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12,500 | Books and the magazines "Galaxy" and "Fantasy & Science Fiction" ended Asimov's dependence on "Astounding". He later described the era as his "'mature' period". Asimov's "The Last Question" (1956), on the ability of humankind to cope with and potentially reverse the process of entropy, was his personal favorite story. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=14573 |
12,501 | In 1972, his novel "The Gods Themselves" (which was not part of a series) was published to general acclaim, and it won the Hugo Award for Best Novel, the Nebula Award for Best Novel, and the Locus Award for Best Novel. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=14573 |
12,502 | In December 1974, former Beatle Paul McCartney approached Asimov and asked him if he could write the screenplay for a science-fiction movie musical. McCartney had a vague idea for the plot and a small scrap of dialogue; he wished to make a film about a rock band whose members discover they are being impersonated by a group of extraterrestrials. The band and their impostors would likely be played by McCartney's group Wings, then at the height of their career. Intrigued by the idea, although he was not generally a fan of rock music, Asimov quickly produced a "treatment" or brief outline of the story. He adhered to McCartney's overall idea, producing a story he felt to be moving and dramatic, but did not use McCartney's brief scrap of dialogue. McCartney rejected the story. The treatment now exists only in the Boston University archives. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=14573 |
12,503 | Asimov said in 1969 that he had "the happiest of all my associations with science fiction magazines" with "Fantasy & Science Fiction"; "I have no complaints about "Astounding", "Galaxy", or any of the rest, heaven knows, but "F&SF" has become something special to me". Beginning in 1977, Asimov lent his name to "Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine" (now "Asimov's Science Fiction") and wrote an editorial for each issue. There was also a short-lived "Asimov's SF Adventure Magazine" and a companion "Asimov's Science Fiction Anthology" reprint series, published as magazines (in the same manner as the stablemates "Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine"s and "Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine"s "anthologies"). | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=14573 |
12,504 | Due to pressure by fans on Asimov to write another book in his "Foundation" series, he did so with "Foundation's Edge" (1982) and "Foundation and Earth" (1986), and then went back to before the original trilogy with "Prelude to Foundation" (1988) and "Forward the Foundation" (1992), his last novel. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=14573 |
12,505 | Asimov and two colleagues published a textbook in 1949, with two more editions by 1969. During the late 1950s and 1960s, Asimov substantially decreased his fiction output (he published only four adult novels between 1957's "The Naked Sun" and 1982's "Foundation's Edge", two of which were mysteries). He greatly increased his nonfiction production, writing mostly on science topics; the launch of Sputnik in 1957 engendered public concern over a "science gap". Asimov explained in "The Rest of the Robots" that he had been unable to write substantial fiction since the summer of 1958, and observers understood him as saying that his fiction career had ended, or was permanently interrupted. Asimov recalled in 1969 that "the United States went into a kind of tizzy, and so did I. I was overcome by the ardent desire to write popular science for an America that might be in great danger through its neglect of science, and a number of publishers got an equally ardent desire to publish popular science for the same reason". | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=14573 |
12,506 | "Fantasy and Science Fiction" invited Asimov to continue his regular nonfiction column, begun in the now-folded bimonthly companion magazine "Venture Science Fiction Magazine". The first of 399 monthly "F&SF" columns appeared in November 1958 and they continued until his terminal illness. These columns, periodically collected into books by Doubleday, gave Asimov a reputation as a "Great Explainer" of science; he described them as his only popular science writing in which he never had to assume complete ignorance of the subjects on the part of his readers. The column was ostensibly dedicated to popular science but Asimov had complete editorial freedom, and wrote about contemporary social issues in essays such as "Thinking About Thinking" and "Knock Plastic!". In 1975 he wrote of these essays: "I get more pleasure out of them than out of any other writing assignment." | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=14573 |
12,507 | Asimov's first wide-ranging reference work, "The Intelligent Man's Guide to Science" (1960), was nominated for a National Book Award, and in 1963 he won a Hugo Award—his first—for his essays for "F&SF". The popularity of his science books and the income he derived from them allowed him to give up most academic responsibilities and become a full-time freelance writer. He encouraged other science fiction writers to write popular science, stating in 1967 that "the knowledgeable, skillful science writer is worth his weight in contracts", with "twice as much work as he can possibly handle". | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=14573 |
12,508 | The great variety of information covered in Asimov's writings prompted Kurt Vonnegut to ask, "How does it feel to know everything?" Asimov replied that he only knew how it felt to have the 'reputation' of omniscience: "Uneasy". Floyd C. Gale said that "Asimov has a rare talent. He can make your mental mouth water over dry facts", and "science fiction's loss has been science popularization's gain". Asimov said that "Of all the writing I do, fiction, non-fiction, adult, or juvenile, these "F & SF" articles are by far the most fun". He regretted, however, that he had less time for fiction—causing dissatisfied readers to send him letters of complaint—stating in 1969 that "In the last ten years, I've done a couple of novels, some collections, a dozen or so stories, but that's "nothing"". | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=14573 |
12,509 | In his essay "To Tell a Chemist" (1965), Asimov proposed a simple shibboleth for distinguishing chemists from non-chemists: ask the person to read the word "unionized". Chemists, he noted, will read "un"-"ionized" (electrically neutral), while non-chemists will read "union-ized" (belonging to a trade union). | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=14573 |
12,510 | Asimov coined the term "robotics" in his 1941 story "Liar!", though he later remarked that he believed then that he was merely using an existing word, as he stated in "Gold" ("The Robot Chronicles"). While acknowledging the Oxford Dictionary reference, he incorrectly states that the word was first printed about one third of the way down the first column of page 100, "Astounding Science Fiction", March 1942 printing of his short story "Runaround". | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=14573 |
12,511 | In the same story, Asimov also coined the term "positronic" (the counterpart to "electronic" for positrons). | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=14573 |
12,512 | Asimov coined the term "psychohistory" in his "Foundation" stories to name a fictional branch of science which combines history, sociology, and mathematical statistics to make general predictions about the future behavior of very large groups of people, such as the Galactic Empire. Asimov said later that he should have called it psychosociology. It was first introduced in the five short stories (1942–1944) which would later be collected as the 1951 fix-up novel "Foundation". Somewhat later, the term "psychohistory" was applied by others to research of the effects of psychology on history. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=14573 |
12,513 | In addition to his interest in science, Asimov was interested in history. Starting in the 1960s, he wrote 14 popular history books, including "The Greeks: A Great Adventure" (1965), "The Roman Republic" (1966), "The Roman Empire" (1967), "The Egyptians" (1967) "The Near East: 10,000 Years of History" (1968), and "Asimov's Chronology of the World" (1991). | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=14573 |
12,514 | He published "Asimov's Guide to the Bible" in two volumes—covering the Old Testament in 1967 and the New Testament in 1969—and then combined them into one 1,300-page volume in 1981. Complete with maps and tables, the guide goes through the books of the Bible in order, explaining the history of each one and the political influences that affected it, as well as biographical information about the important characters. His interest in literature manifested itself in several annotations of literary works, including "Asimov's Guide to Shakespeare" (1970), "Asimov's Annotated Don Juan" (1972), "Asimov's Annotated Paradise Lost" (1974), and "The Annotated Gulliver's Travels" (1980). | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=14573 |
12,515 | Asimov was also a noted mystery author and a frequent contributor to "Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine". He began by writing science fiction mysteries such as his Wendell Urth stories, but soon moved on to writing "pure" mysteries. He published two full-length mystery novels, and wrote 66 stories about the Black Widowers, a group of men who met monthly for dinner, conversation, and a puzzle. He got the idea for the Widowers from his own association in a stag group called the Trap Door Spiders, and all of the main characters (with the exception of the waiter, Henry, who he admitted resembled Wodehouse's Jeeves) were modeled after his closest friends. A parody of the Black Widowers, "An Evening with the White Divorcés," was written by author, critic, and librarian Jon L. Breen. Asimov joked, "all I can do ... is to wait until I catch him in a dark alley, someday." | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=14573 |
12,516 | Toward the end of his life, Asimov published a series of collections of limericks, mostly written by himself, starting with "Lecherous Limericks", which appeared in 1975. "Limericks: Too Gross", whose title displays Asimov's love of puns, contains 144 limericks by Asimov and an equal number by John Ciardi. He even created a slim volume of Sherlockian limericks. Asimov featured Yiddish humor in "Azazel, The Two Centimeter Demon". The two main characters, both Jewish, talk over dinner, or lunch, or breakfast, about anecdotes of "George" and his friend Azazel. Asimov's "Treasury of Humor" is both a working joke book and a treatise propounding his views on humor theory. According to Asimov, the most essential element of humor is an abrupt change in point of view, one that suddenly shifts focus from the important to the trivial, or from the sublime to the ridiculous. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=14573 |
12,517 | Particularly in his later years, Asimov to some extent cultivated an image of himself as an amiable lecher. In 1971, as a response to the popularity of sexual guidebooks such as "The Sensuous Woman" (by "J") and "The Sensuous Man" (by "M"), Asimov published "The Sensuous Dirty Old Man" under the byline "Dr. 'A (although his full name was printed on the paperback edition, first published 1972). However, by 2016, some of Asimov's behavior towards women was described as sexual harassment and cited as an example of historically problematic behavior by men in science fiction communities. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=14573 |
12,518 | Asimov published three volumes of autobiography. "In Memory Yet Green" (1979) and "In Joy Still Felt" (1980) cover his life up to 1978. The third volume, "I. Asimov: A Memoir" (1994), covered his whole life (rather than following on from where the second volume left off). The epilogue was written by his widow Janet Asimov after his death. The book won a Hugo Award in 1995. Janet Asimov edited "It's Been a Good Life" (2002), a condensed version of his three autobiographies. He also published three volumes of retrospectives of his writing, "Opus 100" (1969), "Opus 200" (1979), and "Opus 300" (1984). | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=14573 |
12,519 | In 1987, the Asimovs co-wrote "How to Enjoy Writing: A Book of Aid and Comfort". In it they offer advice on how to maintain a positive attitude and stay productive when dealing with discouragement, distractions, rejection, and thick-headed editors. The book includes many quotations, essays, anecdotes, and husband-wife dialogues about the ups and downs of being an author. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=14573 |
12,520 | Asimov and "Star Trek" creator Gene Roddenberry developed a unique relationship during "Star Trek"s initial launch in the late 1960s. Asimov wrote a critical essay on "Star Trek"s scientific accuracy for "TV Guide" magazine. Roddenberry retorted respectfully with a personal letter explaining the limitations of accuracy when writing a weekly series. Asimov corrected himself with a follow-up essay to "TV Guide" claiming that despite its inaccuracies, "Star Trek" was a fresh and intellectually challenging science fiction television show. The two remained friends to the point where Asimov even served as an advisor on a number of "Star Trek" projects. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=14573 |
12,521 | In 1973, Asimov published a proposal for calendar reform, called the World Season Calendar. It divides the year into four seasons (named A–D) of 13 weeks (91 days) each. This allows days to be named, e.g., "D-73" instead of December 1 (due to December 1 being the 73rd day of the 4th quarter). An extra 'year day' is added for a total of 365 days. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=14573 |
12,522 | Asimov won more than a dozen annual awards for particular works of science fiction and a half-dozen lifetime awards. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=14573 |
12,523 | Asimov was his own secretary, typist, indexer, proofreader, and literary agent. He wrote a typed first draft composed at the keyboard at 90 words per minute; he imagined an ending first, then a beginning, then "let everything in-between work itself out as I come to it". (Asimov used an outline only once, later describing it as "like trying to play the piano from inside a straitjacket".) After correcting a draft by hand, he retyped the document as the final copy and only made one revision with minor editor-requested changes; a word processor did not save him much time, Asimov said, because 95% of the first draft was unchanged. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=14573 |
12,524 | After disliking making multiple revisions of "Black Friar of the Flame", Asimov refused to make major, second, or non-editorial revisions ("like chewing used gum"), stating that "too large a revision, or too many revisions, indicate that the piece of writing is a failure. In the time it would take to salvage such a failure, I could write a new piece altogether and have infinitely more fun in the process". He submitted "failures" to another editor. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=14573 |
12,525 | Asimov's fiction style is extremely unornamented. In 1980, science fiction scholar James Gunn wrote of "I, Robot": | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=14573 |
12,526 | Gunn cited examples of a more complex style, such as the climax of "Liar!". Sharply drawn characters occur at key junctures of his storylines: Susan Calvin in "Liar!" and "Evidence", Arkady Darell in "Second Foundation", Elijah Baley in "The Caves of Steel", and Hari Seldon in the "Foundation" prequels. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=14573 |
12,527 | Other than books by Gunn and Joseph Patrouch, there is relatively little literary criticism on Asimov (particularly when compared to the sheer volume of his output). Cowart and Wymer's "Dictionary of Literary Biography" (1981) gives a possible reason: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=14573 |
12,528 | Gunn's and Patrouch's studies of Asimov both state that a clear, direct prose style is still a style. Gunn's 1982 book comments in detail on each of Asimov's novels. He does not praise all of Asimov's fiction (nor does Patrouch), but calls some passages in "The Caves of Steel" "reminiscent of Proust". When discussing how that novel depicts night falling over futuristic New York City, Gunn says that Asimov's prose "need not be ashamed anywhere in literary society". | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=14573 |
12,529 | Although he prided himself on his unornamented prose style (for which he credited Clifford D. Simak as an early influence), and said in 1973 that his style had not changed, Asimov also enjoyed giving his longer stories complicated narrative structures, often by arranging chapters in nonchronological ways. Some readers have been put off by this, complaining that the nonlinearity is not worth the trouble and adversely affects the clarity of the story. For example, the first third of "The Gods Themselves" begins with Chapter 6, then backtracks to fill in earlier material. (John Campbell advised Asimov to begin his stories as late in the plot as possible. This advice helped Asimov create "Reason", one of the early "Robot" stories). Patrouch found that the interwoven and nested flashbacks of "The Currents of Space" did serious harm to that novel, to such an extent that only a "dyed-in-the-kyrt Asimov fan" could enjoy it. In his later novel "Nemesis" one group of characters lives in the "present" and another group starts in the "past", beginning 15 years earlier and gradually moving toward the time of the first group. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=14573 |
12,530 | Asimov once explained that his reluctance to write about aliens came from an incident early in his career when "Astounding"s editor John Campbell rejected one of his science fiction stories because the alien characters were portrayed as superior to the humans. The nature of the rejection led him to believe that Campbell may have based his bias towards humans in stories on a real-world racial bias. Unwilling to write only weak alien races, and concerned that a confrontation would jeopardize his and Campbell's friendship, he decided he would not write about aliens at all. Nevertheless, in response to these criticisms, he wrote "The Gods Themselves", which contains aliens and alien sex. The book won the Nebula Award for Best Novel in 1972, and the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 1973. Asimov said that of all his writings, he was most proud of the middle section of "The Gods Themselves", the part that deals with those themes. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=14573 |
12,531 | In the Hugo Award-winning novelette "Gold", Asimov describes an author, based on himself, who has one of his books ("The Gods Themselves") adapted into a "compu-drama", essentially photo-realistic computer animation. The director criticizes the fictionalized Asimov ("Gregory Laborian") for having an extremely nonvisual style, making it difficult to adapt his work, and the author explains that he relies on ideas and dialogue rather than description to get his points across. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=14573 |
12,532 | In the early days of science fiction some authors and critics felt that the romantic elements were inappropriate in science fiction stories, which were supposedly to be focused on science and technology. Isaac Asimov was a prominent supporter of this point of view, expressed in his 1938-1939 letters to "Astounding", where he described such elements as "mush" and "slop". To his dismay, these letters were met with a strong opposition. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=14573 |
12,533 | Asimov attributed the lack of romance and sex in his fiction to the "early imprinting" from starting his writing career when he had never been on a date and "didn't know anything about girls". He was sometimes criticized for the general absence of sex (and of extraterrestrial life) in his science fiction. He claimed he wrote "The Gods Themselves" to respond to these criticisms, which often came from New Wave science fiction (and often British) writers. The second part (of three) of the novel is set on an alien world with three sexes, and the sexual behavior of these creatures is extensively depicted. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=14573 |
12,534 | Asimov was also criticized for a lack of strong female characters in his early work, but some of his robot stories, including the earliest ones, featured the character Susan Calvin, a forceful and intelligent woman who regularly out-performed her male colleagues. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=14573 |
12,535 | In his autobiographical writings, such as "Gold" ("Women and Science Fiction"), he acknowledges this complaint has merit and responds by pointing to inexperience. His later novels, written with more female characters but in essentially the same prose style as his early science-fiction stories, brought this matter to a wider audience. The "Washington Post"<nowiki>'</nowiki>s "Book World" section reports of "Robots and Empire" opined "In 1940, Asimov's humans were stripped-down masculine portraits of Americans from 1940, and they still are." | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=14573 |
12,536 | Asimov was an atheist, a humanist, and a rationalist. He did not oppose religious conviction in others, but he frequently railed against superstitious and pseudoscientific beliefs that tried to pass themselves off as genuine science. During his childhood, his father and mother observed the traditions of Orthodox Judaism less stringently than they had in Petrovichi; they did not force their beliefs upon young Isaac, and he grew up without strong religious influences, coming to believe that the "Torah" represented Hebrew mythology in the same way that the "Iliad" recorded Greek mythology. When he was 13, he chose not to have a bar mitzvah. As his books "Treasury of Humor" and "Asimov Laughs Again" record, Asimov was willing to tell jokes involving God, Satan, the Garden of Eden, Jerusalem, and other religious topics, expressing the viewpoint that a good joke can do more to provoke thought than hours of philosophical discussion. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=14573 |
12,537 | For a brief while, his father worked in the local synagogue to enjoy the familiar surroundings and, as Isaac put it, "shine as a learned scholar" versed in the sacred writings. This scholarship was a seed for his later authorship and publication of "Asimov's Guide to the Bible", an analysis of the historic foundations for the Old and New Testaments. For many years, Asimov called himself an atheist; he considered the term somewhat inadequate, as it described what he did not believe rather than what he did. Eventually, he described himself as a "humanist" and considered that term more practical. Asimov continued to identify himself as a secular Jew, as stated in his introduction to Jack Dann's anthology of Jewish science fiction, "Wandering Stars": "I attend no services and follow no ritual and have never undergone that curious puberty rite, the Bar Mitzvah. It doesn't matter. I am Jewish." | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=14573 |
12,538 | Likewise, he said about religious education: "I would not be satisfied to have my kids choose to be religious without trying to argue them out of it, just as I would not be satisfied to have them decide to smoke regularly or engage in any other practice I consider detrimental to mind or body." | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=14573 |
12,539 | The same memoir states his belief that Hell is "the drooling dream of a sadist" crudely affixed to an all-merciful God; if even human governments were willing to curtail cruel and unusual punishments, wondered Asimov, why would punishment in the afterlife not be restricted to a limited term? Asimov rejected the idea that a human belief or action could merit infinite punishment. If an afterlife existed, he claimed, the longest and most severe punishment would be reserved for those who "slandered God by inventing Hell". | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=14573 |
12,540 | Asimov became a staunch supporter of the Democratic Party during the New Deal, and thereafter remained a political liberal. He was a vocal opponent of the Vietnam War in the 1960s and in a television interview during the early 1970s he publicly endorsed George McGovern. He was unhappy about what he considered an "irrationalist" viewpoint taken by many radical political activists from the late 1960s and onwards. In his second volume of autobiography, "In Joy Still Felt", Asimov recalled meeting the counterculture figure Abbie Hoffman. Asimov's impression was that the 1960s' counterculture heroes had ridden an emotional wave which, in the end, left them stranded in a "no-man's land of the spirit" from which he wondered if they would ever return. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=14573 |
12,541 | Asimov vehemently opposed Richard Nixon, considering him "a crook and a liar". He closely followed Watergate, and was pleased when the president was forced to resign. Asimov was dismayed over the pardon extended to Nixon by his successor: "I was not impressed by the argument that it has spared the nation an ordeal. To my way of thinking, the ordeal was necessary to make certain it would never happen again." | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=14573 |
12,542 | After Asimov's name appeared in the mid-1960s on a list of people the Communist Party USA "considered amenable" to its goals, the FBI investigated him. Because of his academic background, the bureau briefly considered Asimov as a possible candidate for known Soviet spy ROBPROF, but found nothing suspicious in his life or background. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=14573 |
12,543 | Asimov appeared to hold an equivocal attitude towards Israel. In his first autobiography, he indicates his support for the safety of Israel, though insisting that he was not a Zionist. In his third autobiography, Asimov stated his opposition to the creation of a Jewish state, on the grounds that he was opposed to having nation-states in general, and supported the notion of a single humanity. Asimov especially worried about the safety of Israel given that it had been created among hostile Muslim neighbors, and said that Jews had merely created for themselves another "Jewish ghetto". | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=14573 |
12,544 | Asimov believed that ""science" fiction ... serve[s] the good of humanity". He considered himself a feminist even before women's liberation became a widespread movement; he argued that the issue of women's rights was closely connected to that of population control. Furthermore, he believed that homosexuality must be considered a "moral right" on population grounds, as must all consenting adult sexual activity that does not lead to reproduction. He issued many appeals for population control, reflecting a perspective articulated by people from Thomas Malthus through Paul R. Ehrlich. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=14573 |
12,545 | In a 1988 interview by Bill Moyers, Asimov proposed computer-aided learning, where people would use computers to find information on subjects in which they were interested. He thought this would make learning more interesting, since people would have the freedom to choose what to learn, and would help spread knowledge around the world. Also, the one-to-one model would let students learn at their own pace. Asimov thought that people would live in space by 2019. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=14573 |
12,546 | Asimov would often fondle, kiss and pinch women at conventions and elsewhere without regard for their consent. According to Alec Nevala-Lee, author of an Asimov biography and writer on the history of science fiction, he often defended himself by saying that far from showing objections, these women cooperated. In a 1971 satirical piece, "The Sensuous Dirty Old Man", Asimov wrote: "The question then is not whether or not a girl should be touched. The question is merely where, when, and how she should be touched." | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=14573 |
12,547 | According to Nevala-Lee, however, "many of these encounters were clearly nonconsensual." He wrote that Asimov's behaviour, as a leading science-fiction author and personality, contributed to an undesirable atmosphere for women in the male-dominated science fiction community. In support of this, he quoted some of Asimov's contemporary fellow-authors such as Judith Merril, Harlan Ellison and Frederik Pohl, as well as editors such as Timothy Seldes. Additional specific incidents were reported by other people including Edward L. Ferman, long-time editor of "The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction", who wrote "... instead of shaking my date's hand, he shook her "left breast"". | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=14573 |
12,548 | Asimov's defense of civil applications of nuclear power, even after the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant incident, damaged his relations with some of his fellow liberals. In a letter reprinted in "Yours, Isaac Asimov", he states that although he would prefer living in "no danger whatsoever" than near a nuclear reactor, he would still prefer a home near a nuclear power plant than in a slum on Love Canal or near "a Union Carbide plant producing methyl isocyanate", the latter being a reference to the Bhopal disaster. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=14573 |
12,549 | In the closing years of his life, Asimov blamed the deterioration of the quality of life that he perceived in New York City on the shrinking tax base caused by the middle-class flight to the suburbs, though he continued to support high taxes on the middle class to pay for social programs. His last nonfiction book, "Our Angry Earth" (1991, co-written with his long-time friend, science fiction author Frederik Pohl), deals with elements of the environmental crisis such as overpopulation, oil dependence, war, global warming, and the destruction of the ozone layer. In response to being presented by Bill Moyers with the question "What do you see happening to the idea of dignity to human species if this population growth continues at its present rate?", Asimov responded: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=14573 |
12,550 | Asimov enjoyed the writings of J. R. R. Tolkien, and used "The Lord of the Rings" as a plot point in a Black Widowers story, titled "Nothing like Murder". In the essay "All or Nothing" (for "The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction," Jan 1981), Asimov said that he admired Tolkien and that he had read "The Lord of the Rings" five times. (The feelings were mutual, with Tolkien saying that he had enjoyed Asimov's science fiction. This would make Asimov an exception to Tolkien's earlier claim that he rarely found "any modern books" that were interesting to him.) | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=14573 |
12,551 | He acknowledged other writers as superior to himself in talent, saying of Harlan Ellison, "He is (in my opinion) one of the best writers in the world, far more skilled at the art than I am." Asimov disapproved of the New Wave's growing influence, stating in 1967 "I want science fiction. I think science fiction isn't really science fiction if it lacks science. And I think the better and truer the science, the better and truer the science fiction". | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=14573 |
12,552 | The feelings of friendship and respect between Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke were demonstrated by the so-called "Clarke–Asimov Treaty of Park Avenue", negotiated as they shared a cab in New York. This stated that Asimov was required to insist that Clarke was the best science fiction writer in the world (reserving second-best for himself), while Clarke was required to insist that Asimov was the best science writer in the world (reserving second-best for himself). Thus, the dedication in Clarke's book "Report on Planet Three" (1972) reads: "In accordance with the terms of the Clarke–Asimov treaty, the second-best science writer dedicates this book to the second-best science-fiction writer." | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=14573 |
12,553 | Asimov became a fan of mystery stories at the same time as science fiction. He preferred to read the former because "I read every [science fiction] story keenly aware that it might be worse than mine, in which case I had no patience with it, or that it might be better, in which case I felt miserable". Asimov wrote "I make no secret of the fact that in my mysteries I use Agatha Christie as my model. In my opinion, her mysteries are the best ever written, far better than the Sherlock Holmes stories, and Hercule Poirot is the best detective fiction has seen. Why should I not use as my model what I consider the best?" He enjoyed Sherlock Holmes, but considered Arthur Conan Doyle to be "a slapdash and sloppy writer." | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=14573 |
12,554 | In non-fiction writing, Asimov particularly admired the writing style of Martin Gardner, and tried to emulate it in his own science books. On meeting Gardner for the first time in 1965, Asimov told him this, to which Gardner answered that he had based his own style on Asimov's. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=14573 |
12,555 | Paul Krugman, holder of a Nobel Prize in Economics, stated Asimov's concept of psychohistory inspired him to become an economist. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=14573 |
12,556 | John Jenkins, who has reviewed the vast majority of Asimov's written output, once observed, "It has been pointed out that most science fiction writers since the 1950s have been affected by Asimov, either modeling their style on his or deliberately avoiding anything like his style." Along with such figures as Bertrand Russell and Karl Popper, Asimov left his mark as one of the most distinguished interdisciplinarians of the 20th century. "Few individuals", writes , "understood better than Isaac Asimov what synoptic thinking is all about. His almost 500 books—which he wrote as a specialist, a knowledgeable authority, or just an excited layman—range over almost all conceivable subjects: the sciences, history, literature, religion, and of course, science fiction." | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=14573 |
12,557 | Depending on the counting convention used, and including all titles, charts, and edited collections, there may be currently over 500 books in Asimov's bibliography—as well as his individual short stories, individual essays, and criticism. For his 100th, 200th, and 300th books (based on his personal count), Asimov published "Opus 100" (1969), "Opus 200" (1979), and "Opus 300" (1984), celebrating his writing. An extensive bibliography of Isaac Asimov's works has been compiled by Ed Seiler. He published enough that his book writing rate could be analysed, showing that the writing became faster as he wrote more. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=14573 |
12,558 | An online exhibit in West Virginia University Libraries' virtually complete Asimov Collection displays features, visuals, and descriptions of some of his over 600 books, games, audio recordings, videos, and wall charts. Many first, rare, and autographed editions are in the Libraries' Rare Book Room. Book jackets and autographs are presented online along with descriptions and images of children's books, science fiction art, multimedia, and other materials in the collection. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=14573 |
12,559 | The "Robot" series was originally separate from the "Foundation" series. The Galactic Empire novels were published as independent stories, set earlier in the same future as "Foundation". Later in life, Asimov synthesized the "Robot" series into a single coherent "history" that appeared in the extension of the "Foundation" series. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=14573 |
12,560 | All of these books were published by Doubleday & Co, except the original Foundation trilogy which was originally published by Gnome Books before being bought and republished by Doubleday. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=14573 |
12,561 | The following books collected essays which were originally published as monthly columns in "The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction" and collected by Doubleday & Co | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=14573 |
12,562 | 4K resolution refers to a horizontal display resolution of approximately 4,000 pixels. Digital television and digital cinematography commonly use several different 4K resolutions. In television and consumer media, 38402160 (4K UHD) is the dominant 4K standard, whereas the movie projection industry uses 40962160 (DCI 4K). | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27168879 |
12,563 | The term "4K" is generic and refers to any resolution with a horizontal pixel count of approximately 4,000. Several different 4K resolutions have been standardized by various organizations. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27168879 |
12,564 | The terms "4K" and "Ultra HD" are used more widely in marketing than "2160p". While typically referring to motion pictures, some digital camera vendors have used the term "4K photo" for still photographs, making it appear like an especially high resolution even though 3840×2160 pixels equal approximately 8.3 megapixels, which is not considered to be especially high for still photographs. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27168879 |
12,565 | In 2005, Digital Cinema Initiatives (DCI), a prominent standards organization in the cinema industry, published the Digital Cinema System Specification. This specification establishes standardized 2K and 4K container formats for digital cinema production, with resolutions of and respectively. The resolution of the video content inside follows the SMPTE 428-1 standard, which establishes the following resolutions for a 4K distribution: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27168879 |
12,566 | 2K distributions can have a frame rate of either 24 or 48FPS, while 4K distributions must have a frame rate of 24FPS. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27168879 |
12,567 | Some articles claim that the terms "2K" and "4K" were coined by DCI and refer exclusively to the 2K and 4K formats defined in the DCI standard. However, usage of these terms in the cinema industry predates the publication of the DCI standard, and they are generally understood as casual terms for any resolution approximately 2000 or 4000 pixels in width, rather than names for specific resolutions. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27168879 |
12,568 | In 2007, the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers published SMPTE ST 2036-1, which defines parameters for two UHDTV systems called UHDTV1 and UHDTV2. The standard defines the following characteristics for these systems: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27168879 |
12,569 | In 2012, the International Telecommunication Union, Radiocommunication Sector published Recommendation ITU-R BT.2020, also known as the Ultra High Definition Television (UHDTV) standard. It adopts the same image parameters defined in SMPTE ST 2036–1. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27168879 |
12,570 | Although the UHDTV standard does not define any official names for the formats it defines, ITU typically uses the terms "4K", "4K UHD", or "4K UHDTV" to refer to the system in public announcements and press releases ("8K" for the system). In some of ITU's other standards documents, the terms "UHDTV1" and "UHDTV2" are used as shorthand. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27168879 |
12,571 | In October 2012, the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) announced their definition of the term Ultra High-Definition (or Ultra HD) for use with marketing consumer display devices. CEA defines an "Ultra HD" product as a TV, monitor, or projector with the following characteristics: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27168879 |
12,572 | The CEA definition does allow manufacturers to use other terms—such as "4K"—alongside the Ultra HD logo. Since the resolution in CEA's definition is only a minimum requirement, displays with higher resolutions such as or also qualify as "Ultra HD" displays, provided they meet the other requirements. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27168879 |
12,573 | Some 4K resolutions, like , are often casually referred to as "2160p". This name follows from the previous naming convention used by HDTV and SDTV formats, which refer to a format by the number of pixels/lines along the vertical axis (such as "1080p" for progressive scan, or "480i" for the 480-line interlaced SDTV formats) rather than the horizontal pixel count (≈4000 or "4K" for ). | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27168879 |
12,574 | The term "2160p" could be applied to any format with a height of 2160 pixels, but it is most commonly used in reference to the 4K UHDTV resolution of due to its association with the well-known 720p and 1080p HDTV formats. Although is both a 4K resolution and a 2160p resolution, these terms cannot always be used interchangeably since not all 4K resolutions are 2160 pixels tall, and not all 2160p resolutions are ≈4000 pixels wide. However, some companies have begun using the term "4K" to describe devices with support for a 2160p resolution, even if it is not close to 4000 pixels wide. For example, many "4K" dash cams only support a resolution of (43); although this is a 2160p resolution, it is not a 4K resolution. Conversely, Samsung released a () TV, but marketed it as a "4K" TV despite its 5K-class resolution. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27168879 |
12,575 | In 2015, LG Display announced the implementation of a new technology called M+ which is the addition of white subpixel along with the regular RGB dots in their IPS panel technology. The media and internet users later called this "RGBW" TVs because of the white sub pixel. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27168879 |
12,576 | Most of the new M+ technology was employed on 4K TV sets which led to a controversy after tests showed that the addition of a white sub pixel replacing the traditional RGB structure would reduce the resolution by around 25%. After tests done by Intertek in which the technical aspects of LG M+ TVs were analyzed and they concluded that "the addressable resolution display is 2,880 X 2,160 for each red, green, blue", in other words, the LG TVs were technically 2.8K as it became known in the controversy. Although LG Display has developed this technology for use in notebook display, outdoor and smartphones, it is more popular in the TV market due to the supposed 4K UHD marketed resolution but still being incapable of achieving true 4K UHD resolution as defined by the CTA as 3840x2160 active pixels with 8-bit per color. This negatively impacts the rendering of text, making it a bit fuzzier, which is especially noticeable when a TV is used as a PC monitor. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27168879 |
12,577 | In 2019, Sony was granted the CinemaWide trademark by the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO), in which the trademark covers 'Class 9' electronic devices, including smartphones. According to Sony and SID, the standard defines a CinemaWide 4K product with the following characteristics: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27168879 |
12,578 | Sony Xperia smartphones are the most widely known products that equipped with CinemaWide 4K display, such as Xperia 1, Xperia 1 II and Xperia 1 III. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27168879 |
12,579 | Video sharing website YouTube and the television industry have adopted 38402160 as their 4K standard. , 4K content from major broadcasters remained limited. On April 11, 2013, Bulb TV created by Canadian serial entrepreneur Evan Kosiner became the first broadcaster to provide a 4K linear channel and VOD content to cable and satellite companies in North America. The channel is licensed by the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission to provide educational content. However, 4K content is becoming more widely available online including on Apple TV, YouTube, Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon. By 2013, some UHDTV models were available to general consumers in the range of US$600. , prices on smaller computer and television panels had dropped below US$400. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27168879 |
12,580 | On March 26, 2013, the Advanced Television Systems Committee announced new proposals of a new standard called ATSC 3.0 which would implement UHD broadcasts at resolutions of up to or . The standard would also include framerates of up to 120Hz, HEVC encoding, wide color gamut, as well as high dynamic range. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27168879 |
12,581 | In 2014, the Digital Video Broadcasting Project released a new set of standards intended to guide the implementation of high resolution content in broadcast television. Dubbed DVB-UHDTV, it establishes two standards, known as UHD-1 (for 4K content) and UHD-2 (for 8K content). These standards use resolutions of 38402160 and 76804320 respectively, with framerates of up to 60Hz, color depth up to 10bpc (30bit/px), and HEVC encoding for transmission. DVB is currently focusing on the implementation of the UHD-1 standard. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27168879 |
12,582 | DVB finalized UHD-1 Phase 2 in 2016, with the introduction of service by broadcasters expected in 2017. UHD-1 Phase 2 adds features such as high dynamic range (using HLG and PQ at 10 or 12 bits), wide color gamut (BT. 2020/2100 colorimetry), and high frame rate (up to 120Hz). | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27168879 |
12,583 | YouTube, since 2010, and Vimeo allow a maximum upload resolution of 4096 × 3072 pixels (12.6 megapixels, aspect ratio 4:3). Vimeo's 4K content is currently limited to mostly nature documentaries and tech coverage. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27168879 |
12,584 | High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC or H.265) should allow streaming 4K content with a bandwidth of 20 to 30 Mbit/s. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27168879 |
12,585 | The first mobile phones to be able to record at 2160p () were released in late 2013, including the Samsung Galaxy Note 3, which is able to record 2160p at 30 frames per second. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27168879 |
12,586 | In the year 2014, the OnePlus One was released with the option to record DCI 4K () at 24 frames per second, as well as LG G3 and Samsung Galaxy Note 4 with optical image stabilization. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27168879 |
12,587 | In the year 2015, Apple announced the iPhone 6s was released with the 12megapixel camera that has the option to record 4K at 25 or 30 frames per second. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27168879 |
12,588 | In the years 2017 and 2018, mobile phone chipsets reached sufficient processing power that mobile phone vendors started releasing mobile phones that allow recording 2160p footage at 60 frames per second for a smoother and more realistic appearance. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27168879 |
12,589 | In 1984, Hitachi released the CMOS graphics processor ARTC HD63484, which was capable of displaying up to 4K resolution when in monochrome mode. The resolution was targeted at the bit-mapped desktop publishing market. The first commercially available 4K camera for cinematographic purposes was the Dalsa Origin, released in 2003. 4K technology was developed by several research groups in universities around the world, such as University of California, San Diego, CALIT2, Keio University, Naval Postgraduate School and others that realized several demonstrations in venues such as IGrid in 2004 and CineGrid. YouTube began supporting 4K for video uploads in 2010 as a result of leading manufacturers producing 4K cameras. Users could view 4K video by selecting "Original" from the quality settings until December 2013, when the 2160p option appeared in the quality menu. In November 2013, YouTube began to use the VP9 video compression standard, saying that it was more suitable for 4K than High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC). Google, which owns YouTube, developed VP9. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27168879 |
12,590 | Theaters began projecting movies at 4K resolution in 2011. Sony was offering 4K projectors as early as 2004. The first 4K home theater projector was released by Sony in 2012. Despite this, few finished films have 4K resolution as of 2019. Even for movies and TV shows shot using 6K or 8K cameras, almost all finished films are edited in HD resolution and enlarged to fit a 4K format. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27168879 |
12,591 | Sony is one of the leading studios promoting UHDTV content, offering a little over 70 movie and television titles via digital download to a specialized player that stores and decodes the video. The large files (≈40GB), distributed through consumer broadband connections, raise concerns about data caps. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27168879 |
12,592 | In 2014, Netflix began streaming "House of Cards", "Breaking Bad", and "some nature documentaries" at 4K to compatible televisions with an HEVC decoder. Most 4K televisions sold in 2013 did not natively support HEVC, with most major manufacturers announcing support in 2014. Amazon Studios began shooting their full-length original series and new pilots with 4K resolution in 2014. They are now currently available though Amazon Video. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27168879 |
12,593 | In March 2016 the first players and discs for Ultra HD Blu-ray—a physical optical disc format supporting 4K resolution and high-dynamic-range video (HDR) at 60 frames per second—were released. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27168879 |
12,594 | On August 2, 2016, Microsoft released the Xbox One S, which supports 4K streaming and has an Ultra HD Blu-ray disc drive, but does not support 4K gaming. On November 10, 2016, Sony released the PlayStation 4 Pro, which supports 4K streaming and gaming, though many games use checkerboard rendering or are upscaled 4K. On November 7, 2017, Microsoft released the Xbox One X, which supports of 4K streaming and gaming, though not all games are rendered at native 4K. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27168879 |
12,595 | Though experiencing rapid price drops beginning in 2013 for viewing devices, the home cinema digital video projector market saw little expansion, with only a few manufacturers (only Sony ) offering limited 4K-capable lineups, with native 4K projectors commanding five-figure price tags well into 2015 before finally breaking the US$10,000 barrier. Critics state that at normal direct-view panel size and viewing distances, the extra pixels of 4K are redundant at the ability of normal human vision. Projection home cinemas, on the other hand, employ much larger screen sizes without necessarily increasing viewing distance to scale. JVC has used a technique known as "e-shift" to extrapolate extra pixels from 1080p sources to display 4K on screens through upscaling or from native 4K sources at a much lower price than native 4K projectors. This technology of non-native 4K entered its fourth generation for 2016. JVC used this same technology to provide 8K flight simulation for Boeing that met the limits of 20/25 visual acuity. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27168879 |
12,596 | Pixel shifting, as described here, was pioneered in the consumer space by JVC, and later in the commercial space by Epson. That said, it is not the same thing as "true" 4K. More recently, some DLP projectors claim 4K UHD (which the JVCs and Epsons do not claim). | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27168879 |
12,597 | As noted above, DCI 4K is 40962160, while 4K UHD is 38402160, producing a slight difference in aspect ratio rather than a significant difference in resolution. Traditional displays, such as LCD or OLED, are 3840 pixels across the screen, with each pixel being 1/3840th of the screen width. They do not overlap—if they did, they would suffer reduced detail. The diameter of each pixel is basically 1/3840th of the screen width or 1/2160th of the screen height - either gives the same size pixel. That 38402160 works out to 8.3 megapixels, the official resolution of 4K UHD (and therefore Blu-ray UHD discs). | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27168879 |
12,598 | The 4K UHD standard does not specify how large the pixels are, so a 4K UHD projector (Optoma, BenQ, Dell, et al.) counts because these projectors have a 2718 × 1528 pixel structure. Those projectors process the true 4K of data and project it with overlapping pixels, which is what pixel shifting is. Unfortunately, each of those pixels is far larger: each one has 50% more area than true 4K. Pixel shifting projectors project a pixel, shift it up to the right, by a half diameter, and project it again, with modified data, but that second pixel overlaps the first. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27168879 |
12,599 | In other words, pixel shifting cannot produce adjacent vertical lines of RGBRGB or other colors where each line is one pixel (1/3840th of the screen) wide. Adjacent red and green pixels would end up looking like yellow, with a fringe on one side of red, on the other of green - except that the next line of pixels overlaps as well, changing the color of that fringe. 4K UHD or 1080p pixel shifting cannot reveal the fine detail of a true 4K projector such as those Sony ships (business, education and home markets). Also, JVC has one true 4K projector priced at $35,000 (as of mid-2017). | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27168879 |
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