Isaac Asimov: Shining icon of science fiction

Isaac Asimov was born between October 4, 1919, and January 2, 1920 in Petrovichi, Smolensk Oblast in the former Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic to Anna Rachel and Judah Asimov, a family of Russian Jewish millers.. In 1921, 17 children, including Asimov, in Petrovichi developed double pneumonia. Asimov was the lone survivor.

He was just 3 when he, along with his family, travelled to the United States. He learnt to read at the age of five. After establishing themselves in the US, his parents opened several candy stores which also sold newspapers and magazines that Asimov credited as a major influence.

EDUCATION

At the age of 5, Asimov enrolled at a public school in New York City. At 15, he attended the City College of New York, before accepting a scholarship at the Seth Low Junior College. Having chosen zoology as the major subject, he switched to chemistry after the first semester as he disapproved of “dissecting an alley cat”. After Seth Low Junior College closed in 1938, Asimov obtained a Bachelor of Science from University Extension (later the Columbia University School of General Studies) in 1939, Master of Arts degree in chemistry in 1941 and Doctor of Philosophy degree in chemistry in 1948.

CIVILIAN CHEMIST IN THE MILITARY

During World War II, he worked as a civilian chemist at the Naval Air Experimental Station in Philadelphia. In September 1945, he was drafted into the US Army. In 1946, a bureaucratic error led to his removal from a task force. He received an honourable discharge and was promoted to corporal.

ACADEMICS

Asimov joined the faculty of the Boston University School of Medicine in 1949, teaching biochemistry. By 1952, he was making more money as a writer than from the university. In 1955, he became an associate professor. In December 1957, he was dismissed from the post because he had stopped doing research. After a two-year struggle, he kept his title and on October 18, 1979, the university honoured his writing by promoting him as a professor in biochemistry.

WRITING

He began contributing stories to science-fiction magazines in 1939. His first story, Marooned off Vesta was sold to Amazing Stories but he was closely associated with Astounding Science-Fiction and its editor, John W. Campbell, Jr., who mentored him.

His early writing, which was dominated by science fiction, began with short stories in 1939 and novels in 1950. The second phase lasted until the publication of The Naked Sun (1957). He

branched into nonfiction as the co-author of a college-level textbook called Biochemistry and Human Metabolism. After the brief orbit of the first man-made Sputnik I satellite by the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) in 1957, his nonfiction works blossomed. Over the next quarter century, he brought out just four science fiction novels, in comparison to his nonfiction output of over 120 books. Beginning in 1982, the second half of his science fiction career began with the publication of Foundation’s Edge. Asimov published more sequels and prequels to his existing novels, tying them together in a way he had not originally anticipated to make a unified series.

LEGACY

Asimov died in New York City on April 6, 1992 aged 72 due to heart and kidney failure.

He had privately dealt with a diagnosis of AIDS, which he contracted from blood transfusion during bypass surgery. He was survived by his siblings, his second wife Janet Asimov, and his children from his first marriage.

He had won several Hugo and Nebula Awards as well as received accolades from scientific institutions. He was president of the American Humanist Association. The asteroid (5020) Asimov, a crater on the planet Mars, a Brooklyn elementary school, Honda’s humanoid robot, ASIMO, and four literary awards are named in his honour.

INTERESTING FACTS

1. Asimov won more than a dozen annual awards for works of science fiction and several lifetime awards. He also received 14 honorary doctorate degrees from universities.

2. Asimov was his own secretary, typist, indexer, proofreader, and literary agent. He imagined an ending first, then a beginning, then “let everything in-between work itself out as I come to it”.

3. He was afraid of flying and did so only twice: once in the course of his work at the Naval Air Experimental Station and once returning home from Oahu in 1946. Later on, Asimov enjoyed traveling on cruise ships. In 1972, he viewed the Apollo 17 launch from a cruise ship.

4. 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.

5. He was also interested in history and wrote 14 popular books including The Greeks: A Great Adventure, The Roman Republic, The Roman Empire, The Egyptians, The Near East: 10,000 Years of History, and Asimov’s Chronology of the World.

SOURCE: WIKIPEDIA, biography.com