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Isaac Asimov (January 2, 1920 - April 6, 1992) was an American author and biochemist, a highly successful and extraordinarily prolific writer of science fiction and of science books for the layperson. He published about 500 volumes.

Asimov was born in Petrovichi, Russia but his family emigrated to the United States when he was three years old. He grew up in Brooklyn, N.Y., graduating from Columbia University in 1939 and taking a Ph.D. there in 1948. He then joined the faculty of Boston University, with which he remained associated thereafter.

Asimov began contributing stories to science fiction magazines in 1939; his most famous single story is arguably "Nightfall" (1941). In 1942 he began his Foundation stories -- later collected in the "Foundation Trilogy": Foundation (1951), Foundation and Empire (1952) and Second Foundation (1953) -- which recount the collapse and rebirth of a vast interstellar empire in the universe of the future, is his most famous work of science fiction. His robot stories -- many of which were collected in his collection, I, Robot (1950) -- were begun at about the same time and promulgated a set of ethics for robots (see Three Laws Of Robotics) and intelligent machines that greatly influenced other writers' treatment of the subject.

His other novels and collections of stories include:

Novels

• The Stars Like Dust (1951)
• The Currents Of Space (1952)
• The Caves Of Steel (1954)
• The End of Eternity (1955)
• The Naked Sun (1957)
• The Gods Themselves (1972)
• Foundation's Edge (1982)
• The Robots of Dawn (1983)
• Robots and Empire (1985)
• Foundation and Earth (1986)

(later novels here)

Short Story Collections

• Earth Is Room Enough (1957)
• Nine Tomorrows (1959)
• Asimov's Mysteries (1968)
• Nightfall and Other Stories (1969)
• The Early Asimov (1972)
• Buy Jupiter and Other Stories (1975)

(and others -- need to check dates)

The short story, The Bicentennial Man was made into a movie starring Robin Williams. His Nightfall (1941) is thought by many to be the finest science fiction short story ever written.

Among Asimov's books on various topics in science, written with lucidity and humour, are:

• The Chemicals of Life (1954)
• Inside the Atom (1956)
• The World of Nitrogen (1958)
• Life and Energy (1962)
• The Human Brain (1964)
• The Neutrino (1966)
• Science, Numbers and I (1968)
• Our World in Space (1974)
• Views of the Universe (1981)

He also published two volumes of autobiography: In Memory Yet Green (1979) and In Joy Still Felt (1980). A third autobiography, I. Asimov: A Memoir, was published in April 1994. The epilogue was written by his second wife, Janet Asimov (née Jeppson), shortly after his death.

Asimov also wrote several essays on the social contentions of his day, including "Thinking About Thinking" and "Science: Knock Plastic" (1967).

Isaac Asimov died on April 6, 1992 after getting infected with HIV from tainted blood transfused during a 1983 surgical procedure. The fact that AIDS was the cause of his death was only revealed ten years later in Janet Asimov's biography It's Been a Good Life.

See also:

• The Foundation Series
• Isaac Asimov's Robot Series
• Isaac Asimov's Galactic Empire Series
• Three Laws of Robotics

External links:

• Asimov Online:
  • http://www.asimovonline.com/
  • Complete list of works: http://www.asimovonline.com/oldsite/asimov_big_list.html