Isaac Asimov

Isaac Asimov ( AZ-im-ov; born between October 4, 1919, and January 2, 1920; celebrated January 2; died April 6, 1992) was an American biochemistry professor at Boston University and a writer. Alongside Robert A. Heinlein and Arthur C. Clarke, he was regarded as one of the "Big Three" science fiction authors. He authored or compiled over 500 books and roughly 90,000 letters and postcards. Though best known for hard science fiction, he also produced mysteries, fantasy, popular science, and other nonfiction. His output covers nine of the ten Dewey decimal system categories.

His most celebrated work is the Foundation series, which follows a fallen galactic empire. The initial three books earned the one-time Hugo Award for "Best All-Time Series" in 1966. Other major series include the Galactic Empire books and the Robot series, which features *The Caves of Steel* and *The Naked Sun*, both from the mid-1950s. The Galactic Empire novels take place earlier in the same fictional universe as the Foundation series. Later, with *Foundation and Earth* (1986), he connected this distant future to the Robot series, creating a unified "future history." He also penned over 380 short stories, including "Nightfall," voted the best short science fiction story of all time in 1964 by the Science Fiction Writers of America. Under the pen name Paul French, he wrote the Lucky Starr juvenile science fiction novels.

Most of his popular science books explain topics historically, tracing back to the simplest stage of the science involved. Examples are *Guide to Science*, the three-volume *Understanding Physics*, and *Asimov's Chronology of Science and Discovery*. He covered many other scientific and nonscientific subjects, including chemistry, astronomy, mathematics, history, and literary criticism, with guides to the Bible and Shakespeare.

Asimov served as president of the American Humanist Association. Honors include the asteroid (5020) Asimov, a Martian crater, a Brooklyn elementary school, Honda's humanoid robot ASIMO, and four literary awards.

Asimov was born in Petrovichi, Russian SFSR. His parents were Russian Jews: Anna Rachel (née Berman) and Judah Asimov, a miller's son. He was named after his maternal grandfather, Isaac Berman. Asimov noted his father, though educated as an Orthodox Jew, was not Orthodox at heart and did not recite prescribed prayers or teach them to him. In 1921, Asimov and 16 other children in Petrovichi caught double pneumonia; only he survived. He had a younger sister and brother, Stanley, who later became vice-president of Newsday.

His family traveled to the United States via Liverpool on the RMS Baltic, arriving February 3, 1923, when he was three. He later wrote two essays about this arrival: "Ellis Island and I" and "Ellis Island: Enter One Immigrant ... Sprouting Measles." His parents spoke Yiddish and English to him; he never learned Russian, which they used as a secret language. Growing up in Brooklyn, New York, he taught himself to read at age five (and later taught his sister, letting her enter second grade). His mother got him into first grade a year early by claiming he was born September 7, 1919. In third grade, he discovered the "error" and insisted on correcting the date to January 2. He became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1928 at age eight.

After settling in the U.S., his parents owned a series of candy stores where the family worked. These stores sold newspapers and magazines, which Asimov credited with fostering his love of reading, providing him with endless new material (including pulp science fiction magazines) he otherwise could not afford. He began reading science fiction at age nine, as the genre became more science-focused. He was also a frequent patron of the Brooklyn Public Library.

His surname comes from *azimy khleb*, meaning 'winter bread' (rye), which his great-great-great-grandfather dealt in, with the Russian suffix -ov added. It is spelled in Cyrillic. When the family arrived in the U.S. in 1923 and needed a Latin spelling, his father used an S, believing it pronounced like Z (as in German), resulting in Asimov. This inspired his short story "Spell My Name with an S." Asimov refused early suggestions to use a more common pseudonym, believing his name's recognizability helped his career. After becoming famous, he often met readers who thought "Isaac Asimov" was a distinctive pseudonym for an author with a common name.

He attended New York City public schools from age five, including Boys High School in Brooklyn. Graduating at 15, he attended City College of New York for a few days before accepting a scholarship at Seth Low Junior College, a branch of Columbia University in Downtown Brooklyn created to absorb academically qualified Jewish and Italian-American students who exceeded Columbia College's unwritten ethnic quotas.