Isaac Asimov

Isaac Asimov ( Russia , January 2 , 1920 – New York , April 6 , 1992 ) was a writer and biochemist of Soviet origin , a nationalized American, known for being a prolific author of works of science fiction, history and popular science. Likewise, Simov had extensive knowledge of the natural sciences as a whole.

Summary

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• 1 Biographical summary
  • 1 Childhood and youth
  • 2 Literary activity
  • 3 Death
  • 4 Featured works
  • 5 Filmography
• 2 See also
• 3 Sources

Biographical summary

Childhood and youth

He was born on December 20, 1919 (according to the old Julian calendar , which is equivalent to January 2 , 1920 according to the Gregorian calendar, in use throughout the world) in the Russian city of Petrovich (400 km southwest of Moscow , and 16 km east of the border with Belarus ). His parents, Judah Ozimov and Anna Rachel, of Jewish origin, moved to New York on January 11 , 1923 , when the author was three years old.

His childhood was spent in the New York neighborhood of Brooklyn , where young Isaac taught himself to read at the age of five. The future writer’s youth was spent between studies and working in the different candy stores that his father rented in the Brooklyn neighborhood. It was among those shelves full of magazines that the young Asimov first encountered science fiction. In his early adolescence he wrote his own stories and at the age of 19 he began publishing his science fiction stories in the (now classic) fiction magazines called “pulps.”

He graduated as a biochemist from Columbia University in 1939. Being rejected for graduate school at the New York universities’ medical schools, he returned to Columbia and decided to take a graduate degree in Chemistry , a degree he obtained in 1941. Next The year, 1942, was particularly significant for Asimov, as he left for the city of Philadelphia , where he took a job as a research chemist in the US Navy shipyards, a job he would maintain throughout the Second World War (1939-1945). ) .

In 1948 he obtained a doctorate in chemistry and entered Boston University , where he remained as an associate but without the option to teach. The university stopped paying his salary in 1958, but by then, the income from his work as a writer was already greater than what he earned from his university work. He remained on the faculty as an associate professor, and in 1979 he was promoted to full professor.

literary activity

In 1939 he began to publish stories in science fiction magazines, and in 1950 he published his first book, A Pebble in the Sky , and his first scientific work, a biochemistry text jointly with two colleagues, in 1953.

He dedicated himself exclusively to writing from 1958 onwards and was the author of some 500 works for adults and young readers, on themes that gradually extended from science and science fiction to mystery stories, humor, history, as well as some volumes. about the Bible and Shakespeare .

His most famous work of science fiction is his trilogy of novels—known as the Foundation Trilogy (1951-1953)—Foundation , Foundation and Empire , and Second Foundation , which chronicles the collapse and rebirth of a vast interstellar empire in the universe. from the future.

In the short story collection I, Robot (1950) , Asimov developed a set of ethical principles for robots and intelligent machines that greatly influenced other writers’ treatment of the subject.

Among his best-known science fiction works is the sequel to the Foundation Trilogy, The Limits of the Foundation (1982), written 30 years later; The naked sun ( The naked sun , 1957), and The gods themselves (1972).

Among his main scientific works are the Biographical Encyclopedia of Science and Technology (1964; revised in 1982) and New Guide to Science (1984). Later works include Foundation and Earth (1986); Prelude to the Foundation (1988); and Towards the Foundation (1992).

An autobiography by Asimov titled Memoirs appeared in 1979 .

Death

Asimov died on April 6 , 1992 , in New York City after coronary and kidney failure. He was survived by his widow Janet and his children from his first marriage.

In 2002, Janet Asimov revealed in her own biography that Isaac Asimov’s death had been due to AIDS , a disease Asimov contracted during a bypass operation in 1982.

Outstanding works

• Robots and Empire
• The currents of space
• Robot friends
• To become night
• steel vaults
• Brief history of Chemistry
• One hundred basic questions about science
• Tales of the black widowers
• The Black Widowers Archive
• The electron is left-handed and other scientific essays
• The end of the eternity
• The bicentennial man
• The Roman Empire
• The birth of the United States 1763-1816
• The universe
• The universe from flat earth to quasars
• Biographical encyclopedia of science and technology
• I’m in Puertomarte without Hilda and other stories
• Foundation
• Foundation and empire
• Foundation and ground
• Big ideas in science
• Towards the Foundation
• History of the telescope
• Universal History Asimov: the Roman Republic
• Asimov Universal History: Constantinople
• Universal History Asimov: the Near East
• Universal History Asimov: the formation of France
• Universal History Asimov: the United States from 1816 to the civil war
• Universal History Asimov: the United States from the Civil War to the First World War
• The high middle ages
• The formation of North America from primitive times to 1763
• The formation of England
• The wandering mind
• The land of Canaan
• Foundation Limits
• The Egyptians
• The Greeks a great adventure
• The terrible lizards and other scientific essays
• The gods themselves
• The robots of dawn
• Lights in the sky
• More tales of the black widowers
• Stellar moments of science
• Nemesis
• Opus 100
• Opus 200
• Prelude to the Foundation
• Robbie and other stories
• Second Foundation
• Robot dreams
• Three laws of robotics
• Journey to science
• amazing trip
• I robot

Filmography

• 2004: I, Robot , directed Alex Proyas ; It is not based on the short story collection I, Robotbut on a story called Caliban .
• 1999: The Bicentennial Man, directed by Chris Columbus .