Isaac Asimov
(1920-1992)
Asimov received a doctorate in
chemistry from Columbia University and taught biochemistry (1949-58) at
Boston University and remained on the faculty until his death. He became
really a legendary American sci-fi author who received 7 Hugos (!) for:
F&SF Science Articles (1963 Special Achievement); the Foundation
Series (1966 Best All-time Series); The Gods Themselves (1973 Novel);
"The Bicentennial Man" (1977 Novelette); Foundation's Edge
(1983 Novel); "Gold" (1992 Novelette); and, I. Asimov: A Memoir
(1995 Non-Fiction). Nebulas for 1972's Novel (The Gods Themselves)
and 1976's Novelette "The Bicentennial Man". The 1986 SFWA award
for Grand Master; and the 1967 Skylark Award. A 1997 inductee into the
Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame.
Isaac Asimov's stories concerning
parallel realities had been deeply influenced by Murray Leinster's story
Sidewise
in Time, originally published in Astounding, June 1934. Asimov's
'sidewise in time'-works include a short story Living Space, or
larger The Red Queen's Race, or the novel The End of Eternity).
quotations from Asimov's works:
"Isn't it obvious that the past begins an
instant ago? The dead past is just another name for the living present."
(Isaac Asimov: The Dead Past,
orig. publ. in Astounding, April 1956)
"There were an infinite number of possible
Earths. Each existed in its own niche; its own probability pattern. Since
on a planet such as Earth there was, according to calculation, about a
fifty-fifty chance of life's developing, half of all the possible Earths
(still infinite, since half of infinity was infinity) possessed life, and
half (still infinite) did not. And living on about three hundred billion
of the unoccupied Earths were three hundred billion families, each with
its own beautiful house, powered by the sun of that probability, and each
securely at peace. The number of Earths so occupied grew by millions each
day."
(Isaac Asimov: Living Space,
orig. publ. in SF Stories, May 1956)
"'...In an infinite number of worlds, anything
can happen... Everything must happen...'"
(Isaac Asimov: Living Space,
orig. publ. in SF Stories, May 1956)
"Gabriel blew, and a clean, thin sound
of perfect pitch and crystalline delicacy filled all the universe to the
furthest star. As it sounded, there was a tiny moment of stasis as thin
as the line separating past from future, and then the fabric of worlds
collapsed upon itself and matter was gathered back into the primeval chaos
from which it had once sprung at a word. The stars and nebulae were gone,
and the cosmic dust, the sun, the planets, the moon; all, all, all except
Earth itself, which spun as before in a universe now completely empty.
The Last Trump had sounded."
(Isaac Asimov: The Last Trump,
orig. publ. in Fantastic Universe, June 1955)
