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Frontiers
Frontiersprobes the furthest boundaries of prehistory, science, earth space and the universe. It is a collection of short, topical and intriguing essays through which Isaac Asimov, the incomparable writer of science fiction, proposes brand new answers to classic scientific conundrums.
384 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1989
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144 people want to read
About the author
Isaac Asimov
4,337 books27.8k 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 - 12 of 12 reviews
August 16, 2020
Lots you didn't know. Asimov kept up with the bleeding edges of astronomy, physics, biochemistry, paleontology, geology. And explained it clearly and in few words. What we know and how we know it. And, what's still unknown and how we're trying to find out. The book is a 1991 compilation of Asimov's 1987-1989 Los Angeles Times science column. Almost all is still valuable, even where more has since been learned. Among many others, we learn the answers to: goodreads.com/trivia/work/1045212-fro... Asimov leaves us hungry for more, such as:
Nick Lane gives us intriguing new speculation on the origins of life on Earth in The Vital Question: Energy, Evolution, and the Origins of Complex Life, 2015.
Laura Lovett's 2006 Saturn: A New View has amazing closeups of Saturn, and discoveries the probe made.
Elaine Morgan gives a compelling explanation of how humans might've evolved, in The Aquatic Ape Hypothesis
"The Planets," outstanding documentary series on exploration of the solar system, worldcat.org/profiles/Tom2718/reviews... imdb.com/title/tt0283775/reference
For clear, understandable explanation of the kinds of interactions subatomic particles undergo: QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter, Richard Feynman
DNA's code is shown in Molecules: The Elements and the Architecture of Everything (p. 228), Theodore Gray's photo book that shows the basics of organic chemistry (especially the molecule collection on pp. 19-20).
Precession of the equinoxes: There are two things either of which we might call a "year:"
1. Against the background of distant stars, the Earth makes a complete orbit around the Sun--so that the Sun blocks our view of the same star it did a year ago. This is called a "siderial year." It's about 9 minutes more than 365.25 days.
2. The amount of time from spring equinox to spring equinox. Because the Earth isn't a perfect sphere but slightly tomato-shaped, and is pulled by the Moon and Sun, Earth's spin-axis wobbles. Equinox-to-same-equinox is about 11 minutes less than 365.25 days. This is called the "tropical year." By siderial-year reconing, the equinox gets 1 day earlier in about 70.56 years: back where it started after 26,000 years.
So why haven't equinox dates continually drifted earlier and earlier over the centuries? Because what we /call/ a year is a tropical year. 365.2422 days. It's a bit less than a full orbit around the Sun.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/595428?r...
Nick Lane gives us intriguing new speculation on the origins of life on Earth in The Vital Question: Energy, Evolution, and the Origins of Complex Life, 2015.
Laura Lovett's 2006 Saturn: A New View has amazing closeups of Saturn, and discoveries the probe made.
Elaine Morgan gives a compelling explanation of how humans might've evolved, in The Aquatic Ape Hypothesis
"The Planets," outstanding documentary series on exploration of the solar system, worldcat.org/profiles/Tom2718/reviews... imdb.com/title/tt0283775/reference
For clear, understandable explanation of the kinds of interactions subatomic particles undergo: QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter, Richard Feynman
DNA's code is shown in Molecules: The Elements and the Architecture of Everything (p. 228), Theodore Gray's photo book that shows the basics of organic chemistry (especially the molecule collection on pp. 19-20).
Precession of the equinoxes: There are two things either of which we might call a "year:"
1. Against the background of distant stars, the Earth makes a complete orbit around the Sun--so that the Sun blocks our view of the same star it did a year ago. This is called a "siderial year." It's about 9 minutes more than 365.25 days.
2. The amount of time from spring equinox to spring equinox. Because the Earth isn't a perfect sphere but slightly tomato-shaped, and is pulled by the Moon and Sun, Earth's spin-axis wobbles. Equinox-to-same-equinox is about 11 minutes less than 365.25 days. This is called the "tropical year." By siderial-year reconing, the equinox gets 1 day earlier in about 70.56 years: back where it started after 26,000 years.
So why haven't equinox dates continually drifted earlier and earlier over the centuries? Because what we /call/ a year is a tropical year. 365.2422 days. It's a bit less than a full orbit around the Sun.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/595428?r...
March 10, 2012
I found this collection of short articles/essays (I believe they were culled from newspaper entries) to be quite intriguing. It covers all sorts of various science topics (they were cutting edge in their day, but somewhat dated 20+ years later). I think it would work well as a primer on scientific discoveries of the late 20th century.
December 31, 2020
Kısa, anlaşılır ve etkileyici popüler bilim makalelerinden oluşan bu kitabı 12-13 yaşlarımdayken bayram harçlığımın bir kısmıyla alıp okumuştum. Bilime olan merakımı ciddi biçimde perçinlemesinin yanında, insanın evrimi ve astronomi konularındaki ilk ve temel bilgilerimi kazanmamı sağlayan kitaplardan biri olmuştu. Muhtemelen içeriğinin bir kısmı geçerliliğini kaybetmiştir, ancak ilk gençlik çağındaki her insanın bilim sevgisi kazanması ve bilimsel düşüncenin ne olduğunu anlaması için bu ve benzeri kitapları okumasının önemi büyük. 25 yıldan uzun bir süre önce okumuş olmama rağmen bende yarattığı hissiyat hâlâ capcanlı. Yeniden okumayı çok istiyorum, ancak elimdeki kopyayı bir türlü bulamıyorum. Tekrar okuyabilirsem buraya ekleme yaparım. Haydin iy'geceler.
April 24, 2021
Es un compilado de artículos de una columna de ciencia que empezó a escribir desde 1986 en The Los Angeles Times Syndicate. Me gusta la contundencia defensa del método científico que hace en el prólogo rebatiendo eventuales objeciones y jugando con el concepto de frontera que da nombre al libro como contradicción y límite que surge cuando queremos comprender al universo infinito.
Los ensayos están agrupados en cinco tipos de fronteras: del hombre primitivo, de la ciencia, de la Tierra, del espacio y del Universo. En general el contenido se sostiene bien pero intencionalmente hojeé buscando artículos con datos que hayan quedado obsoletos (treinta años es mucho en estos temas). Encontré la posición del Asimov en la polémica acerca de si Pluton es un planeta y un asteroide, en la que propone salomónicamente llamarlo mesoplaneta. Hoy ya fue degradado a planeta enano o incluso a parte del cinturón de Kuiper porque al único requisito que menciona Asimov (orbitar alrededor del sol) en 2006 se agregaron dos: que sea masivo para que su gravedad lo haya redondeado y que haya limpiado la gravedad de su órbita. Otro que denota el paso del tiempo es cuando al hablar del agujero en la capa de ozono sólo menciona que hay que dejar CFC (discontinuado tiempo después) pero no aparecen todas las discusiones posteriores y el debate aún activo del cambio climático. Me llamó la atención el experimento de Pioneer Fundation y NASA sobre el ritmo circadiano en el que Stefania Follini permaneció casi cuatro meses bajo tierra. Me recordó a los mineros chilenos que estuvieron casi 70 días pero obviamente de manera no planificada. ¿Se habrá usado lo aprendido en esa primera experiencia?
Un juego podría ser ver qué pasó con todas las fronteras que plantea Asimov en 1989 y pensar cuáles podrían ser las de hoy, 2021.
Más sobre esta reseña y otras en:
https://pablomariafernandez.substack....
Los ensayos están agrupados en cinco tipos de fronteras: del hombre primitivo, de la ciencia, de la Tierra, del espacio y del Universo. En general el contenido se sostiene bien pero intencionalmente hojeé buscando artículos con datos que hayan quedado obsoletos (treinta años es mucho en estos temas). Encontré la posición del Asimov en la polémica acerca de si Pluton es un planeta y un asteroide, en la que propone salomónicamente llamarlo mesoplaneta. Hoy ya fue degradado a planeta enano o incluso a parte del cinturón de Kuiper porque al único requisito que menciona Asimov (orbitar alrededor del sol) en 2006 se agregaron dos: que sea masivo para que su gravedad lo haya redondeado y que haya limpiado la gravedad de su órbita. Otro que denota el paso del tiempo es cuando al hablar del agujero en la capa de ozono sólo menciona que hay que dejar CFC (discontinuado tiempo después) pero no aparecen todas las discusiones posteriores y el debate aún activo del cambio climático. Me llamó la atención el experimento de Pioneer Fundation y NASA sobre el ritmo circadiano en el que Stefania Follini permaneció casi cuatro meses bajo tierra. Me recordó a los mineros chilenos que estuvieron casi 70 días pero obviamente de manera no planificada. ¿Se habrá usado lo aprendido en esa primera experiencia?
Un juego podría ser ver qué pasó con todas las fronteras que plantea Asimov en 1989 y pensar cuáles podrían ser las de hoy, 2021.
Más sobre esta reseña y otras en:
https://pablomariafernandez.substack....
December 6, 2015
"Con 40 años como escritor, esta es la obra número 465 de Asimov" ¡Vaya cantidad de libros de calidad! Un genio, un hombre adelantado a su época, Asimov "se educó para la ciencia pero eligió el oficio de escritor" (sus propias palabras), y no pudo hacerlo mejor. Su mente prodigiosa sirvió de guía a incontables investigadores de todas las áreas del conocimiento, su obra fue una antorcha que alumbró nuestro pasado, nuestro presente y nuestro futuro como civilización. Un claro ejemplo de ello es este libro. Asimov se dedica a reseñar las fronteras con las que tan a menudo se encuentra la ciencia, fronteras que fortalecen e impulsan más nuestra hambre de conocimiento. Como fuerza de compresión aplicada a un resorte, los retos que se presentan a los investigadores al avanzar la ciencia acumulan energía en cada uno de ellos, energía para descubrir más, para ir cada vez más allá...
Quien haya leído alguno de sus libros, de divulgación o de ciencia ficción, o de cualquier otro tema sobre el que haya escrito; sabrá que este hombre no deja nada por fuera: así en este libro, siendo su alcance el más oscuro pasado hasta el más incierto futuro.
Gracias, Isaac Asimov, por mostrarnos las maravillas de la mente.
Quien haya leído alguno de sus libros, de divulgación o de ciencia ficción, o de cualquier otro tema sobre el que haya escrito; sabrá que este hombre no deja nada por fuera: así en este libro, siendo su alcance el más oscuro pasado hasta el más incierto futuro.
Gracias, Isaac Asimov, por mostrarnos las maravillas de la mente.
October 8, 2015
AMO a este autor, qué manera de abrir mundos y con qué sencillez. En este libro, uno viaja millones de kilométros, qué digo, millones, trillones de años luz de distancia y también viaja en el tiempo. Es tan, tan amplio y parece tan fácil. Es una verdadera gozada, al menos para mí.
Además, me encanta su manera de escribir. Es liviano, en medio de sus grandes ideas. Para él es fácil, y las hace fáciles, también, para los demás. Tiene sentido del humor. Está enamorado de lo que hace, y se nota.
No me extrañaría que hubiera numerosos científicos, inspirados por él. Yo misma lo pensé seriamente.
Además, me encanta su manera de escribir. Es liviano, en medio de sus grandes ideas. Para él es fácil, y las hace fáciles, también, para los demás. Tiene sentido del humor. Está enamorado de lo que hace, y se nota.
No me extrañaría que hubiera numerosos científicos, inspirados por él. Yo misma lo pensé seriamente.
January 11, 2017
A wonderful group of essays about space exploration. It is an old book, so don't look for current data, but it is a well-written and interesting introduction to astronomy for the lay-person.
October 27, 2018
A collection of his LA Times columns
December 18, 2025
This is a book full of short essays from Asimov with quite a range of topics. He talks about human history, Earth science, chemistry, planets and solar systems, and then reaches the universe in general. Most of these are informative and insightful, even still in 2025. Maybe not necessary reading, but still fun for Asimov fans. The range of his interests and knowledge has always impressed me.
October 27, 2020
Read this in bits and pieces over a month. Any of Asimov's non-fiction is worth reading. And, while the discoveries and surmises are sometimes outdated or disproved over time, it is still fun to read through his though processes.
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February 27, 2020No recuerdo
February 24, 2022
è ovviamente datato ma Asimov scriverebbe bene perfino le etichette dello shampoo quindi è comunque molto godibile
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews