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Asimov on Astronomy
Vintage hardcover
238 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1974
10 people are currently reading
658 people want to read
About the author
Isaac Asimov
4,341 books27.7k followersWorks of prolific Russian-American writer Isaac Asimov include popular explanations of scientific principles,
The Foundation Trilogy
(1951-1953), and other volumes of fiction.
Isaac Asimov, a professor of biochemistry, wrote as a highly successful author, best known for his books.
Asimov, professor, generally considered of all time, edited more than five hundred books and ninety thousand letters and postcards. He published in nine of the ten major categories of the Dewey decimal classification but lacked only an entry in the category of philosophy (100).
People widely considered Asimov, a master of the genre alongside Robert Anson Heinlein and Arthur Charles Clarke as the "big three" during his lifetime. He later tied Galactic Empire and the Robot into the same universe as his most famous series to create a unified "future history" for his stories much like those that Heinlein pioneered and Cordwainer Smith and Poul Anderson previously produced. He penned "Nightfall," voted in 1964 as the best short story of all time; many persons still honor this title. He also produced well mysteries, fantasy, and a great quantity of nonfiction. Asimov used Paul French, the pen name, for the Lucky Starr, series of juvenile novels.
Most books of Asimov in a historical way go as far back to a time with possible question or concept at its simplest stage. He often provides and mentions well nationalities, birth, and death dates for persons and etymologies and pronunciation guides for technical terms. Guide to Science, the tripartite set Understanding Physics, and Chronology of Science and Discovery exemplify these books.
Asimov, a long-time member, reluctantly served as vice president of Mensa international and described some members of that organization as "brain-proud and aggressive about their IQs." He took more pleasure as president of the humanist association. The asteroid 5020 Asimov, the magazine Asimov's Science Fiction, an elementary school in Brooklyn in New York, and two different awards honor his name.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_As...
Isaac Asimov, a professor of biochemistry, wrote as a highly successful author, best known for his books.
Asimov, professor, generally considered of all time, edited more than five hundred books and ninety thousand letters and postcards. He published in nine of the ten major categories of the Dewey decimal classification but lacked only an entry in the category of philosophy (100).
People widely considered Asimov, a master of the genre alongside Robert Anson Heinlein and Arthur Charles Clarke as the "big three" during his lifetime. He later tied Galactic Empire and the Robot into the same universe as his most famous series to create a unified "future history" for his stories much like those that Heinlein pioneered and Cordwainer Smith and Poul Anderson previously produced. He penned "Nightfall," voted in 1964 as the best short story of all time; many persons still honor this title. He also produced well mysteries, fantasy, and a great quantity of nonfiction. Asimov used Paul French, the pen name, for the Lucky Starr, series of juvenile novels.
Most books of Asimov in a historical way go as far back to a time with possible question or concept at its simplest stage. He often provides and mentions well nationalities, birth, and death dates for persons and etymologies and pronunciation guides for technical terms. Guide to Science, the tripartite set Understanding Physics, and Chronology of Science and Discovery exemplify these books.
Asimov, a long-time member, reluctantly served as vice president of Mensa international and described some members of that organization as "brain-proud and aggressive about their IQs." He took more pleasure as president of the humanist association. The asteroid 5020 Asimov, the magazine Asimov's Science Fiction, an elementary school in Brooklyn in New York, and two different awards honor his name.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_As...
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
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August 3, 2011As a science fiction writer from that discipline's golden, pre-Moon landing era, you would expect a certain acquaintance with the stuff of astronomy - planets, moons, galaxies - but Asimov is so full of knowledge and passion with this subject (when is he not?) that you are truly staggered with the insights he delivers.
His first obvious skill in life was with math, and he devotes several of these challenging essays to the subject of how a planet generally relates in size to its moon(s); how mass and gravity interplay and almost predictably determine how far a moon is from its primary. Earth's moon is therefore explained to be quite puzzling and unique because by virtue of its size and distance, Earth should be vastly larger (or the moon vastly smaller) and further away.
Asimov loves the art of taking a fully impossible scenario - for example, colonizing the INSIDE of planetoids and moons - and fully deploying a thorough mathematical analysis of how many people (trillions, it turns out) could call such places home if they had x amount of the stacked and subdivided interior space per person. His lengthy consideration of the hospitality of Jupiter to SOME form of life, based on a chemical analysis that actually has the planet much warmer than we might expect, is absorbing, as is his essay explaining how much of the gas giants have in atmosphere and how little they have (relative to the proportion we are familiar with on Earth) of a "solid" core - much more than a Tootsie Pop's three licks to the chewy center.
So our planetary system is explained with the equivalent of a slide rule and a compass, from every possible angle; our place in the Milky Way is given perspective; the lives and the relative brightnesses of stars are considered; novae and supernovae described (a nova occurs 7000 times more frequently than a supernova (in our own galaxy), or put another way (as Asimov unfailingly does), there are an average of only 3 supernovae per MILLENIUM in our Milky Way galaxy. How would a Milky Way supernova look to us? a vivid picture is given: dual shadows during the day - one from the sun and one from the supernova taking its moon-sized chunk of sky for a full month - and a night sky with what would appear to be two moons, equally bright.
Asimov is so thorough in his investigation of the physical and magnetic properties of each of our planets that he was able to make this stunning prediction:
"...once we reach outward to explore other stellar systems we will discover (probably to our initial amazement) that about half the large planets we find will be equipped with rings after the fashion of Saturn."
The essay that contained this prediction was published in May, 1963; Voyager 2 found rings on Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune when it visited between 1979 and 1989.
His first obvious skill in life was with math, and he devotes several of these challenging essays to the subject of how a planet generally relates in size to its moon(s); how mass and gravity interplay and almost predictably determine how far a moon is from its primary. Earth's moon is therefore explained to be quite puzzling and unique because by virtue of its size and distance, Earth should be vastly larger (or the moon vastly smaller) and further away.
Asimov loves the art of taking a fully impossible scenario - for example, colonizing the INSIDE of planetoids and moons - and fully deploying a thorough mathematical analysis of how many people (trillions, it turns out) could call such places home if they had x amount of the stacked and subdivided interior space per person. His lengthy consideration of the hospitality of Jupiter to SOME form of life, based on a chemical analysis that actually has the planet much warmer than we might expect, is absorbing, as is his essay explaining how much of the gas giants have in atmosphere and how little they have (relative to the proportion we are familiar with on Earth) of a "solid" core - much more than a Tootsie Pop's three licks to the chewy center.
So our planetary system is explained with the equivalent of a slide rule and a compass, from every possible angle; our place in the Milky Way is given perspective; the lives and the relative brightnesses of stars are considered; novae and supernovae described (a nova occurs 7000 times more frequently than a supernova (in our own galaxy), or put another way (as Asimov unfailingly does), there are an average of only 3 supernovae per MILLENIUM in our Milky Way galaxy. How would a Milky Way supernova look to us? a vivid picture is given: dual shadows during the day - one from the sun and one from the supernova taking its moon-sized chunk of sky for a full month - and a night sky with what would appear to be two moons, equally bright.
Asimov is so thorough in his investigation of the physical and magnetic properties of each of our planets that he was able to make this stunning prediction:
"...once we reach outward to explore other stellar systems we will discover (probably to our initial amazement) that about half the large planets we find will be equipped with rings after the fashion of Saturn."
The essay that contained this prediction was published in May, 1963; Voyager 2 found rings on Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune when it visited between 1979 and 1989.
September 26, 2017
Nice essays. Especially mooning around, where he gives convincing reasons that the moon is not a moon at all, but half of a double planet.
October 27, 2017
I read this because I was curious to see how in the 1960s, Asimov would predict the future of space exploration. The book is long out-dated and isn't practical to read today. There are far more current books of this type. Nevertheless, it's a good book to read to appreciate his genius and get inspired.
July 1, 2017
As with the other "Asimov on..." books, this is a collection off essays on astronomical topics drawn form his first 5 collections of essays.
May 5, 2020
An excellent (if, alas, dated) collection of essays on astronomy. Highly recommended!
March 5, 2024
SF 거장이 그린 거친 천문학 기초 스케치
November 14, 2024
Very much outdated in today's times due to the natural evolution of science. Yet it's simplicity, structure, and technicality when relating to the mathematics of astronomy I thought were well done.
August 3, 2008
Asimov is really good at taking a very hard topic and making it accessible to John Everyman. I learned a whole lot about astronomy. But I was able to apply it immediately. I have a friend who is an astrophysicist. I read his CV and some of his research, and I actually understood what was there. This was an interesting view on astronomy because the article in the book were from the early 60's with some footnote updates from the mid- to late-70's. I was impressed with how some of his theories have held up. It was also entertaining because he refrained from referring to the new planet Pluto as a planet which kept those articles quite accurate today. How convenient.
August 22, 2008
I tried to read this - only because I'm wanting to read through all the books we actually have in our library.
It was soooo boring to me. Maybe if I had read it 15 years ago, I'd care and get it, but now, it's just monotonous and excruciatingly painful.
I read the chapter on the moon, asteroids, and a couple others, but just really couldn't get into it at all. It's quite technical, scientific, and mathematical. I was hoping it would make astronomy a bit easier to understand, but it didn't.
There's also a very good likelihood that a large portion of what's in it is completely out of date.
It was soooo boring to me. Maybe if I had read it 15 years ago, I'd care and get it, but now, it's just monotonous and excruciatingly painful.
I read the chapter on the moon, asteroids, and a couple others, but just really couldn't get into it at all. It's quite technical, scientific, and mathematical. I was hoping it would make astronomy a bit easier to understand, but it didn't.
There's also a very good likelihood that a large portion of what's in it is completely out of date.
December 1, 2011
I rated this two stars not because it lacked fascinating bits, but because some of the chapters left me wanting to kill Asimov. He would pose a question in the opening paragraph, for example, "Why don't the stars light up the sky at night?" and then spend the next 15 pages waltzing around the question, but NEVER answering it. I had to google a few of the questions he posed just to satisfy my curiosity. I'm not disputing that he is a prolific, brilliant author, with an other-wordly work ethic, but some of his books are just so disjointed and stream-of-conscious that it's a wonder they were even published. Cut this book down to 40 pages, loose the fluff, and I'd probably rate it 4 stars.
November 22, 2021
Asimov has such a fascinating scientific outlook which the reader will no doubt appreciate with this book. (Mine is paperback) He takes the reader on a scientific voyage of the stars exploring the planets in the universe which will enlighten even educated readers. Its one of my favorite although Asimovs maths calculations are beyond me. Ever heard of the Duodecimal system? Well Asimov has lol. The section "By Jove" is fun and if you love studying astronomy you'll get a kick out of this book. Its such a nice read! Great read, entertaining and knowing so much the author has packed magic into this this little wonder. You can count everything is scientifically spot on.
September 30, 2011
A interesting collection of essays, although they lack an overarching theme beyond simply astronomy and I imagine a lot of the information is now outdated, whether subtly or majorly.
August 3, 2016
A collection of astronomy essays, with illustrations, taken from Asimov's contributions to F&SF magazine during the early-to-mid '60s. Some are a little out of date, but most hold up well.
May 19, 2025
Really interesting, especially his chapter on the moon. He also explained tides very well.
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