Two articles by Asimov

Isaac asimov (1920-1992) is an American Jew. He left his motherland for the United States when he was a child. After studying biochemistry when he was young, he devoted himself to writing and became one of the most prolific writers in the world. He is very famous and one of the top science fiction writers in this century. He has won Hugo Award, the highest honor in science fiction, and Master Award, the lifetime achievement award of Nebula. Asimov's science fiction magazine, named after him, is one of the best-selling science fiction literature magazines in the United States today.

As early as 1950s, he became famous in the literary world by writing science fiction and popular science books. His extraordinary mastery of language and concepts, his constant exploration of the fictional world and the real world, and his achievements and fame have won a wide audience for his works. His works cover a wide range, including science, history, linguistic theory and science fiction. His extraordinary imagination has won the respect and admiration of adults and children. One of the reasons why Asimov's works are popular is that his books are easy to understand and interesting. In his book, science is no longer abstruse. Only by calming down and reading carefully can we step into the hall of science and appreciate its charming charm. Bases, Robots and other series are Asimov's most popular masterpieces. These seemingly independent stories, which run through each other, are actually a long epic that has been pitching for 20 thousand years! Asimov deliberately enlarged the sci-fi scene, constructed his unique sci-fi world under the background of the whole galaxy, and discussed the interactive influence of human nature and political, economic, military and other civilized elements from the rise and fall history of the galactic empire. This kind of macroscopic vision makes his works shine everywhere with the brush strokes of caring for the future of mankind, which goes beyond the limitations of ordinary science fiction works. When he first started writing robot novels, robotics had not yet developed; By the time this technology developed quite successfully, almost every book about the history of robot development mentioned him, mentioned his novels and mentioned the "three laws of robots" he invented. This law has almost become a law that science fiction writers must follow when creating works about robots in the future.

Asimov is not only a doctor of chemistry at Columbia University, but also a world-famous all-around writer. He wrote as many as 170 Yu Ben in his life, covering science, mathematics, physics, astronomy, biology, medicine, literature, religion, history and geography. Such profound knowledge makes his world have fantastic imagination and high predictability. Asimov interprets his sci-fi world with real material science and humanistic phenomena, and mixed with detective mystery novel techniques, making his works vivid, gripping and hilarious.

Asimov's latest Science Guide is a popular science book, which comprehensively introduces human efforts to explore the mysteries of the universe with scientific methods as tools. Its content covers the development and achievements of physical science, biological science and various branches of disciplines, and expounds the mutual penetration and intersection between various disciplines.

Many of Asimov's works, especially popular science works, have been translated into Chinese, and have a large number of readers in China, even many fans of Asimov.

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The great "interpreter" in the scientific age

1on the morning of April 6, 992, on the other side of the ocean, an extraordinary brain stopped thinking forever. The world has lost isaac asimov, one of the most prolific writers in history.

"We will never know how many frontline scientists have been inspired by Asimov's book, article or short story; It is impossible to know how many ordinary citizens have deep feelings for the cause of science for the same reason. " Carl sagan, a famous American astronomer and popular science writer, wrote in mourning for Asimov, "I am not worried about him, but about the rest of us-there is no Asimov around us to inspire young people to study hard and join in science."

Asimov created a miracle, and his life was also a legend.

Say goodbye to the lab and love the typewriter.

1920 65438+10.2, Asimov was born in petrovich, Smolensk, the former Soviet Union, to Jewish parents. At the age of 3, he moved to Brooklyn, new york with his family and became an American on 1928.

Asimov was born smart and began to teach himself at the age of five under the guidance of his father, who was an accountant. At the age of seven, he was able to teach his five-year-old sister to learn. At the age of 9, he first came into contact with science fiction magazines in his father's grocery store. These popular publications opened the door for Asimov to read, made him curious, and later introduced him into his writing career.

Asimov, a middle school student, likes to be alone and often gives people the impression of arrogance. But Asimov was completely able to settle down and study. He is very curious, not picky, and wants to learn everything. /kloc-finished high school at the age of 0/5 and entered the classroom of the chemistry department of Columbia University. He read a lot of popular science and science fiction works in his spare time, and he felt an impulse to create while actively thinking about problems. 18 years old, published the first science fiction novel Vesta in exile. At the age of 2 1, at the instigation of the famous sci-fi editor John W. Campbell, he wrote the classic sci-fi short story Twilight, which became famous in one fell swoop.

1939, Asimov graduated from Columbia University with a bachelor's degree, and then successively obtained a master's degree and a doctor's degree. 1955, associate professor, Boston University School of Medicine, USA, engaged in enzymology and photochemistry research. During this period, except for a short service in the army, he never stopped writing popular science and science fiction novels, and wrote several important works that established his status as a master of science fiction: Me, Robot and Base.

Moreover, some popular science works he created in the early 1950s also had certain influence. The early practice of popular science creation made Asimov realize that he not only likes but also is very good at writing works with scientific themes (not just as a foil to the plot and dialogue of science fiction). 1957, the former Soviet Union successfully launched the first artificial earth satellite, which deeply touched Asimov. He deeply feels that the scientific literacy of the American public lags behind the contemporary scientific and technological level marked by satellite launch. As a popular science writer, he thinks he has the responsibility to try his best to narrow the gap as soon as possible, so he resolutely puts down his already handy sci-fi creation and concentrates on writing books and articles to popularize scientific knowledge (it was not until 15 that he "made a comeback" and re-created sci-fi novels).

However, the creation needs a lot of time, and the teaching work obviously greatly limits Asimov's creative activities. In addition, Asimov, who is very self-aware, is increasingly aware that although his mind and professional skills are not bad, his future is not under a microscope, but on a typewriter: "I understand that I will never be a first-class scientist; But I may become a first-class writer. I made this choice: do what I can do best. " 1958, he resolutely ignored the opposition of his unmarried ex-wife and bid farewell to the podium and laboratory to become a professional expert.

This is a major turning point in Asimov's career and life. By that time, he had published 24 books.

Not just "works and other subjects"

With profound knowledge and unremitting efforts, the number of Asimov's works has increased rapidly, and he has won a series of honors and awards. He devoted himself to writing, writing for at least 8 hours every day, and sometimes even sitting in front of a typewriter for a whole week. Within a year, he can often publish 10 or even more books. Shortly before his death, Asimov claimed that he had published 467 books when the annual revised edition of Who's Who in America collected entries about him.

He made such a statistic himself: from the publication of the first book "Little Stone in the Sky" (a long science fiction novel) in 1950 to the completion of his first book 100 in 1969, it took 237 months, nearly 20 years; From 65438 to March 0979, it took him 1 13 months, and nearly nine and a half years to finish his second book 100. When he finished his third book, 100, in February, 1984, it only took 69 months. What is even more surprising is that in the next eight years, he wrote nearly 200 books at an even more amazing speed.

How high will all Asimov's works stand? No one has done the calculation yet. However, according to Mr. Lin, the first translator of the Chinese version of Asimov's works, Asimov is not only "equal to his works" but also "beyond his body", which is likely to break the Guinness Book of Records. In his autobiography "I, Asimov", there are 24 kinds of appendices, 7 kinds of mathematics, 68 kinds of astronomy, earth science 1 1 kinds, chemical biochemistry 16 kinds, physics 22 kinds, biology 17 kinds, and 40 sets of scientific essays with a history of 60 years. He edited 3 autobiographies, 2 sci-fi essays, 38 long sci-fi novels, 2 sci-fi detective stories, 33 sci-fi short stories, interesting short stories 1, 2 short sci-fi detective stories, and sci-fi stories 165438.

Excellent "tour guides" in the scientific community

Great achievements made Asimov a legend. When talking about Asimov, carl sagan pointed out: "In this century of science and technology, we need a person who plays a connecting role between science and the public. No one can do this job as well as Asimov. He is a great commentator of our time. "

Yes, Asimov has a profound understanding of science and a profound insight into the nature of science. He is not only familiar with many frontier topics of modern science, but also very familiar with the thinking method of scientific research and the development process of science and technology. No matter how profound the scientific knowledge is, once it is embellished with his wonderful pen, it will not be blunt to read.

Please look at his description of the so-called "two-field theory" in extremely abstract physics in Billiards: "Please imagine the universe as a flat, thin, elastic and unbreakable rubber plate. If the concept of mass is associated with the concept of the weight of the earth's surface, it can be considered that mass will cause the rubber plate to form a depression. The bigger the lump, the deeper the depression. "

Please look at his wonderful description of the "black hole" in the book "Infinite Road": "Asimov weighs 74.8 kilograms. If Asimov is compressed into a black hole, then his diameter is only 2.22×10-25m ".

In Asimov's popular science works, the extensiveness of content and the logic of narration are perfectly unified. He can firmly grasp the main line of writing in an extremely broad knowledge background, so that he can write freely in one go. In his popular science works, there is also a high degree of unity of science and popularity. He often puts forward all kinds of fascinating questions at the beginning of the book, even in the preface, and grasps the reader psychologically from the beginning; It goes without saying that the unfolding part is vivid, and the ending part is memorable with its rich imagination and foresight. Many of Asimov's works are models of a highly unified sense of modernity and history. The bloody scientific process often makes his popular books have both universal functions and academic value.

Even more amazing, Asimov never seems to write. He can often switch from one topic to another quickly and enjoy it. This is one of the reasons why he writes so fast. He was born with a "teaching ability", always explaining things directly and expressing his meaning accurately, thus creating his own friendly and frank style that directly attracts readers.

For popular science writers in China, Asimov is worth learning and learning from. I discussed this issue with Mr. Bian Yulin, a famous popular science writer who translated Asimov's works the most in China. For example, Asimov is a biochemist. How did he get involved in almost all natural science fields and write hundreds of excellent popular science books and thousands of popular science articles? For another example, Asimov's popular science works hardly need illustrations, and many rather abstract and complicated concepts and problems in science can be explained clearly only by the power of words. This is unique in popular science books; Judging from China's national conditions, especially the current economic and technical conditions of publishing and printing, it is very desirable for popular science books to focus on words instead of relying too much on a large number of exquisite color photos or luxurious illustrations. Wouldn't it be nice to get some inspiration from Asimov's works?

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Asimov has three titles: scientist, science fiction writer and popular science writer, but science fiction writer is the most famous. His science fiction novels can be roughly divided into three categories: robots, future history series and science fiction detective novels, among which science fiction novels with robots as the theme are the best. As early as the 1940s, when the scientific community was far from developing robots, Asimov foresaw the arrival of the robot era and the specific role of robots in social life in his robot series novels, and creatively put forward the famous "three laws of robots":

First, robots must not hurt people, nor should they stand by when people are hurt; Second, robots must obey human orders unless the orders conflict with the first law; Third, robots must protect themselves unless the protection behavior conflicts with the above two laws. These three laws clearly define the master-slave relationship and mutual restriction between human beings and robots, and have become recognized basic principles that must be followed in the development and use of robots for decades. They are programmed and input into the "brain" of the robot.

Asimov claimed to be a "serious school" in science fiction. He emphasized the scientific nature of his works and opposed shoddy and unfounded ideas. His sci-fi works are not only firmly based on scientific prediction, but also highly ideological and artistic, truly reflecting the development of science and technology and its great influence on the progress of human society, helping people to broaden their horizons, creatively think about the future and extend to unknown fields.

Asimov is undoubtedly an outstanding humanist. He regards science as a great and unified principle on earth. He used science fiction, a special literary form, to popularize scientific knowledge, and at the same time urged people to consider the relationship between human beings and science and technology, history and other aspects, and the coordinated development of human beings and the whole society.

Asimov is also a pioneer in controlling population growth and protecting the ecological environment, and a "guardian of reason, science and skepticism", that is, a pioneer fighter against pseudoscience, supernatural phenomena and religious superstitions. He has done a lot of work in these areas with his own works.

"If I don't do this, I will die."

Asimov has an almost paranoid passion for writing. Is his occupation writing, "hobby" or writing? Writing is his life. "... I live to write. 1985, the French magazine "liberation" published a book called "why do you write? Photo album, with written answers from 400 famous writers from all over the world. Among them, Asimov's answer is: "The reason why I write is like breathing; Because if I don't do this, I will die. "

There are various speculations and opinions about the origin of Asimov becoming a "writing fanatic" or "writing machine". Apart from the factor of interest, Asimov himself thinks that only by writing in an orderly way can he prove to himself that he is doing "proper work". Essentially, this is the only way for him to show that he works as hard as his father's grocery store. It is this strong work belief that makes him care so much about the number of books and is always driven by a sense of crisis. However, Michel White, Asimov's biographer, pointed out that the influence of family background and childhood experience on Asimov's writing career should not be ignored. Asimov has a strong sense of responsibility because of his unusual family background, strict discipline as a child and some responsibilities as a child. Even when he has a successful career and doesn't have to worry about money, the fear of poverty rooted in his heart when he was young still bothers him. "All this inevitably shaped Asimov into a conscious, self-disciplined workaholic who later put pressure on himself. In his life, stopping writing can almost bring him physical pain. "

His amazing number of books has even been written into science fiction works. In this novel called Imitation, there is a dialogue sarcastically asking Asimov: "'Have you read Asimov's early pro-Jewish poems? Before the Jews were Exiled was written by him more than two thousand years ago? "I have only heard of Asimov who directed the writing of Asimov's Encyclopedia of the Galaxy. This title is too arrogant ... What? He wrote all 5000 volumes? Yes, he is a workaholic. The poor guy has nothing to do. "

However, the price Asimov paid was not small. Sitting in front of a typewriter for years is not good for your health, and even normal family happiness is rare. The breakdown of his first marriage was also related to this. 1969, he wrote in the introduction of his first 100 book "Works 100": "Being the wife of a writer who is addicted to writing is worse than death. Because although your husband is at home, he is often in another world. There is nothing more tragic than this combination. "

Asimov was not divorced when he wrote this passage, but he must have a hunch. Yeterod, the "unusual girl" he "decided" to marry when he was young, could never understand and accommodate him. Jethro once scolded him like this: "One day, Isaac, when you feel that your life is coming to an end, you will remember that you spent so much time in front of the typewriter, and you will regret that you missed all the happiness you could have enjoyed, and you will regret that you wasted so many years just to write 65,438+000 books. But by then, it will be too late. "