements I make are incorrect.With the Brain dedicating all of its banks to working on the paradox, the consequence of Cary's action finally bears down upon the pair, as the harsh negative temperatures of Venus rapidly sets in.