I was born in Russia, I didn’t know Russian
On January 2, 1920, Isaac Yudovich Azimov was born in the family of a miller from the village of Petrovichi in the Smolensk region. He lived in Russia for up to three years but did not learn a word of Russian. His parents taught him Yiddish and English, and they only spoke Russian in secret conversations with each other, moving to another room.
“If they would give up their desire for privacy and speak Russian to me, I would begin to absorb it like a sponge and master the latter. [кроме английского] World language” – Wrote science fiction
He assumed that the parents had planned the move long ago and wanted their son to be raised as an American as soon as possible. Asimov had no such regrets as he considered English to be the greatest language in the world.
I was an atheist, I read the Bible
Isaac’s parents were Orthodox Jews, and Yuda Asimov knew the Torah well. However, after moving to the United States, the father escaped from his grandfather’s influence and began to lead a secular lifestyle and never tried to raise his son as a Jew. As a result, he became acquainted with the Bible after reading science fiction and Greek myths, did not believe in miracles and considered the sacred text a compilation of Jewish myths, but nevertheless became interested in the Old and New Testaments as cultural and historical monuments.
He was already a well-known author and published three Bible Guides. These works cannot be called academic, but in them the author tried to place the Testament in a historical and geographical context, creating many maps and outlining his view of how ancient political events influenced the legends.
He taught Americans how to pronounce their last names
The surname “Azimov”, derived from the word “winter”, sounds easy and understandable to the Russian ear, but when moving to the USA, a problem arose: the writer’s father did not know English well, and the sound “z” should be transmitted with the letter “s”, as in German. As a result, in the world of Latin writing, Asimov is known as Asimov.
Moreover, the Americans did not believe that this surname was real and believed that the author took a wonderful creative pseudonym that was even impossible to pronounce. The science fiction author wrote a special guide for English-speaking people:
“There are three simple English words: ‘has’, ‘that’ and ‘of’. Connect them as “has” and read them in order. Now take out all the h’s, read again, and get Asimov.
I wrote about space, I was afraid to fly
Much of Asimov’s work is devoted to space and interplanetary travel, including the Foundation series of novels. Despite this, the writer was an air hater and feared even terrestrial, atmospheric flights. He had only been on a plane twice in his life and therefore traveled very little. He only fell in love with cruises at a very mature age. In particular, he watched the launch of Apollo 17, the last manned mission to the Moon in the 20th century, from the ship.
He had a high IQ but he thought it was meaningless
Asimov had an extremely high IQ (intelligence quotient) of 160. A score of 100 is considered the average person’s level, and only 2.3% of people score above 130. The science fiction writer was long a member of the Mensa community, which accepted only those in the top 2% in terms of intelligence. But the writer himself was extremely skeptical both of this society and of the idea of u200bu200bIQ, which he had to measure for the first time during military service in the US Army.
He thought that an individual’s intelligence was a product of the surrounding culture rather than an objectively measurable biological indicator such as height or weight. high scores thought Asimov typed it up because he thought the same way as the creators of the test. In his view, the results would have been completely different if the tests had been created by auto mechanics, carpenters, or farmers rather than by scientists who appointed themselves as arbiters of intelligence matters.
He liked Mensa’s company even less.
“No matter how high their IQ was on paper, they were just as irrational as anyone else. Some [из членов общества] They viewed themselves as members of a superior group worthy of ruling the world, and non-males were treated as worthless. <…> Worse still, among them were groups that accepted astrology, held anti-scientific views, and enjoyed various intellectual nonsense.” Wrote HE.
He eventually left Mensa, tired of the arrogance of its members and their constant efforts to one-up each other.
He was an extremely prolific writer
Asimov began writing as a child. The story “Caught by Vesta,” the first surviving published story, was written at the age of 18. He published around 500 books in his 72 years of life – an average of around 1000-1700 words a day, by his own calculations. This kind of pace often arouses suspicion in a writer, but no one even suspected that Asimov was using “literary blacks.”
But not all of his works were magnificent. In the middle of his career, around the same time as the flight of Sputnik 1, the author devoted himself to popular science literature, writing more than 100 books and a column for the Magazine of Science & Science Fiction. Asimov himself received a degree in chemistry from Columbia University in 1948. He turned to science fiction only in the last decade of his life.
In addition to numerous books and articles, the science fiction author wrote nearly 90 thousand letters and postcards because he loved responding to his fans.
I wanted to be loved completely
Already an established writer, Asimov did not want to be remembered as the author of a single book (such as Goethe and his Faust) or even a dozen books. Instead, the author wanted memory to remain a combination of “quantity, quality, and variety.” [книг]Something no one else can replicate.”
Despite all his wishes, Asimov is primarily remembered for his Foundation and Robots series due to his human mental structure. The first of them is dedicated to the distant future of civilization and the Galactic Empire, the second actually gave birth to the image of a robot and the word robotics (robotics).
Finally, Asimov’s greatest artistic work is considered his early story “Nightfall”. It tells the story of a fictional civilization living on a planet with many suns, where night only occurs once every 2049 years due to the peculiar characteristics of the movement of the stars. None of the inhabitants of the planet knows the dark time of day or believes in its existence: only one scientist predicts the coming of darkness and the death of civilization and is trying to build a shelter. Science Fiction Writers Association of America in 1968 choosed This story is the best in the history of the genre.
No sex, no aliens
In the mid-20th century, the science fiction genre seemed low and frivolous to many. In this context, Asimov was often asked: Why are there almost no speculative descriptions of aliens or sex scenes in his books?
As a matter of fact, it is not clear why the author, who loved to disturb beautiful women throughout his life, did not include sexual depictions in his books. However, the science fiction writer himself gave the answer about aliens. He tried to describe them at the beginning of his career, but readers did not like creatures far superior to humans, and Asimov did not want to write about underdeveloped aliens.
In response to criticism, he wrote a novel called The Gods Themselves, which involved sex and aliens. The book became universally known, and Asimov himself liked it, primarily because, in the image of aliens, he managed to describe a psychology completely alien to humans.
He rejected the Pentagon’s offer
In the late 1950s, American chemist Arthur Obermaier received orders from the government to “identify the most creative approaches to creating a missile defense system.” Obermayer was a good friend of Asimov and decided that no one could be a better idea generator than the science fiction writer who shaped the robot concept. However, Asimov rejected a job offer from the defense agency DARPA; he was afraid his security clearance would not allow him to create freely.
As consolation, the science fiction author wrote an article for DARPA about creativity and creative thinking. Interestingly, contrary to popular opinion then (and now), Asimov rejected collective brainstorming. He believed that a creative person needs periods of isolation in which nothing will interfere with the work of the mind.
“I believe isolation is necessary when it comes to creativity. A creative person always strives to create in any case. Even if he doesn’t realize it, his mind is constantly churning information. Since creation is confusing, the presence of others can only slow down this process. “For every good new idea you have, there are hundreds or tens of thousands of stupid ideas that you naturally don’t want to show.” Wrote HE.
Died from the consequences of HIV infection
Isaac Asimov died, according to the official version, on April 6, 1992, from heart and kidney failure. However, years later, his wife announced that the writer had contracted HIV. Throughout his life, the diagnosis was kept secret because this virus was often transmitted through injection drug use or unprotected sexual intercourse.
Azimov was infected with the disease by the doctors themselves due to negligence. Due to a heart attack in 1983, he underwent coronary bypass surgery, which required a blood transfusion. He apparently had an infection, which in the 1980s almost always meant a suspended death sentence.
Asimov once said that if a doctor had predicted his death in six minutes, he would not have been confused, he would just have started typing faster. He did not cheat, and the books he wrote had to be published several years after his death.