Judah owned a series of candy shops and called upon his son to work in
the stores as a youngster. Isaac Asimov was fond of learning at a young age,
having taught himself to read by the age of 5; he learned Yiddish soon after,
and graduated from high school at 15 to enter Columbia University. He earned
his Bachelor of Science degree in 1939 and went on to get his M.A. and Ph.D.
from the same institution. In 1942, he wed Gertrude Blugerman.
In 1949, Asimov began a stint at Boston University School of Medicine,
where he was hired as an associate professor of biochemistry in 1955. He
eventually became a professor at the university by the late 1970s, though by
that time he'd given up full-time teaching to do occasional lectures.
'I, Robot' and 'Foundation'
Yet even with his impeccable academic credentials, writing for general
readers was to be the professor's passion. Asimov's first short story to be
sold, "Marooned Off Vesta," was published in Amazing Stories in 1938.
Years later, he published his first book in 1950, the sci-fi novel Pebble in
the Sky—the first in a line of titles that would mark a highly prolific writing
career.
An influential vision came with another 1950 release, the story
collection I, Robot, which looked at human/construct relationships and featured
the Three Laws of Robotics. (The narrative would be adapted for a blockbuster
starring Will Smith decades later.) Asimov would later be credited with coming
up with the term "robotics."
The year 1951 saw the release of another seminal work, Foundation, a
novel that looked at the end of the Galactic Empire and a statistical method of
predicting outcomes known as "psychohistory." The story was followed
by two more installations, Foundation and Empire (1952) and Second Foundation
(1953), with the series continuing into the 1980s.
Prolific and Varied Writer
Asimov was also known for writing books on a wide variety of subjects
outside of science fiction, taking on topics like astronomy, biology, math,
religion and literary biography. A small sample of notable titles include The
Human Body (1963), Asimov's Guide to the Bible (1969), the mystery Murder at
the AB A (1976) and his 1979 autobiography, In Memory Yet Green. He spent most
of his time in solitude, working on manuscripts and having to be persuaded by
family to take breaks and vacations. By December 1984, he had written 300
books, ultimately writing nearly 500.
Asimov died in New York City on April 6, 1992, at the age of 72, from
heart and kidney failure. He had dealt privately with a diagnosis of AIDS,
which he'd contracted from a blood transfusion during bypass surgery. He was
survived by two children and his second wife, Janet Jeppson.
Over the course of his career, Asimov won several Hugo and Nebula
Awards, as well as received accolades from science institutions. He stated
during a televised interview that he hoped his ideas would live on past his
death; his wish has come to fruition, with the world continuing to contemplate
his literary and scientific legacies.
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