Tuesday, February 21, 2006

Writer #3 Isaac Asimov

From booksfactory´s site:

Asimov was born in Petrovichi, Russia. His family immigrated to the U.S. when he was three years old and settled in Brooklyn, N.Y. He was graduating from Columbia University in 1939 and taking a Ph.D. there in 1948.
Asimov began contributing stories to science-fiction magazines in 1939 and in 1950 published his first book, Pebble in the Sky and his first science book, a biochemistry text written with two colleagues, in 1953.
Asimov turned to writing full time in 1958. He authored some 500 books for young and adult readers. His trilogy of novels, known as The Foundation TrilogyThe Foundation Trilogy, (1951-53) , Foundation, Foundation and Empire, and Second Foundation (1951-53), which recounts the collapse and rebirth of a vast interstellar empire in the universe of the future, is his most famous work of science fiction. In the short-story collection I, Robot (1950), he developed a set of ethics for robots and intelligent machines that greatly influenced other writers' treatment of the subject. Among his best-known science fiction works are the sequel of The Foundation Trilogy, Foundation's Edge (1982), wrote 30 years later; The Naked Sun (1957); The Gods Themselves (1972). Among his major science books are the Biographical Encyclopedia of Science and Technology (1964; rev. 1982) and Asimov's New Guide to Science (1984). Later works include Foundation and Earth (1986); Prelude to Foundation (1988); and Forward the Foundation (1992).


Aha! All of that and more.

When I read the two pages for Asimov I was faced with the fact that (again) I didn´t actually remembered much. Only the feeling that this was "scientific" science fiction. A vague recolection of a book´s cover read while waiting for my dance class to start. That was it, no title, no plot, no characters. Nothing.

So off to investigate I went. I was amazed by the amount of work he had done. If you are interested here´s a site, very austere looking but über complete:
http://www.asimovonline.com/asimov_home_page.html

Plus, I went to find my old diaries. BTW, I was doing collage, doodling and drawings back in the eighties. When did I loose that? I found some titles and dates. That´s why I chose a teenage pic of me. I was an avid reader. Can you believe that by Febraury 21st 1983 I had already read 16 books? Wow.

The papers are KI Memories and the text block has the Three Laws of Robotics:


1. A robot may not injure a human, or allow a human to be injured.
2. A robot must follow any order given by a human that doesn't conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect itself unless that would conflict with the First or Second Laws
.

1 comment:

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