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Isaac Asimov (English Isaac Asimov, birth name - Isaac Asimov; January 2, 1920 - April 6, 1992) - American science fiction writer of Jewish origin, science popularizer, biochemist by profession. Author of about 500 books, mostly fiction (primarily in the genre science fiction, but also in other genres: fantasy, detective, humor) and popular science (in a variety of fields - from astronomy and genetics to history and literary criticism). Multiple winner of the Hugo and Nebula awards. Some terms from his works - robotics (robotics, robotics), positronic (positronic), psychohistory (psychohistory, the science of the behavior of large groups of people) - have become firmly established in English and other languages. In the Anglo-American literary tradition Asimov, along with Arthur C. Clarke and Robert Heinlein, is considered one of the “Big Three” science fiction writers.
Azimov was born (according to documents) on January 2, 1920 in the town of Petrovichi, Mstislavsky district, Smolensk province (now Shumyachsky district, Smolensk region of Russia) into a Jewish family. His parents, Hana Rachel Isaakovna Berman (Anna Rachel Berman-Asimov, 1895-1973) and Yudl Aronovich Azimov (Judah Asimov, 1896-1969), were millers by profession. They named him in honor of his late maternal grandfather, Isaac Berman (1850-1901). Contrary to Isaac Asimov's later claims that the original family name was “Ozimov”, all relatives remaining in the USSR bear the surname “Azimov”.
The first rule of dieting: if it tastes good, it's bad for you.
Asimov Isaac
As Asimov himself points out in his autobiographies (“In Memory Yet Green”, “It’s Been A Good Life”), his family and the only language I spoke Yiddish as a child; they didn’t speak Russian with him in the family. From fiction in early years he grew up mainly on the stories of Sholom Aleichem. In 1923, his parents took him to the United States (“in a suitcase,” as he himself put it), where they settled in Brooklyn and a few years later opened a candy store.
At the age of 5, Isaac Asimov went to school. (He was supposed to start school at age 6, but his mother changed his birthday to September 7, 1919, in order to send him to school a year earlier.) After finishing tenth grade in 1935, the 15-year-old Asimov entered Seth Low Junior College , but a year later this college closed. Asimov entered the chemistry department at Columbia University in New York, where he received a bachelor's degree (B. S.) in 1939, and a master's degree (M. Sc.) in chemistry in 1941 and entered graduate school. However, in 1942 he went to Philadelphia to work as a chemist at the Philadelphia Shipyard for the Army. Another science fiction writer, Robert Heinlein, worked there with him.
In February 1942, on Valentine's Day, Asimov met on a “blind date” with Gertrude Blugerman. On July 26 they got married. From this marriage was born a son, David (English: David) (1951) and a daughter, Robyn Joan (English: Robyn Joan) (1955).
From October 1945 to July 1946, Azimov served in the army. Then he returned to New York and continued his education. In 1948, he completed graduate school, received a PhD, and entered a postdoctoral fellowship as a biochemist. In 1949, he took a teaching position at Boston University School of Medicine, where he became an assistant professor in December 1951 and an associate professor in 1955. In 1958, the university stopped paying him a salary, but formally kept him in his previous position. By this point, Asimov's income as a writer already exceeded his university salary. In 1979 he was awarded the title of full professor.
When Isaac Asimov was born, he was surprised to discover that he was born on the territory Soviet Russia in the town of Petrovichi near Smolensk. He tried to correct this mistake, and three years later, in 1923, his parents moved to New York Brooklyn (USA), where they opened a candy store and lived happily ever after, with sufficient income to finance their son’s education. Isaac became a US citizen in 1928.
It's scary to think what would have happened if Isaac had stayed in the homeland of his ancestors! Of course, it is possible that he would take the place of Ivan Efremov in our fantastic literature, but this is unlikely. Rather, things would have turned out much more gloomy. And so he trained as a biochemist, graduating from Columbia University's chemistry department in 1939, and taught biochemistry at Boston University School of Medicine. Since 1979 - professor at the same university. Professional interests have never been forgotten by him: he is the author of many scientific and popular science books on biochemistry. But this is not what made him famous throughout the world.
The year he graduated from university (1939), he made his debut in Amazing Stories with the story “Captured by Vesta.” Azimov's brilliant scientific mind was combined with dreaminess, and therefore he could not be either a pure scientist or a pure writer. He began writing science fiction. And he was especially good at books in which it was possible to theorize, to build intricate logical chains that suggested many hypotheses, but only one correct solution. These are fantastic detective stories. IN best books Asimov somehow has a detective element, and his favorite heroes - Elijah Bailey and R. Daniel Olivo - are detectives by profession. But even novels that cannot be called 100% detective stories are devoted to uncovering secrets, collecting information, and brilliant logical calculations by unusually smart characters endowed with correct intuition.
Asimov's books take place in the future. This future stretches over many millennia. Here are the adventures of “Lucky” David Starr in the first decades of exploration Solar System, and the settlement of distant planets, starting with the Tau Ceti system, and the formation of the mighty Galactic Empire, and its collapse, and the work of a handful of scientists united under the name of the Academy to create a new, better Galactic Empire, and the growth of the human mind into the universal mind of Galaxia. Asimov essentially created his own Universe, extended in space and time, with its own coordinates, history and morality. And like any creator of the world, he showed a clear desire for epicness. Most likely, he did not plan in advance to turn his fantastic detective story “Caves of Steel” into an epic series. But now the sequel has appeared - “Robots of the Dawn” - it already becomes clear that the chain of individual crimes and accidents that Elijah Bailey and R. Daniel Olivo are investigating is connected with the destinies of humanity.
And yet, even then, Asimov hardly intended to connect the plot of the “Caves of Steel” cycle with the “Academy” trilogy. It happened naturally, as it always does with an epic. It is known that at first novels about King Arthur and the knights Round Table were not connected with each other, much less with the story of Tristan and Isolde. But over time they came together into something common. It’s the same with Asimov’s novels.
And if an epic cycle is created, then it cannot but have a central epic hero. And such a hero appears. It becomes R. Daniel Olivo. Robot Daniel Olivo. In the fifth part of the “Academy” - the novel “The Academy and the Earth” - he already takes the place of the Lord God, the creator of the Universe and the arbiter of human destinies.
Asimov's robots are the most amazing thing created by the writer. Asimov wrote pure science fiction, in which there is no place for magic and mysticism. And yet, not being an engineer by profession, he does not really amaze the reader’s imagination with technical innovations. And his only invention is more philosophical than technical. Asimov's robots and the problems of their relationships with people are a subject of special interest. It feels like the author thought a lot before writing about this. It is no coincidence that even his science fiction competitors, including those who spoke unflatteringly of his literary talent, recognized his greatness as the author of the Three Laws of Robotics. These laws are also expressed philosophically, and not technically: robots should not harm a person or, by their inaction, allow harm to come to him; robots must obey human orders unless this contradicts the first law; robots must protect their existence if this does not contradict the first and second laws. Asimov does not explain how this happens, but he does say that no robot can be created without observing the Three Laws. They are laid down in the very basis, in the technical basis of the possibility of building a robot.
But already from these Three Laws a lot of problems arise: for example, a robot will be ordered to jump into a fire. And he will be forced to do this, because the second law is initially stronger than the third. But Asimov's robots - at least Daniel and others like him - are essentially people, only artificially created. They have a unique and unrepeatable personality, an individuality that can be destroyed at the whim of any fool. Asimov was a smart man. He himself noticed this contradiction and resolved it. And many other problems and contradictions that arise in his books were brilliantly resolved by him. It seems that he enjoyed posing problems and finding solutions.
The world of Asimov's novels is a world of bizarre interweaving of surprise and logic. You will never guess what force is behind this or that event in the Universe, who opposes the heroes in their search for truth, who helps them. The endings of Asimov's novels are as unexpected as the endings of O'Henry's stories. And yet, any surprise here is carefully motivated and justified. Asimov does not and cannot have any mistakes.
Individual freedom and its dependence on higher powers. According to Asimov, there are many powerful forces at work in the Galaxy, much more powerful than people. And yet, in the end, everything is decided by people, specific people, like the brilliant Golan Trevize from the fourth and fifth books of the Academy. However, what ultimately happens there is still unknown. Asimov's world is open and ever-changing. Who knows where Asimov’s humanity would have come had the author lived a little longer...
The reader, having entered someone else's alarming, huge and full of confrontation Asimov's Universe, gets used to it as to his own home. When Golan Trevize visits the long-forgotten and desolate planets of Aurora and Solaria, where Elijah Bailey and R. Daniel Olivo lived and operated many thousands of years ago, we feel sadness and devastation, as if we are standing on ashes. This is the deep humanity and emotionality of such a seemingly personal and speculative world created by Asimov.
He lived a short life by Western standards - only seventy-two years and died on April 6, 1992 at the New York University Clinic. But over these years he wrote not twenty, not fifty, not one hundred and not four hundred, but four hundred and sixty-seven books, both fiction, scientific and popular science. His work has been recognized with five Hugo Awards (1963, 1966, 1973, 1977, 1983), two Nebula Awards (1972, 1976), as well as many other prizes and awards. One of the most popular American science fiction magazines, Asimov's Science Fiction and Fantasy, is named after Isaac Asimov. There is something to envy.
Years of life: from 01/02/1920 to 04/06/1992
Legendary American science fiction writer, one of the geniuses of the 20th century. Author of about 500 books, mostly fiction (primarily in the genre of science fiction, but also in other genres: fantasy, detective, humor) and popular science (in a variety of areas - from astronomy and genetics to history and literary criticism).
Isaac Asimov (real name Isaac Ozimov) was born on January 2, 1920 in Russia, in Petrovichi, a town located very close to Smolensk. His parents, Judah and Anna, emigrated to the States in 1923, bringing Isaac and his younger sister with them. The family settled in Brooklyn, where the father bought a candy store in 1926. The family devoted quite little time to religious education, and Isaac early became an atheist - which he never hid or imposed on anyone. In 1928, Asimov's father achieved naturalization, which meant that Isaac also became a US citizen. After receiving secondary education, Azimov, at the request of his parents, tried to become a doctor. This turned out to be beyond his strength: the sight of blood made him feel sick. 
Then Isaac made an attempt to enter the most prestigious college of Columbia University, but did not make it past the interview, writing in his autobiography that he was talkative, unbalanced and did not know how to make a good impression on people. He was accepted into Seth Low Junior College in Brooklyn. A year later, this college closed and Asimov ended up at Columbia University - however, as a simple student, and not a student at an elite college. On July 25, 1945, Isaac Asimov married Gertrude Bluegerman, whom he had met several months earlier.
Among the most famous works writer - novels "Caves of Steel" (1954), "The End of Eternity" (1955), "The Naked Sun" (1957), "The Gods Themselves" (1972), the grand cycle "Foundation" (or "Academy", 1963-1986) , as well as a series of stories in which the famous three laws of robotics were formulated for the first time.
It is alleged that Isaac Asimov came up with the idea for the Foundation series (Academy) while sitting on the subway when his eye accidentally fell on a picture depicting a Roman legionnaire with a background of starships. Allegedly, it was after this that Asimov decided to describe the galactic empire from the point of view of history, economics, psychology and sociology.
According to rumors, the novel Foundation (Academy) made a huge impression on Osama bin Laden and even influenced his decision to create the terrorist organization Al-Qaeda. Bin Laden likened himself to Hari Seldon, who controls the society of the future through pre-planned crises. Moreover, the title of the novel when translated into Arabic sounds like Al Qaida and, thus, could be the reason for the origin of the name of bin Laden's organization.
Last year we made a selection of ““, which of course included one of best writers, by whose hand 467 books were written - Isaac Asimov. He worked in the genres of scientific, detective, and others. He became the progenitor of the term "robotics" and wrote a whole library of fiction and popular science books.
It's nice to know that the outstanding American science fiction writer Isaac Asimov It has Belarusian roots. Isaac (Isaac) was born in 1920 on the territory of the modern Smolensk region, in the village of Petrovichi, formerly belonging to the Gomel province. 3 years after the birth of their son, the family decided to move to Brooklyn and open their own business there - a pastry shop. Isaac did not know Russian - his parents were Jews and spoke to their son only in Yiddish. School years Isaac's birth began a year earlier than expected - his mother changed his date of birth in the documents.
Today we know what came of it. Isaac Asimov enters "Big Three" best science fiction writers and was repeatedly awarded for his stories, novels and popular science articles with the highest awards in the field of literature - prizes Hugo, Nebula and Locus.
Meticulous Isaac kept a diary since childhood, recording even the smallest details of his life. Subsequently, entries from the diaries formed the basis of his autobiographies“The Memory Is Still Fresh”, “Unlost Joy” and “A. Asimov."
The topic of robots was especially interesting to the writer. Mechanical machines similar to people were found not only in works of the science fiction genre, but also in his other books.
Reading Asimov's books, one can derive a pattern: he created rules, found exceptions to them, or created a problem in order to then find its solution. Isaac Asimov formulated three basic laws of robotics, which formed the basis of the books not only of the author himself, but were also used by other science fiction writers and film screenwriters.
Science never receded into the background throughout the writer's life. After school, Isaac entered the prestigious Columbia University in New York, where he subsequently received a bachelor's and master's degrees in chemistry. After completing graduate school, Asimov received a doctorate in biochemistry and became a teacher at Boston University.
His story about space travelers "Captured by Vesta", became the author's first published work. At that time, Isaac was only 19 years old. In 1958, Asimov wrote a sequel to the book, timed to coincide with the 20th anniversary of the first story. A new book got the name "Anniversary".
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His fantasy books over time they began to hold more scientific facts and knowledge. A book was published during the war "The Coming of Night", it brought the author unprecedented popularity. Later long years, in 1968 the story was voted the best fantasy work of all time by the Science Fiction Writers Association of America. For Isaac, this story became a turning point in his writing career.
Surprised by Azimov’s talent, his “colleague” Arthur Clarke wrote: “He has four electric machines and can type four books at once with two hands and two feet.” There is, perhaps, no other explanation for such a significant number of books written by the author.
The brilliant mind and dreaminess of Isaac Asimov were embodied in such masterpieces of literature as: the story "Bicentennial Man", book series "Base", story "Three Laws of Robotics", novel "The Gods Themselves", novel "The End of Forever" and detective novel "Steel Caves".
Many of Isaac's works deserve film adaptation. Films based on his books: “I, Robot” (2004) with Will Smith in leading role, “Bicentennial Man” (1999), where the main robot character was played by Robin Williams, mini-series Probe (1988) with Parker Stevenson and Ashley Crow.
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Azimov was born (according to documents) on January 2, 1920 in the town of Petrovichi, Mstislavl district, Mogilev province, Belarus (from 1929 to the present day in the Shumyachsky district of the Smolensk region of Russia) into a Jewish family. His parents, Hana-Rakhil Isaakovna Berman (Anna Rachel Berman-Asimov, 1895-1973) and Yuda Aronovich Azimov (Judah Asimov, 1896-1969), were millers by profession. They named him in honor of his late maternal grandfather, Isaac Berman (1850-1901). Contrary to Isaac Asimov's later claims that the original family surname was "Ozimov", all remaining relatives in the USSR bear the surname "Azimov".
As Asimov himself points out in his autobiographies (“In Memory Yet Green,” “It’s Been A Good Life”), his native and only language in childhood was Yiddish; They didn’t speak Russian with him in his family. In fiction, in his early years, he grew up mainly on the stories of Sholom Aleichem. In 1923, his parents took him to the United States (“in a suitcase,” as he himself put it), where they settled in Brooklyn and a few years later opened a candy store.
At the age of 5, Isaac Asimov went to school. (He was supposed to start school at age 6, but his mother changed his birthday to September 7, 1919, in order to send him to school a year earlier.) After finishing tenth grade in 1935, the 15-year-old Asimov entered Seth Low Junior College , but a year later this college closed. Asimov entered the chemistry department at Columbia University in New York, where he received a bachelor's degree (B.S.) in 1939 and a master's degree (M.Sc.) in chemistry in 1941 and entered graduate school. However, in 1942 he went to Philadelphia to work as a chemist at the Philadelphia Shipyard for the Army. Another science fiction writer, Robert Heinlein, worked there with him.
In February 1942, on Valentine's Day, Asimov met on a “blind date” with Gertrude Blugerman. On July 26 they got married. From this marriage was born a son, David (English: David) (1951) and a daughter, Robyn Joan (English: Robyn Joan) (1955).
From October 1945 to July 1946, Azimov served in the army. Then he returned to New York and continued his education. In 1948, he completed graduate school, received a PhD, and entered a postdoctoral fellowship as a biochemist. In 1949, he took a teaching position at Boston University School of Medicine, where he became an assistant professor in December 1951 and an associate professor in 1955. In 1958, the university stopped paying him a salary, but formally kept him in his previous position. By this point, Asimov's income as a writer already exceeded his university salary. In 1979 he was awarded the title of full professor.
In 1970, Asimov separated from his wife and almost immediately began living with Janet Opal Jeppson, whom he met at a banquet on May 1, 1959. (They had previously met in 1956, when he gave her an autograph. Asimov did not remember that meeting at all, and Jeppson considered him an unpleasant person.) The divorce took effect on November 16, 1973, and on November 30, Asimov and Jeppson were married. There were no children from this marriage.
He died on April 6, 1992 from heart and kidney failure due to AIDS, which he contracted during heart surgery in 1983.
Literary activity
Asimov began writing at the age of 11. He began writing a book about the adventures of boys living in a small town. He wrote 8 chapters and then abandoned the book. But at the same time it happened interesting case. Having written 2 chapters, Isaac retold them to his friend. He demanded a continuation. When Isaac explained that this was all he had written for now, his friend asked him to give him the book where Isaac had read the story. From that moment on, Isaac realized that he had a gift for writing and began to take his literary work seriously.
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In 1941, the story “The Coming of Night” was published about a planet rotating in a system of six stars, where night falls once every 2049 years. The story achieved enormous fame (according to Bewildering Stories, it was one of the most famous stories ever published). In 1968, the Science Fiction Writers of America declared Nightfall the best science fiction story ever written. The story was included in anthologies more than 20 times, was filmed twice (unsuccessfully) and Asimov himself later called it “a watershed in my professional career" A hitherto little-known science fiction writer, who published about 10 stories (and about the same number were rejected), became famous writer. Interestingly, Asimov himself did not consider “Nightfall” to be his favorite story.
On May 10, 1939, Asimov began writing the first of his robot stories, the story "Robbie." In 1941, Asimov wrote the story “Liar!” about a robot who could read minds. The famous Three Laws of Robotics begin to appear in this story. Asimov attributed the authorship of these laws to John W. Campbell, who formulated them in a conversation with Asimov on December 23, 1940. Campbell, however, said that the idea belonged to Asimov, he only gave it the formulation. In the same story, Asimov coined the word “robotics” (robotics, the science of robots), which was included in English language. In Asimov's translations into Russian, robotics is also translated as “robotics”, “robotics”. Before Asimov, most stories about robots involved them rebelling or killing their creators. Since the early 1940s, robots in science fiction have obeyed the Three Laws of Robotics, although traditionally no science fiction writer except Asimov explicitly cites these laws.
In 1942, Asimov began the Foundation series of novels. Initially, "Foundation" and the robot stories were classified as different worlds, and only in 1980 Asimov decided to unite them.
Since 1958, Asimov began to write much less fiction and much more popular science literature. From 1980 he resumed writing science fiction with the continuation of the Foundation series.
Asimov's three favorite stories were " Last question"The Last Question", "The Bicentennial Man" and "The Ugly Little Boy", in that order. My favorite novel was The Gods Themselves.
Publicistic activity
Most of the books written by Asimov are popular science, and in a variety of fields: chemistry, astronomy, religious studies, and a number of others.