Isaac Asimov ( Russia , January 2 , 1920 – New York , April 6 , 1992 ) was a writer and biochemist of Soviet origin , naturalized American, known for being a prolific author of works of science fiction, history and scientific dissemination. Asimov also had extensive knowledge of natural sciences as a whole.
Childhood and youth
He was born on December 20, 1919 (according to the old Julian calendar , equivalent to January 2, 1920 according to the Gregorian calendar, in use throughout the world) in the Russian town of Petrovichi (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 borough of Brooklyn , where young Isaac taught himself to read at the age of five. The future writer’s youth was spent between studies and work in the various candy stores that his father rented in the Brooklyn neighborhood. It was among those shelves full of magazines that young Asimov first encountered science fiction. In his early teens 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. After being rejected for graduate studies at the medical schools of New York universities, he returned to Columbia and decided to take a graduate degree in Chemistry , a degree he obtained in 1941. The following 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 shipyards of the US Navy, a job he would maintain throughout the Second World War (1939-1945) .
In 1948 he received his 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 his income from writing was already greater than his academic income. He remained on the faculty as an associate professor, and in 1979 he was promoted to full professor.
Literary activity
In 1939 he began publishing 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 co-authored with two colleagues, in 1953.
He devoted himself exclusively to writing from 1958 onwards and was the author of some 500 works for adults and young readers, on themes that gradually expanded from science and science fiction to mystery stories, humour, history, as well as some volumes on the Bible and Shakespeare .
His most famous science fiction work is his trilogy of novels ―known as the Foundation Trilogy (1951–1953)― Foundation , Foundation and Empire , and Second Foundation , which chronicle the collapse and rebirth of a vast interstellar empire in the future universe.
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 are the sequel to the Foundation Trilogy, The Edge of the Foundation (1982), written 30 years later; The Naked Sun ( 1957), and The Gods Themselves (1972).
Among his major 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 Foundation (1988); and Toward Foundation (1992).
In 1979, Asimov’s autobiography appeared, entitled Memoirs .
Death
Asimov died on April 6, 1992 , in New York City following heart 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 was due to AIDS , a disease Asimov contracted during a bypass operation in 1982.
Featured works
- Robots and Empire
- The currents of space
- Robot friends
- Dusk
- Steel vaults
- Brief history of chemistry
- One hundred basic questions about science
- Tales of the Black Widowers
- The archive of black widowers
- The Electron is Left-Handed and Other Scientific Essays
- The end of eternity
- The man of the bicentennial
- 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 am in Puertomarte without Hilda and other stories
- Foundation
- Foundation and empire
- Foundation and land
- Great ideas in science
- Towards the Foundation
- History of the telescope
- Asimov’s Universal History: The Roman Republic
- Asimov’s Universal History: Constantinople
- Asimov’s World History: The Near East
- Asimov’s Universal History: The Formation of France
- Asimov’s World History: The United States from 1816 to the Civil War
- Asimov’s World History: The United States from the Civil War to the First World War
- The High Middle Ages
- The formation of North America from early times to 1763
- The Formation of England
- The wandering mind
- The land of Canaan
- Boundaries of the Foundation
- The Egyptians
- The Greeks a great adventure
- 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 in 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
- Mind-blowing trip
- I, Robot
Filmography
- 2004: I, Robot , directed by Alex Proyas ; not based on the short story collection I, Robotbut on a story called Caliban .
- 1999: Bicentennial Man, directed by Chris Columbus .