Isaac Asimov, one of the most read science-fiction writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, was born on this day 99 years ago, on January 2, 1920.
January 2 is also celebrated as #ScienceFictionDay in honor of Asimov.
Asimov wrote or edited more than 500 books and an estimated 90,000 letters and postcards.
Here is some info on his early life (and death), culled from en.wikipedia.org/… -
Asimov was born in Petrovichi, Smolensk Oblast, Russia on an unknown date between October 4, 1919 and January 2, 1920, inclusive. Asimov celebrated his birthday on January 2.
Asimov's parents were Anna Rachel (née Berman) and Judah Asimov, a family of Jewish millers.
Asimov's family traveled to the United States via Liverpool on the SS Baltic, arriving on February 13, 1923 when he was three years old. Growing up in Brooklyn, New York, Asimov taught himself to read at the age of five.
After becoming established in the U.S., his parents owned a succession of candy stores. The candy stores sold newspapers and magazines, a fact that Asimov credited as a major influence in his lifelong love of the written word, as it presented him with an unending supply of new reading material as a child that he could not have otherwise afforded. He became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1928 at the age of eight.
Asimov finished his Bachelor of Science degree in Chemistry at University Extension (later the Columbia University School of General Studies) in 1939. He completed his Master of Arts degree in chemistry in 1941 and earned a Doctor of Philosophy degree in biochemistry in 1948 from Columbia.
After completing his doctorate and a postdoc year, Asimov joined the faculty of the Boston University School of Medicine in 1949, with which he remained associated thereafter. By 1952, however, he was making more money as a writer than from the university, and he eventually stopped doing research.
In 1977, Asimov suffered a heart attack. In December 1983, he had triple bypass surgery, during which he contracted HIV from a blood transfusion. When his HIV status was understood, his physicians warned that if he publicized it, the anti-AIDS prejudice would likely extend to his family members. He died in New York City on April 6, 1992 and was cremated.
Tributes
Here are some notable tributes to him, many of them using quotes from his writings —
Quotes
A few of his pearls of wisdom —
- The true delight is in the finding out rather than in the knowing.
- Your assumptions are your windows on the world. Scrub them off every once in a while, or the light won't come in.
- People think of education as something they can finish.
- In life, unlike chess, the game continues after checkmate.
- Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.'
- Properly read, the Bible is the most potent force for atheism ever conceived.
- Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.
- Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.
- If knowledge can create problems, it is not through ignorance that we can solve them.
- The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom.
The Three Laws of Robotics:
- 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 or Second Law;
- The Zeroth Law: A robot may not harm humanity, or, by inaction, allow humanity to come to harm.”
Epilogue
How do you remember Asimov? What are your favorite books and stories of Isaac Asimov? How do you compare him to other science-fiction writers? How do you judge his contribution to humanity?