Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov (/ˈæzɪmɒv/ AZ-ih-mov;[b] c. January 2, 1920[a] – April 6, 1992) was an American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University. During his lifetime, Asimov was considered one of the "Big Three" science fiction writers, along with Robert A. Heinlein and Arthur C. Clarke.[2] A prolific writer, he wrote or edited more than 500 books. He also wrote an estimated 90,000 letters and postcards.[c] Best known for his hard science fiction, Asimov also wrote mysteries and fantasy, as well as popular science and other non-fiction.
"Asimov" redirects here. For other uses, see Asimov (disambiguation).
Isaac Asimov
c. January 2, 1920[a]
Petrovichi, Russian SFSR
April 6, 1992 (aged 72)
New York City, U.S.
Writer, professor of biochemistry
American
Columbia University (BS, MA, PhD)
Science fiction (hard SF, social SF), mystery, popular science
Popular science, science textbooks, essays, history, literary criticism
1939–1992
-
Gertrude Blugerman(m. 1942; div. 1973)
2
- Stanley Asimov (brother)
- Eric Asimov (nephew)
Charles Reginald Dawson
Asimov's most famous work is the Foundation series,[3] the first three books of which won the one-time Hugo Award for "Best All-Time Series" in 1966.[4] His other major series are the Galactic Empire series and the Robot series. The Galactic Empire novels are set in the much earlier history of the same fictional universe as the Foundation series. Later, with Foundation and Earth (1986), he linked this distant future to the Robot series, creating a unified "future history" for his works.[5] He also wrote over 380 short stories, including the social science fiction novelette "Nightfall", which in 1964 was voted the best short science fiction story of all time by the Science Fiction Writers of America. Asimov wrote the Lucky Starr series of juvenile science-fiction novels using the pen name Paul French.[6]
Most of his popular science books explain concepts in a historical way, going as far back as possible to a time when the science in question was at its simplest stage. Examples include Guide to Science, the three-volume Understanding Physics, and Asimov's Chronology of Science and Discovery. He wrote on numerous other scientific and non-scientific topics, such as chemistry, astronomy, mathematics, history, biblical exegesis, and literary criticism.
He was the president of the American Humanist Association.[7] Several entities have been named in his honor, including the asteroid (5020) Asimov,[8] a crater on Mars,[9][10] a Brooklyn elementary school,[11] Honda's humanoid robot ASIMO,[12] and four literary awards.
Life[edit]
Early life[edit]
Asimov was born in Petrovichi, Russian SFSR,[17] on an unknown date between October 4, 1919, and January 2, 1920, inclusive. Asimov celebrated his birthday on January 2.[a]
Asimov's parents were Anna Rachel (née Berman) and Judah Asimov, a family of Russian Jewish millers. He was named Isaac after his mother's father, Isaac Berman.[18] Asimov wrote of his father, "My father, for all his education as an Orthodox Jew, was not Orthodox in his heart", noting that "he didn't recite the myriad prayers prescribed for every action, and he never made any attempt to teach them to me."[19]
In 1921, Asimov and 16 other children in Petrovichi developed double pneumonia. Only Asimov survived.[20] He later had two younger siblings: a sister, Marcia (born Manya;[21] June 17, 1922 – April 2, 2011),[22] and a brother, Stanley (July 25, 1929 – August 16, 1995), who would become vice-president of the Long Island Newsday.[23][24]
Asimov's family travelled to the United States via Liverpool on the RMS Baltic, arriving on February 3, 1923[25] when he was three years old. His parents spoke Yiddish and English to him; he never learned Russian, his parents using it as a secret language "when they wanted to discuss something privately that my big ears were not to hear".[26][27] Growing up in Brooklyn, New York, Asimov taught himself to read at the age of five (and later taught his sister to read as well, enabling her to enter school in the second grade).[28] His mother got him into first grade a year early by claiming he was born on September 7, 1919.[29][30] In third grade he learned about the "error" and insisted on an official correction of the date to January 2.[31] He became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1928 at the age of eight.[32]
After becoming established in the U.S., his parents owned a succession of candy stores in which everyone in the family was expected to work. The candy stores sold newspapers and magazines, which Asimov credited as a major influence in his lifelong love of the written word, as it presented him as a child with an unending supply of new reading material (including pulp science fiction magazines)[33] that he could not have otherwise afforded. Asimov began reading science fiction at age nine, at the time that the genre was becoming more science-centered.[34] Asimov was also a frequent patron of the Brooklyn Public Library during his formative years.[35]
Education and career[edit]
Asimov attended New York City public schools from age five, including Boys High School in Brooklyn.[36] Graduating at 15, he attended the City College of New York for several days before accepting a scholarship at Seth Low Junior College. This was a branch of Columbia University in Downtown Brooklyn designed to absorb some of the academically qualified Jewish and Italian-American students who applied to the more prestigious Columbia College, but exceeded the unwritten ethnic admission quotas which were common at the time. Originally a zoology major, Asimov switched to chemistry after his first semester because he disapproved of "dissecting an alley cat". After Seth Low Junior College closed in 1936, Asimov finished his Bachelor of Science degree at Columbia's Morningside Heights campus (later the Columbia University School of General Studies)[37] in 1939.
After two rounds of rejections by medical schools, Asimov applied to the graduate program in chemistry at Columbia in 1939; initially he was rejected and then only accepted on a probationary basis.[38] He completed his Master of Arts degree in chemistry in 1941 and earned a Doctor of Philosophy degree in chemistry in 1948.[d][43][44] During his chemistry studies, he also learned French and German.[45]
Influence[edit]
Paul Krugman, holder of a Nobel Prize in Economics, stated Asimov's concept of psychohistory inspired him to become an economist.[279]
John Jenkins, who has reviewed the vast majority of Asimov's written output, once observed, "It has been pointed out that most science fiction writers since the 1950s have been affected by Asimov, either modeling their style on his or deliberately avoiding anything like his style."[280] Along with such figures as Bertrand Russell and Karl Popper, Asimov left his mark as one of the most distinguished interdisciplinarians of the 20th century.[281] "Few individuals", writes James L. Christian, "understood better than Isaac Asimov what synoptic thinking is all about. His almost 500 books—which he wrote as a specialist, a knowledgeable authority, or just an excited layman—range over almost all conceivable subjects: the sciences, history, literature, religion, and of course, science fiction."[282]
