A treasury of 121 tales from the authors of Frontiers contains remarkable stories about humankind, the secrets of planet Earth, the vast expanse of outer space, and the mysteries of the universe. 15,000 first printing. $15,000 ad/promo.
Works 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.
A collection of interesting snippets on the "current" avenues of exploration in several scientific fields. If nothing else, the book demonstrates how much has changed since 1993 (e.g. Why yes, we now have techniques for detecting small planets). Hardly surprising given my background, the section on biology topics were mostly old news to me. The sections on astronomy, cosmology, and particle physics were less familiar and therefore more useful, although the brevity of each chapter (typically 1.5-2 pages) does not offer more than an awareness and entirely superficial understanding of the topic. The chapters on technology was a grab-bag of unrelated topics. I found it worked best for very short sittings, take a few minutes to read one of the chapters and then mull it over. I wish there was a recommended reading list for topics I would like to learn more about. Still, it's a decent read of appetizers for enlightenment.
Compendio de artículos aparecidos en periódicos y revistas, que versan sobre los más variados temas, desde los parques a los quasares. La mayoría de los artículos son de Isaac, lo que es de agradecer. No es tan bueno, sin embargo, como otros muchos libros de ensayos que ha publicado. Muy bueno, pero no obra maestra.