Isaac Asimov

The author of nearly five hundred books, Isaac Asimov (1920-1992) is esteemed as one of the finest writers of science fiction and scientific fact in the twentieth century.

Asimov was born on January 2, 1920, to middle-class Jewish parents in Petrovichi, Russia, then part of the Smolensk district in the Soviet Union. His family immigrated to the United States in 1923, settling in Brooklyn, New York, where they owned and operated a candy store. In 1934, while attending Boys High School of Brooklyn, Asimov published his first story, "Little Brothers," in the school newspaper. A year later he entered Seth Low Junior College, an undergraduate college of Columbia University. He transferred to the main campus in 1936, where he switched his major from biology to chemistry. During the next two years Asimov's interest in history grew and he read numerous books on the subject. He also read science fiction magazines and wrote stories. His first professionally published story, "Marooned off Vesta," appeared in Amazing Stories in 1939. Asimov graduated from Columbia University with a B.S. in chemistry in 1939. He later earned an M.A. and Ph.D. After serving in World War II, Asimov became an instructor at Boston University School of medicine. Asimov died in 1992.

Asimov received his greatest popular and critical acclaim for The Foundation Trilogy: Three Classics of Science Fiction and his robot series. Comprised of Foundation, Foundation and Empire, and Second Foundation, The Foundation Trilogy describes the "future history" of a vast galactic empire. His books about robots—most notably I, Robot;The Caves of Steel; and The Naked Sun—did much to legitimize science fiction by augmenting the genre's traditional material with the narrative structures of such established genres as mystery and detective stories, while displaying a thematic concern for technological progress and its implications for humanity. Many critics, scientists, and educators, however, believe Asimov's greatest talent was for popularizing or, as he called it, "translating" science for the lay reader. His many books on atomic theory, chemistry, astronomy, and physics have been recognized for their extraordinary clarity, and Asimov has been praised for his ability to synthesize complex data into readable, unthreatening prose. When asked about his prodigious output in such a wide range of fields, Asimov responded self-deprecatingly by saying he never had a thought that he didn't put down on paper. An editorial in The Washington Post concluded that he redefined the rule "as to how many things a person is allowed to be an expert on" and that his "extraordinary capabilities aside, [his] breadth of interest deserves more admiration than it gets."

Isaac Asimov is "the world's most prolific science writer," according to David N. Samuelson in Twentieth Century Science-Fiction Writers, who "has written some of the best-known science fiction ever published." Considered one of the three greatest writers of science fiction in the 1940s (along with Robert Heinlein and A. E. Van Vogt), Asimov has remained a potent force in the genre. Stories such as "Nightfall" and "The Bicentennial Man," and novels such as The Gods Themselves and Foundation's Edge have received numerous honors and are recognized as among the best science fiction ever written. As one of the world's leading writers on science, explaining everything from nuclear fusion to the theory of numbers, Asimov has illuminated for many the mysteries of science and technology. He is a skilled raconteur as well, who enlivens his writing with incidents from his own life. "In his autobiographical writings and comments," states James Gunn in Isaac Asimov: The Foundations of Science Fiction, "Asimov continually invites the reader to share his triumphs, to laugh at his blunders and lack of sophistication, and to wonder, with him, at the rise to prominence of a bright Jewish boy brought to this country from Russia at the age of three and raised in a collection of Brooklyn candy stores."

Asimov's interest in science fiction began when he first noticed several of the early science fiction magazines for sale on the newsstand of his family's candy store. Although as a boy he read and enjoyed numerous volumes of nonfiction as well as many of the literary "classics," Asimov recalls in In Memory Yet Green, his first volume of autobiography, he still longed to explore the intriguing magazines with the glossy covers. But his father refused, maintaining that fiction magazines were "junk! … Not fit to read. The only people who read magazines like that are bums." And bums represented "the dregs of society, apprentice gangsters."

But in August of 1929, a new magazine appeared on the scene called Science Wonder Stories. Asimov knew that as long as science fiction magazines had titles like Amazing Stories, he would have little chance of convincing his father of their worth. However, the new periodical had the word "science" in its title, and he says, "I had read enough about science to know that it was a mentally nourishing and spiritually wholesome study. What's more, I knew that my father thought so from our occasional talks about my school-work." When confronted with this argument, the elder Asimov consented. Soon Isaac began collecting even those periodicals that didn't have "science" in the title. He notes: "I planned to maintain with all the strength at my disposal the legal position that permission for one such magazine implied permission for all the others, regardless of title. No fight was needed, however; my harassed father conceded everything." Asimov rapidly developed into an avid fan.

Asimov first tried writing stories when he was eleven years old. He had for some time been reading stories and then retelling them to his schoolmates, and started a book like some of the popular boys' series volumes of the 1920s: "The Rover Boys," "The Bobbsey Twins," and "Pee Wee Wilson." Asimov's story was called The Greenville Chums at College, patterned after The Darewell Chums at College, and it grew to eight chapters before he abandoned it. Asimov, in In Memory Yet Green, describes the flaw in his initial literary venture: "I was trying to imitate the series books without knowing anything but what I read there. Their characters were small-town boys, so mine were, for I imagined Greenville to be a town in upstate New York. Their characters went to college, so mine did. Unfortunately, a junior-high-school youngster living in a shabby neighborhood in Brooklyn knows very little about small-town life and even less about college. Even I, myself, was forced eventually to recognize the fact that I didn't know what I was talking about."

Despite initial discouragements, Asimov continued to write. His first published piece appeared in his high school's literary semiannual and was accepted, he says, because it was the only funny piece anyone wrote, and the editors needed something funny. In the summer of 1934, Asimov had a letter published in Astounding Stories in which he commented on several stories that had appeared in the magazine. His continuing activities as a fan brought him to the decision to attempt a science fiction piece of his own; in 1937, at the age of seventeen, he began a story entitled "Cosmic Corkscrew." The procedure Asimov used to formulate the plot was, he says, "typical of my science fiction. I usually thought of some scientific gimmick and built a story about that."

By the time he finished the story on June 19, 1938, Astounding Stories had become Astounding Science Fiction. Its editor was John W. Campbell, who was to influence the work of some of the most prominent authors of modern science fiction, including Arthur C. Clarke, Robert Heinlein, Poul Anderson, L. Sprague de Camp, and Theodore Sturgeon. Since Campbell was also one of the best-known science fiction writers of the thirties and Astounding one of the most prestigious publications in its field at the time, Asimov was shocked by his father's suggestion that he submit "Cosmic Corkscrew" to the editor in person. But mailing the story would have cost twelve cents while subway fare, round trip, was only ten cents. In the interest of economy, therefore, he agreed to make the trip to the magazine's office, fully expecting to leave the manuscript with a secretary.

Campbell, however, had invited many young writers to discuss their work with him, and when Asimov arrived he was shown into the editor's office. Campbell talked for over an hour and agreed to read the story; two days later Asimov received the manuscript back in the mail. It had been rejected, but Campbell offered extensive suggestions for improvement and encouraged the young man to keep trying. This began a pattern that was to continue for several years with Campbell guiding Asimov through his formative beginnings as a science fiction writer.

Asimov's association with the field of science fiction has been a long and distinguished one. He is credited with the introduction of several innovative concepts into the genre, including the formulation of the "Three Laws of Robotics." Asimov maintains that the idea for the laws was given to him by Campbell; Campbell, on the other hand, said that he had merely picked them out of Asimov's early robot stories. In any case, it was Asimov who first formally stated the three laws: "1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. 2. A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law. 3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws." Asimov says that he used these precepts as the basis for "over two dozen short stories and three novels … about robots," and he feels that he is "probably more famous for them than for anything else I have written, and they are quoted even outside the science-fiction world. The very word 'robotics' was coined by me." The three laws gained general acceptance among readers and among other science fiction writers; Asimov, in his autobiography, writes that they "revolutionized" science fiction and that "no writer could write a stupid robot story if he used the Three Laws. The story might be bad on other counts, but it wouldn't be stupid." The laws became so popular, and seemed so logical, that many people believed real robots would eventually be designed according to Asimov's basic principles.

Also notable among Asimov's science fiction works is the "Foundation" series. This group of short stories, published in magazines in the forties and then collected into a trilogy in the early fifties, was inspired by Edward Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. It was written as a "future history," a story being told in a society of the distant future which relates events of that society's history. The concept was not invented by Asimov, but there can be little doubt that he became a master of the technique. Foundation, Foundation and Empire, and Second Foundation have achieved special standing among science fiction enthusiasts. In 1966, the World Science Fiction Convention honored them with a special Hugo Award as the best all-time science fiction series. Even many years after the original publication, Asimov's future history series remains popular—in the 1980s, forty years after he began the series, Asimov added a new volume, Foundation's Edge, and eventually linked the Foundation stories with his robot novels in The Robots of Dawn, Robots and Empire, Foundation and Earth, and Prelude to Foundation.

Asimov's first fiction written specifically for a younger audience were his "Lucky Starr" novels. In 1951, at the suggestion of his Doubleday editor, he began working on a series of science-fiction stories that could easily be adapted for television. "Television was here; that was clear," he writes in In Memory Yet Green. "Why not take advantage of it, then? Radio had its successful long-running series, 'The Lone Ranger,' so why not a 'Space Ranger' modelled very closely upon that?" David Starr: Space Ranger, published under the pseudonym Paul French, introduced David 'Lucky' Starr, agent of the interplanetary law enforcement agency the Council of Science. Accompanying Lucky on his adventures is his sidekick, John Bigman Jones, a short, tough man born and raised on the great agricultural farms of Mars. Together the two of them confront and outwit space pirates, poisoners, mad scientists, and interstellar spies—humans from the Sirian star system, who have become the Earth's worst enemies.

Although the "Lucky Starr" series ran to six volumes, the television deal that Asimov and his editor envisioned never materialized. "None of us dreamed that for some reason… television series would very rarely last more than two or three years," Asimov writes. "We also didn't know that a juvenile television series to be called 'Rocky Jones: Space Ranger' was already in the works." Another problem the series faced was in the scientific background of the stories. "Unfortunately," state Jean Fiedler and Jim Mele inIsaac Asimov, "Asimov had the bad luck to be writing these stories on the threshold of an unprecedented exploration of our solar system's planets, an exploration which has immensely increased our astronomical knowledge. Many of his scientific premises, sound in 1952, were later found to be inaccurate." In recent editions of the books, Asimov has included forewords explaining the situation to new readers.

Asimov's first nonfiction book was a medical text entitled Biochemistry and Human Metabolism, begun in 1950 and written in collaboration with William Boyd and Burnham Walker, two of his colleagues at the Boston University School of Medicine. He had recognized his ability as an explainer early in life, and he enjoyed clarifying scientific principles for his family and friends. He also discovered that he was a most able and entertaining lecturer who delighted in his work as a teacher. He told New York Times interviewer Israel Shenker that his talent lies in the fact that he "can read a dozen dull books and make one interesting book out of them." The result was that Asimov was phenomenally successful as a writer of science books for the general public. Before his death in 1992, Asimov commented, "I'm on fire to explain, and happiest when it's something reasonably intricate which I can make clear step by step. It's the easiest way I can clarify things in my own mind."

Further Reading

Los Angeles Times, April 8, 1992.

New York Times, April 7, 1992.

Washington Post, April 7, 1992.

Asimov, Isaac, The Bicentennial Man and Other Stories, Doubleday, 1976.

Asimov, Isaac, In Memory Yet Green: The Autobiography of Isaac Asimov, 1920-1954, Doubleday, 1979.

Asimov, Isaac, In Joy Still Felt: The Autobiography of Isaac Asimov, 1954-1979, Doubleday, 1980.

Clareson, Thomas D., editor, Voices for the Future: Essays on Major Science Fiction Writers, Popular Press, 1976.

Contemporary Literary Criticism, Gale, Volume 1, 1973; Volume 3, 1975; Volume 9, 1978; Volume 19, 1981; Volume 26, 1983.

Dictionary of Literary Biography, Volume 8: Twentieth-Century American Science Fiction Writers, Gale, 1981. □

Asimov, Isaac

(b. 2 January 1920, or as early as 4 October 1919 in Petrovichi, Russia; d. 6 April 1992 in New York City), writer of science fiction and science popularizations, including the Foundation Trilogy (1951, 1952, 1953), and one of the most prolific authors of the twentieth century.

Asimov and his younger sister arrived in the United States with their parents, Judah Asimov and Anna Rachel Ber-man, in 1923, at the invitation of their mother’s half brother, Joseph Berman. They settled in Brooklyn, New York, where Asimov’s mother was a homemaker and in 1926 Asimov’s father bought the first of a series of candy stores. The stores, with living quarters above, became a major part of Asimov’s childhood which, he felt, deprived him of his father’s attention at an early age. In 1927 Asimov’s mother gave birth to his brother, Stanley, who would make a journalism career Newsday and retire as the newspaper’s vice president in charge of editorial administration. Asimov became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1928.

Asimov was a precocious child who learned to read on his own before starting school. Later he would skip grades, graduate from Boys High School in Brooklyn in 1935, enter Seth Low Junior College at the age of fifteen, and earn a bachelor’s degree from Columbia University in 1939 at the age of nineteen. He worked as civilian researcher at the U.S. Navy Yard in Philadelphia, upon the recommendation of the science fiction author Robert A. Heinlein, who was also working there (as an honorable way to avoid the draft). Asimov was then reclassified by the draft board, inducted into the army on 1 November 1945, and discharged a year later. He returned to Columbia to earn his Ph.D., which he received in 1948. Asimov married Gertrude Blugerman in 1942; they were separated in 1970 and divorced in 1973. They had two children. Asimov married psychoanalyst Janet Jeppson as soon as his divorce was final.

Asimov discovered science fiction magazines in his father’s store at the age of nine and began writing stories at the age of eleven. In 1938 he took his first story to the editor John W. Campbell, Jr., at Asimov’s favorite magazine, Astounding Science Fiction. His first published story, “Marooned Off Vesta,” was published in Amazing Stories in March 1939, and his second, “Trends,” appeared in the July 1939 issue of Astounding Science Fiction. One of his most famous stories, “Nightfall,” which earned him his first cover, was published in September 1941.

By that time Asimov had developed a close relationship with Campbell that would last until Campbell’s death in 1971. For the first dozen years it consisted of Asimov traveling by subway to Campbell’s office with a story idea, discussing it, and then bringing back the story for Campbell’s comments and, usually, acceptance. In this way Asimov developed the robot stories that made up the collection I, Robot (1950), the first of which, “Robbie,” was published in September 1940 in Super Science and the second, “Reason,” in April 1941 in Astounding Science Fiction; and the stories that made up The Foundation Trilogy (1951, 1952, 1953), the first of which, “Foundation,” was published in May 1942 in Astounding Science Fiction.

In 1950 Asimov, fearing the loss of his major market if Astounding Science Fiction stopped publication or Campbell retired, began contributing stories and serials to Galaxy Science Fiction and in 1953, to Fantasy and Science Fiction. For the latter he also wrote a regular science column beginning in 1958. His columns won a “Special Hugo” in 1963. Most of his articles were collected into books of essays. Meanwhile he had branched out into novel publication with Gnome Press and then, starting in 1950, with Doubleday, which would remain the publisher for his science fiction until his death.

Meanwhile Asimov’s academic career had begun in 1949 with an appointment at the Boston University School of Medicine, where he was a popular lecturer in biochemistry. His lack of interest in research led to his dismissal in 1958 (although he insisted that he had tenure and fought to keep his title of associate professor). He then lectured at the university about once a year and in 1979 was promoted to full professor. By that time his writing of science fiction and his newfound ability to write academic texts and books about science were bringing in more income than his regular salary.

Asimov’s dismissal coincided with the launching of the first Russian satellite, Sputnik. Asimov recognized the need for more and better science education, and for some twenty years he wrote nonfiction rather than fiction. His first non-fiction book was Biochemistry and Human Metabolism (1952). In addition to his books on chemistry and biochemistry, he published books on mathematics, astronomy, earth sciences, physics, biology, history, the Bible (Asimov’s Guide to the Bible, 2 vols. 1968, 1969), literature (Asimov’s Guide to Shakespeare, 2 vols. 1970), humor and satire (The Sensuous Dirty Old Man, 1971; Lecherous Limericks, 1975), and general science (The Intelligent Man’s Guide to Science, 1960; Asimov’s Biographical Encyclopedia of Science and Technology, 1964, 1972, 1982).

Asimov also wrote mystery novels {Murder at the A.B.A., 1976) and mystery stories collected in nine volumes (Tales of the Black Widowers, 1974). He edited dozens of anthologies beginning with The Hugo Winners (1962) and continuing with other Hugo volumes until his death, as well as such anthologies as Where Do We Go From Here? (1971) and Before the Golden Age (1974). He wrote five science fiction juveniles as Paul French, beginning with Lucky Starr and the Pirates of the Asteroids (1953), and a series of children’s books (with his wife Janet) about a robot named Norby, beginning with Norby, the Mixed-up Robot (1983).

His abstinence from the writing of science fiction (except for occasional short stories) was briefly interrupted in 1966 by the publication of the novelization of the film Fantastic Voyage and then, in 1972, with his Nebula- and Hugo-award-winning The Gods Themselves. But it was not until the early 1980s that his Doubleday editors insisted that he write another science fiction novel. His science fiction editor added, “… when we say ‘a science-fiction novel’ we mean ‘a Foundation novel.’” Asimov produced Foundation’s Edge (1982), which became his first best-seller and won a Hugo Award. He spent the last decade of his life writing science fiction novels, several of which also became best-sellers, and weaving together his robot novels, which began with The Caves of Steel in 1954, and his Foundation novels (which originally included no robots).

Asimov was guest of honor at the World Science Fiction Convention in 1966, where his Foundation trilogy won a Hugo for best all-time series, and frequently served as toast-master at other conventions. He was an accomplished public speaker and gave many commencement addresses at places he could reach by train (he was agoraphobic and afraid of flying). A special issue of Fantasy and Science Fiction (October 1966) was dedicated to him, and a magazine, Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, was created in his honor in 1976. He wrote an editorial column for that magazine until his death. He was named “Humanist of the Year” in 1984 by the American Humanist Society and later became president. He was presented the Science Fiction Writers of America Grand Master Award in 1987.

Hollywood often talked about filming Asimov’s fiction, and one major project, I, Robot, even reached the stage of a completed screenplay by the science fiction writer Harlan Ellison. It was not until eight years after Asimov’s death, however, that the actor Robin Williams starred as a robot in an adaptation of Asimov’s Hugo- and Nebula-award-winning novelette The Bicentennial Man (1976).

Writing was Asimov’s life and brought him his greatest moments of pleasure. He had expressed the desire to die with his nose caught between two typewriter keys, but at the end, suffering with heart and kidney failure, he was too weak to write. His last novel, Forward the Foundation, published posthumously in 1993, depicted the psychohistorian Hari Seldon, who had developed equations by which he could predict the general outline of the future, still working as he died, “the future he created unfolding all around him. . . .” It could have been Asimov’s own epitaph.

Asimov celebrated the milestones in his life not by anniversaries but by books published: Opus 100 in 1969; Opus 200 in 1979; his autobiography, In Memory Yet Green and In Joy Still Felt in 1979 and 1980; and his memoirs, I. Asimov, in 1994. In Opus 100 he recalled mentioning to his first wife his ambition to write 100 books, and she replied, “What good will it be if you then regret having spent your life writing books while all the essence of life passes you by?” And Asimov replied, “But for me the essence of life is writing. In fact, if I do manage to publish a hundred books, and if I then die, my last words are likely to be ’Only a hundred!’”

By his death Asimov had published 470 books, including hundreds of nonfiction books on a vast array of subjects. Harvard professor George G. Simpson called him “one of our natural wonders and national resources.” Asimov preferred to be thought of as a science fiction writer and, in fact, became best known for his Foundation Trilogy and later best-selling Foundation novels, and his robot stories and novels. He died of heart and kidney failure in New York City. He was cremated and his ashes are in the possession of his daughter Robyn.

Asimov’s manuscripts and personal papers are in Mugar Memorial Library, Boston University. His autobiographical works are In Memory Yet Green (1979), which covers the years 1920–1954; In Joy Still Felt (1980), which covers the years 1954–1978; and I. Asimov: A Memoir (1994), classified by subject and started in the hospital in 1990. James Gunn, Isaac Asimov: The Foundations of Science Fiction (1982, 1996), provides biographical information. See also Joseph F. Patrouch, Jr., The Science Fiction of Isaac Asimov (1974); Joseph D. Olander and Martin H. Greenberg, eds., Isaac Asimov (1977); Jean Fielder and Jim Mele, Isaac Asimov (1982). An obituary is in the New York (Times (7 Apr. 1992).

James Gunn

Asimov, Isaac

American Science Fiction Writer
1920–1992

Isaac Asimov was arguably the single most important fiction author to treat the subject of computers. Also one of the preeminent science writers in America during his lifetime, he applied discipline, intellect, smooth storytelling, and insight to all of his work. He wrote or edited more than 500 books and innumerable articles. His novels and stories dazzled the public with a visionary glimpse of the future of computing. He also changed forever the way that robots were imagined as a positive influence in human society.

A paradox in person, he was a gentleman who pretended to be a playboy, a witty and entertaining "life of the party," who led a fairly solitary writer's life—typing 90 words per minute, 10 hours a day, 363 days per year, and selling every word. He was a loving and loyal man, who became estranged from his son and his first wife. He had a profound understanding of the world, rarely traveled, and, though his fiction is filled with spaceships, he never once flew in an airplane.

Asimov was born January 2, 1920 (some sources cite October 4, 1919), in Petrovichi, Russia. He emigrated to the United States with his parents when he was three, and taught himself to read at the age of five. He exhibited an early interest in science and would later write voluminously on the topic. As an academic, Asimov earned a B.S. in chemistry from Columbia University in 1939, an M.A. in 1941, and a Ph.D. in 1948. He taught at Boston University School of Medicine in 1949, was associate professor of biochemistry from 1955 to 1979, and became full professor in 1979, although he stopped teaching full time in 1958.

In his work, Asimov was influenced by science writer, historian, and science fiction author H.G. Wells and by Jules Verne, whom he admired as one of the first writers able to make a living while specializing in science fiction. Asimov sought knowledge and success in multiple fields of interest. He almost majored in history, but settled on chemistry. He later published books on history, and his historical view colored both his nonfiction and fiction, especially in the fields of computers and robotics. Asimov's "Foundation" series, with a future human culture spanning 25 million planets, was explicitly modeled on Edward Gibbon's The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. His fictional "Psychohistory" proposes mathematical prediction of future human events; but his final stories show that he was skeptical of this idea.

Asimov ended his biochemistry professorship to become a full-time writer. As a nonfiction author, he covered dozens of fields, including astronomy, biology, chemistry, math, poetry, music, Sherlock Holmes, the Bible, and William Shakespeare. As a fiction author he concentrated on science fiction and on the mystery/detective genre, sometimes combining both in the same story.

Asimov wrote stories that are as thought-provoking today as they were when he wrote them. Among them is the 8,600-word short story, "A Feeling of Power," first published in 1958. In the work, Asimov predicted widespread use of a handheld programmable calculator, multicolored for civilians, blue-steel for the military. But he set the scenario 400 years in the future, after the art of doing arithmetic by pencil and paper had been lost. In the story a lone genius re-invents manual math, and then commits suicide when the military takes over his research. Interestingly, Asimov's prediction concerning the advent of handheld calculating hardware and software was flawless. But the technology was available within two decades, rather than in 400 years.

The "Multivac" stories of Asimov spin ideas about the infinite future of computing. Among several examples are: "The Last Question," a 5,400-word story from 1956, in which a computer ponders humans' ultimate question, and eventually merges with humanity, acquires god-like power, travels back in time, and creates the universe; "The Machine that Won the War," a 2,100-word story from 1961; and "The Life and Times of Multivac," published in 1975 by the New York Times Magazine. In the latter, the Multivac computer benignly takes control of all government and economic power, to save people from themselves.

Asimov once described science fiction as "that branch of literature which is concerned with the impact of scientific advance upon human beings." Asimov took that definition seriously, and wrote many millions of words to prove his point. He is credited with coining the word "robotics" from the word "robot," which was itself coined by the Czech playwright Karel Capek from the Slavic root for "worker," in the 1923 play "R.U.R." (Rossum's Universal Robots). The word "robotics" is the accepted name for an actual academic and industrial discipline that focuses on the study, design, manufacturing, and application of robots in a variety of settings.

Numerous anthologies of computer and robot stories were published during the 1950s, including Isaac Asimov's I, Robot, 1950; Henry Kuttner's Robots Have No Tails, 1952; Martin Greenberg's The Robot and the Man, 1953; Groff Conklin's Science Fiction Thinking Machines, 1954; and Lester del Rey's Robots and Changelings, 1957. Yet today, it is Asimov more than any author who comes to mind when the word "robot" is spoken, in fiction or otherwise.

Asimov received numerous awards, including several Hugo Awards and multiple Nebula Awards. His novel The End of Eternity (1955) was selected and praised in Science Fiction: The 100 Best Novels, by David Pringle.

Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics

Asimov is arguably most famous and influential for what has become known as Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics, with credit to editor John Campbell, who codified them from Asimov's fiction. These edicts are as follows:

1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First and Second Laws.

Asimov explored the implications of these three laws in clever and meaningful ways, in at least twenty-nine short stories, spread over five short story collections, and in several novels. The Caves of Steel, which appeared in 1954, was a murder mystery that sketched a fascinating speculation on the utopian sociology of an automated future. In the 1945 story "Paradoxical Escape," everything people know about physics, astronomy, and "space warp theory" is input to a mechanical computer called the Brain. This robotic "character" invents Faster Than Light travel, but since it would be fatal to humans, the robotic computer wipes blank its memory. Other computers (robots) had also discovered this, as well, but Asimov's First Law of Robotics prohibited them from telling this to humans, as the knowledge—or rather, the likelihood that they would use it—would harm them. They burned out, rather than pass on the dangerous secret.

Isaac Asimov was not an inventor or creator of computer hardware or software. Nevertheless, his fictional portrayals of the relationship between computers and human beings had an impact on the development and integration of computer technology in modern society. His commentaries on the sociological and psychological effects of computerization on human society will, in all likelihood, continue to influence computer science scholars and enthusiasts.

see also Artificial Intelligence; Fiction, Computers in; Robots.

Jonathan Vos Post

Bibliography

Asimov, Isaac. Asimov on Science Fiction. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1981. Asimov,

Isaac. In Joy Still Felt: Autobiography of Isaac Asimov, 1954–1978. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1980.

Asimov, Isaac. In Memory Yet Green: Autobiography of Isaac Asimov, 1920–1954. New York: Doubleday, 1979.

Asimov, Isaac. Understanding Physics. New York: Walker, 1966.

Bretnor, Reginald. Modern Science Fiction; Its Meaning and Its Future. Chicago: Advent Publishers, 1979.

Internet Resources

Rothstein, Mervyn. "Isaac Asimov, Whose Thoughts and Books Traveled the Universe, Is Dead at 72." New York Times. <http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/03/23/lifetimes/asi-v-obit.html>

Isaac Asimov

Born: January 2, 1920
Petrovichi, Russia, Soviet Union
Died: April 6, 1992
New York, New York
Russian-born American writer

The author of nearly five hundred books, Isaac Asimov was one of the finest writers of science fiction in the twentieth century. Many, however, believe Asimov's greatest talent was for, as he called it, "translating" science, making it understandable and interesting for the average reader.

Early life

Isaac Asimov was born on January 2, 1920, in Petrovichi, Russia, then part of the Smolensk district in the Soviet Union. He was the first of three children of Juda and Anna Rachel Asimov. Although his father made a good living, changing political conditions led the family to leave for the United States in 1923. The Asimovs settled in Brooklyn, New York, where they owned and operated a candy store. Asimov was an excellent student who skipped several grades. In 1934 he published his first story in a high school newspaper. A year later he entered Seth Low Junior College, an undergraduate college of Columbia University. In 1936 he transferred to the main campus and changed his major from biology to chemistry. During the next two years Asimov's interest in history grew, and he read numerous books on the subject. He also read science fiction magazines and wrote stories. Asimov graduated from Columbia University with a bachelor's degree in chemistry in 1939.

Early influences

Asimov's interest in science fiction had begun as a boy when he noticed several of the early science fiction magazines for sale on the newsstand in his family's candy store. His father refused to let him read them. But when a new magazine appeared on the scene called Science Wonder Stories, Asimov convinced his father that it was a serious journal of science, and as a result he was allowed to read it. Asimov quickly became a devoted fan of science fiction. He wrote letters to the editors, commenting on stories that had appeared in the magazine, and tried writing stories of his own.

In 1937, at the age of seventeen, he began a story entitled "Cosmic Corkscrew." By the time Asimov finished the story in June 1938, Astounding Stories had become Astounding Science Fiction. Its editor was John W. Campbell, who would go on to influence the work of some of the most famous authors of modern science fiction, including Arthur C. Clarke (1917–), Poul Anderson (1926–2001), L. Sprague de Camp (1907–2000), and Theodore Sturgeon (1918–1985). Since Campbell was also one of the best-known science fiction writers of the time, Asimov was shocked by his father's suggestion that he submit his story to the editor in person. But mailing the story would have cost twelve cents while subway fare, round trip, was only ten cents. To save the two cents, he agreed to make the trip to the magazine's office, expecting to leave the story with a secretary.

Campbell, however, had invited many young writers to discuss their work with him. When Asimov arrived he was shown into the editor's office. Campbell talked with him for over an hour and agreed to read the story. Two days later Asimov received it back in the mail. It had been rejected, but Campbell offered suggestions for improvement and encouraged the young man to keep trying. This began a pattern that was to continue for several years, with Campbell guiding Asimov through his beginnings as a science fiction writer. His first professionally published story, "Marooned off Vesta," appeared in Amazing Stories in 1939.

Growing fame

During the 1940s Asimov earned a master's degree and a doctorate, served during World War II (1939–45) as a chemist at the Naval Air Experimental Station in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and became an instructor at Boston University School of Medicine. He also came to be considered one of the three greatest writers of science fiction in the 1940s (along with Robert Heinlein and A. E. Van Vogt), and his popularity continued afterward. Stories such as "Nightfall" and "The Bicentennial Man," and novels such as The Gods Themselves and Foundation's Edge, received numerous honors and are recognized as among the best science fiction ever written.

Asimov's books about robots—most notably I, Robot, The Caves of Steel, and The Naked Sun —won respect for science fiction by using elements of style found in other types of books, such as mystery and detective stories. He introduced the "Three Laws of Robotics": "1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. 2. A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law. 3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws." Asimov said that he used these ideas as the basis for "over two dozen short stories and three novels … about robots." The three laws became so popular, and seemed so sensible, that many people believed real robots would eventually be designed according to Asimov's basic principles.

Also notable among Asimov's science fiction works is the "Foundation" series. This group of short stories, published in magazines in the 1940s and then collected and reprinted in the early 1950s, was written as a "future history," a story being told in a society of the future which relates events of that society's history. Foundation, Foundation and Empire, and Second Foundation were enormously popular among science fiction fans. In 1966 the World Science Fiction Convention honored them with a special Hugo Award as the best all-time science fiction series. Even many years after the original publication, Asimov's future history series remained popular—in the 1980s, forty years after he began the series, Asimov added a new volume, Foundation's Edge.

Branching out

Asimov's first works of fiction written mainly for a younger audience were his "Lucky Starr" novels. In 1951, at the suggestion of his editor, he began working on a series of science-fiction stories that could easily be adapted for television. "Television was here; that was clear," he said in his autobiography (the story of his life), In Memory Yet Green. "Why not take advantage of it, then?" David Starr: Space Ranger was the first of six volumes of stories involving David 'Lucky' Starr, agent of the outer space law enforcement agency called the Council of Science. The stories, however, were never made for television.

Asimov's first nonfiction book was a medical text entitled Biochemistry and Human Metabolism. Begun in 1950 it was written with two of his coworkers at the Boston University School of Medicine. His many books on science, explaining everything from how nuclear weapons work to the theory of numbers, take complicated information and turn it into readable, interesting writing. Asimov also loved his work as a teacher and discovered that he was an entertaining public speaker. Before his death in 1992, Asimov commented, "I'm on fire to explain, and happiest when it's something reasonably intricate [complicated] which I can make clear step by step. It's the easiest way I can clarify [explain] things in my own mind."

For More Information

Asimov, Isaac. I. Asimov: A Memoir. New York: Doubleday, 1994.

Asimov, Isaac. It's Been a Good Life. Edited by Janet Jeppson Asimov. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2002.

Boerst, William J. Isaac Asimov: Writer of the Future. Greensboro, NC: Morgan Reynolds, 1999.

ASIMOV, ISAAC

Author of more than 500 books on a multitude of subjects, Isaac Asimov (1920–1992) was born in Petrovichi, Russia on January 2. He emigrated to the United States in 1923, sold his first science fiction story at the age of eighteen, and went on to become one of the most prolific and well-known popularizers of science for the public in the post-Sputnik era. He died in New York City on April 6.

Asimov was a child prodigy who graduated from high school at the age of fifteen and earned his bachelor's degree at nineteen. His studies were delayed by World War II, after which he received a Ph.D. in Chemistry from Columbia University in 1948. He became an assistant professor of biochemistry at Boston University's School of Medicine in 1951. Asimov left the School of Medicine in 1958, but retained the title of associate professor, and was promoted to professor of biochemistry in 1979.

Asimov sold his first science fiction story at the age of eighteen. By 1950 he had become a well-known science fiction writer and by the end of that decade, published fifteen novels.

Asimov's best known science fiction includes his Foundation series of stories, which dealt with the decline and rebirth of a future galactic empire, and his positronic robot stories, in which he formulated the Three Laws of Robotics:

1. A robot may not injure a human being, or through inaction, allow a human to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where those orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence except where such protection would conflict with the First or Second Law.

The Three Laws were designed as safeguards so that robots could be treated sympathetically, rather than be objects of fear as they were in many earlier science fiction stories. Asimov coined the word robotics, which later came to be the standard term used for the technology of robots. Many robotics researchers acknowledged that Asimov influenced their interest in their field of study, and almost universally have tried to design robots with the equivalent of his three laws, which required them to be safe, effective, and durable.

Asimov exploited ambiguities in the Three Laws to explore a variety of ethical issues associated with technology. His robot characters often faced difficult decisions in predicaments where they had to choose between alternatives in order to do the least harm to humans. Asimov's later robot novels featured self-aware robots that considered the consequences of obeying the Three Laws, and then formulated a Zeroth Law that applied not merely to individuals, but to all of humankind, which stated that a robot may not harm humanity, or through inaction, allow humanity to come to harm. The Zeroth Law considered humanity as a single entity, where the needs of the many outweighed the needs of the individual.

During the 1950s, Asimov had two careers, as an author and a biochemist. His scientific career was rather unremarkable, and he published only a small number of papers in scientific journals. However in one of them, he pointed out that the breakdown of carbon-14 in human genes always resulted in a mutation. Nobel Prize winning chemist Linus Pauling (1901–1994) later acknowledged that Asimov's notion of the dangers of carbon-14 was in his mind when he successfully campaigned for an end to atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons.

Asimov's career took a major turn after the launch of Sputnik I in October 1957. At that time he had published twenty-three books, most of them science fiction, but he immediately turned to concentrating on writing about science for the general public. In addition he began lecturing on the significance of space exploration and other science matters.

Asimov prided himself on his ability to write clearly rather than poetically, in both his fiction and nonfiction. He felt it was important to educate the public about science, so that people could make informed decisions in a world both dependent upon and vulnerable to advances in technology, mindful of the fact that poor decisions could potentially have catastrophic consequences.

Asimov wrote often about the dangers of overpopulation, and the importance of changing attitudes so that population could be held in check by a decrease in the birth rate rather than an increase in the death rate. He routinely spoke out against the dangers of the nuclear arms race, and believed that the exploration of space provided an opportunity for nations to put aside their differences and cooperate to achieve a common goal. Asimov argued that the most serious problems threatening humanity—such as overpopulation, nuclear war, the destruction of the environment, and shortages of resources—do not recognize international boundaries. Consequently he called for the establishment of a unified world government as the most sensible way to solve such global problems.

Asimov was a crusader against irrationality and superstition, and he believed strongly that the problems caused by science and technology could only be solved by further advances in science and technology.

EDWARD J. SEILER

SEE ALSO Artificial Intelligence;Robots and Robotics;Science Fiction;Science, Technology, and Literature.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Asimov, Isaac. (1950). I, Robot. New York: Gnome Press. Asimov's earliest positronic robot stories, in which he introduced the three laws of robotics.

Asimov, Isaac. (1951, 1952, 1953). Foundation; Foundation and Empire; Second Foundation. New York: Gnome Press. The "foundation trilogy" of science fiction novels about the fall of a galactic civilization, and the efforts of two factions to minimize the duration of the dark age that follows.

Asimov, Isaac. (1962). Fact and Fancy. New York: Doubleday. The first collection of Asimov's science articles from the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.

Asimov, Isaac. (1979). In Memory Yet Green. New York: Doubleday. The first volume of Asimov's autobiography, detailing his life and career from 1920 to 1954.

Asimov, Isaac. (1980). In Joy Still Felt. New York: Doubleday. The second volume of Asimov's autobiography, covering the years 1954 to 1978.

Asimov, Isaac. (1985). Robots and Empire. New York: Doubleday. A science fiction novel in which Asimov introduced the Zeroth Law of robotics, and unified the fictional universes of his positronic robot and foundation stories.

Asimov, Isaac. (1991). The Secret of the Universe. New York: Doubleday. The twenty-third collection of Asimov's science articles from the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.

Asimov, Isaac. (1994). I. Asimov: A Memoir. New York: Doubleday. Asimov's third autobiographical volume, in which he uses recollections from throughout his life to present his thoughts and philosophy.

Gunn, James E. (1996). Isaac Asimov: The Foundations of Science Fiction. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press. A critical analysis of Asimov's science fiction. The author is a retired professor of English at the University of Kansas and has written twelve science fiction novels and five short story collections.

Olander, Joseph D., and Martin Harry Greenberg, eds. (1977). Isaac Asimov. New York: Taplinger. Part of the book series Writers of the 21st Century. Nine authors provide their literary perspectives of Asimov's science fiction.