Asimov, Isaac

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Isaac Asimov Summary

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Asimov, Isaac

Isaac Asimov.

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:

A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
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.

Jonathan Vos Post