Isaac Asimov
Born in Russia, (January 2, 1920) Asimov became a naturalized U.S.
citizen as a child, was active in science fiction fandom while pursuing a
degree in chemistry, eventually acquiring a Ph.D. He taught biochemistry for
several years before turning to full-time writing in 1958.
Asimov is widely considered a master of hard science fiction and, along with
Robert A. Heilein and Arthur C. Clarke,
he was considered one of the "Big Three" science fiction writers
during his lifetime. An immensely prolific author who
penned nearly 500 books. Asimov's most famous work is the
Foundation Series his other major series are the Galsctic empire Series and
the Robot Series.
Asimov died in New York City on April 6, 1992.
Biography
Isaac
Asimov was born Isaak Yudovick Ozimov on January 2, 1920, in Petrovichi,
Russia, to Anna Rachel Berman and Judah Ozimov. The family immigrated to the
United States when Asimov was a toddler, settling into the East New York
section of Brooklyn.
Judah
owned a series of candy shops and called upon his son to work in the stores as
a youngster. Isaac Asimov was fond of learning at a young age, having taught
himself to read by the age of 5; he learned Yiddish soon after, and graduated
from high school at 15 to enter Columbia University. He earned his Bachelor of
Science degree in 1939 and went on to get his M.A. and Ph.D. from the same
institution. In 1942, he wed Gertrude Blugerman.
In
1949, Asimov began a stint at Boston University School of Medicine, where he
was hired as an associate professor of biochemistry in 1955. He eventually
became a professor at the university by the late 1970s, though by that time
he'd given up full-time teaching to do occasional lectures.
Over
the course of his career, Asimov won several Hugo and Nebula Awards, as well as
received accolades from science institutions. Asimov died in New York City on
April 6, 1992, at the age of 72, from heart and kidney failure. He had dealt
privately with a diagnosis of AIDS, which he'd contracted from a blood
transfusion during bypass surgery. He was survived by two children and his
second wife, Janet Jeppson.
Writings
Asimov's
career can be divided into several periods. His early career, dominated by
science fiction, began with short stories in 1939 and novels in 1950. Asimov's
first short story to be sold, "Marooned Off Vesta," was published in Amazing
Stories in 1938. Years later, he published his first book in 1950, the
sci-fi novel Pebble in the Sky.
An influential vision came with another 1950 release, the story collection I,
Robot, which looked at human/construct relationships and featured the Three
Laws of Robotics. Asimov would later be credited with coming up with the term
"robotics." The year 1951 saw
the release of another seminal work, Foundation, a novel that looked at
the end of the Galactic Empire and a statistical method of predicting outcomes
known as "psychohistory." The story was followed by two more
installations, Foundation and Empire (1952) and Second Foundation (1953),
with the series continuing into the 1980s.
This lasted until about 1958, all but ending after
publication of The Naked Sun. He began publishing nonfiction in 1952.
Following the brief orbit of the first man-made satellite Sputnik I by the USSR in 1957, his production
of nonfiction, particularlypopular science books, greatly increased, with a
consequent drop in his science fiction output. Over the next quarter century,
he wrote only four science fiction novels. Starting in 1982, the second half of
his science fiction career began with the publication of Foundation’s Edge. From then until his
death, Asimov published several more sequels and prequels to his existing
novels, tying them together in a way he had not originally anticipated, making
a unified series. There are, however, many inconsistencies in this unification,
especially in his earlier stories.
Asimov
was also known for writing books on a wide variety of subjects outside of
science fiction, taking on topics like astronomy, biology, math, religion and
literary biography. A small sample of notable titles include The Human Body
(1963), Asimov's Guide to the Bible (1969), the mystery Murder at the
AB A (1976) and his 1979 autobiography, In Memory Yet Green.
Asimov believed that his most enduring contributions would be his Three Laws of Robotics and the Foudation Series .
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