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.

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

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.

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