{Read} {PDF EPUB} ~download The Dark Ages by Isaac Asimov Isaac Asimov. Dr. Isaac Asimov (2 January 1920 – 6 April 1992) was a Russian-born American Jewish author and biochemist, a highly successful and exceptionally prolific writer best known for his works of science fiction and for his many non-fiction books, including several genres: popular science writings, guides to the bible and science, mystery novels, literature commentary (his works on Shakespeare) and history. Asimov was by general consensus a master of the science-fiction genre and, along with Robert A. Heinlein and Arthur C. Clarke, was considered to be one of the "Big Three" science-fiction writers during his lifetime. His most famous novels are those based in the Foundation Universe including the Robot, Empire, and Foundation series. Asimov was one of the most prolific writers of all time, having written or edited more than 500 books and an estimated 9,000 letters and postcards. His works have been published in nine of the ten major categories of the Dewey Decimal System (all except the 100s, Philosophy) Contents. Biography. He was born in Petrovichi, Russia, but his family migrated to the USA when he was three years old. He graduated from Columbia University in 1939 and took a Ph.D. in chemistry there in 1948. In between, he spent three years during World War II working at the Philadelphia Navy Yard's Naval Air Experimental Station. After the war ended, he was drafted into the U.S. Army, serving for just under nine months before receiving a honorable discharge. His physical dexterity was very poor. He never learned how to swim or ride a bicycle, although he did learn to drive a car and found he enjoyed it. He did not learn to operate a car until after he moved to Boston, Massachusetts. In his jokebook Asimov Laughs Again , he describes Boston driving as "anarchy on wheels". He started writing for science fiction magazines like Astounding . John W. Campbell, then editor of Astounding Science Fiction, was a strong formative influence and eventually became a personal friend. He published in 1950 under Doubleday his first novel, Pebble in the Sky . He wrote a collection of robot stories called I, Robot on the genre of Robot series. He then later wrote his Foundation series. In 1941, "Nightfall" was a famous short story which has been described as one of "the most famous science-fiction stories of all time". Another short tale that has been very famous and probably one of the author's favorites (he said so when asked about it) is "The Last Question". It is about the fight against entropy. Every good amount of years a question is performed about stopping entropy. The question is posed to the best computer in each epoch. He also write juvenile stories on his Lucky Starr series. From 1985 until his death in 1992, he was president of the American Humanist Association. The asteroid 5020 Asimov, the magazine Asimov's Science Fiction , a Brooklyn, NY elementary school, and two different Isaac Asimov Awards are named in his honor. He won a Nebula Award in 1973 for Best Novel for The Gods Themselves . He also won six Hugo Awards for several novels. He died in 1992. His wife has published some tales about Norby, a fictional robot created by him. Personality. Although Jewish born, he was not a practitioner. He was a rationalist and had a skeptic world view that is reflected in his science articles. He opposed the law to revive Creationism in schools in the Reagan era. He was claustrophile, this is, he liked small spaces. He was also afraid of flying and did not think it was contradictory with his characters flying spaceships. That was his characters, not him, and it was fiction, according to some of his answers to this question. Works. Books. (six novels) (with Robert Silverberg) Short stories. (1950), (1955) (1956) (1957) (1959) (1964) (1967) (1969) (1972) (1973) (1975) (1976) (1980) (1982) (1983) (1986) (1986) (1986) (1988) (1990) (1990) (1995) (six collections) (1968) (1980) Authors inspired by him. Besides movies, his Foundation and Robot stories have inspired other derivative works of science fiction literature, many by well-known and established authors such as Roger MacBride Allen, Greg Bear, Gregory Benford and David Brin. These appear to have been done with the blessing, and often at the request of, Asimov's widow Janet Asimov. Themes. Psychohistory. It is a fictional science created in the Foundation series . It was invented by Hari Seldon, a scientist. It is a science of future behavior of large masses of people. People can be treated like the molecules of a gas: they are millions but the gas itself (humanity) can be treated as a unit. This science worked over several million people (the human population of the galaxy in the times of the Foundation) and predicted the behavior of humanity as a whole. Seldon predicted the fall of the Galactic Empire which was governing the galaxy at that time. He predicted there would be 25000 years of darkness, but he could shrink it to 1000 if some minor changes could be performed. For that, he created a "Foundation" of encyclopedists in a far planet. The Encyclopedia was a trick to fool the Emperor. The real plans of the Foundation were to advance scientifically and to get and create weapons so they would become invincible. This Foundation would later attack the Empire, emerging as the conquerors and would try to revive the lost empire. He created also a "Second Foundation" which would have mental powers. The first Foundation would know nothing about the second, for his plans to be accomplished successfully. He then located the Second Foundation on "the opposite side of the galaxy" with respect to the former. Nevertheless, Seldon could never predict the destiny of individuals with his science. So he could not predict the rise of a new human being, a mutant called "The Mule" who had mental powers and could manipulate the emotions of others. That is the universe of the Foundation series, or Trantor universe as it is called, honoring the name of the planet where the Foundation is. Asimov himself confessed that this Galactic Empire was inspired by the historical Roman Empire. So, the thousand of years of darkness was the era called The Dark Ages. There are some characters directly inspirited by the Roman Empire, like the General Bel Riose who is thought to be inspired by Flavius Belisarius, the last great general of the Roman Empire during the 6th century. Robots. Another common theme on his writings was robots. They were humanoid robots like R. Daneel Olivaw who acted like a person, except for feelings. They were pictured like soft, nice and servants of humanity. They could not harm people, like they do in other science fiction writings or movies. There was another character, besides R. Daneel Olivaw: R. Giskard, which had mental powers. Susan Calvin was a robotist who appears on many robot stories. And Elijah Bailey was a detective who solved mysteries with the help of R. Daneel. In scientific writings he also imagined that they could replace humanity. Computers. There was a very advanced computer: Multivac, which means Multiple Vacuum Analog Computer. It was huge and has tremendous processing power. It was used in several experiments and short stories. He predicted many inventions, like the personal computer. He went beyond that and on the story What If he describes a TV-like screen with data, much like today's laptop computers. He wrote about miniaturization on The Last Question on the time of vacuum valve computers. The Three Laws of Robotics. In most of his stories about robots, the robots are supposed to follow these laws, which were first explicitly stated in the 1942 story Runaround. Usually the plots are based on dilemmas arisen by the clash of two of the laws or the different possible interpretations of them. Many of these stories are collected in I, Robot. Like most of his short stories he published them during the 40s and 50s (the Golden Age mentioned above) in pulp magazines. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. A robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law. According to Schott's Original Miscellany, " Asimov later felt that his initial three laws were insufficient to protect society at large. Consequently, in his 1985 book Robots and Empire, he created a prequel, 'Zeroth' law, to which the other laws were subordinate. " —Ben Schott. This law, basic a wider reaching variant of the first law, stated that a robot may not injure humanity or, through inaction, allow humanity to come to harm. [1] The Dark Ages by Isaac Asimov. This is the sixth volume in Isaac Asimov’s billiant histories for young people. Having recreated in his widely praised books the great civilizations of the Near East, Egypt, Greece, and Rome, he now moves to Northern Europe to discuss the Franks and the Goths, who came from the north to spell the end of Mediterranean domination. As countless reviewers have pointed out, Dr. Asimov brings to the telling of history a variety of disciplines, clear sparkling prose, and an infectious enthusiasm that catches the reader up in his panorama of events. THE DARK AGES is no exception. Here we see the Germanic Tribes and Gothic Kingdoms, the coming of the darkness. We see the powerful role of Christianity in the unfolding of military events. We watch kings fall and empires crumble. We meet fascinating personalities—Alaric, Charlemagne and his Carolingian successors. And finally, we pass through the darkness to catch a glimmer of the light that promises to come. The Dark Ages is a period of history not well known to many. Dr. Asimov has shown it to be an eminently interesting time, well worth exploring with a knowledgeable and witty guide. This is an excellent history about a period of time that I frankly do not know as well as some others, which makes the book doubly appreciated. Here Asimov covers the history of the Germanic peoples from the beginning through the beginning of the tenth century. His particular focus is on Western Europe and, in particular, the Frankish kingdom which became under Charlemagne the Frankish Empire and its subsequent history under his descendants. The book is rather confusing at times, to be sure—this is not an orderly period of history Asimov is dealing with. Tribe after tribe comes sweeping across the Rhine or Danube into the Roman Empire, Emperor after Emperor is made an unmade, king after king rises and falls. There are some much needed helps in the book in the form of genealogical tables, but if one were to fault Asimov’s narrative, the fault would be that there is so much narrative and so little else—more and better maps, in particular, would be very helpful. Still, that’s a minor point on the whole. The story is (all things considered) clear and well-told, and (frankly) because Asimov talks mostly about the chronicles of events, the reader gets more information about the short-lived kings and their short-lived kingdoms than most modern books dealing with the Dark Ages would provide. Definitely this volume would provide an excellent introduction to the early history of France for the interested reader. And the book has an utterly charming dedication—“To my daughter Robyn, who could brighten any age, however dark.” The Dark Ages by Isaac Asimov. From and To can't be the same language. That page is already in . Something went wrong. Check the webpage URL and try again. Sorry, that page did not respond in a timely manner. Sorry, that page doesn't exist or is preventing translations. Sorry, that page doesn't exist or is preventing translations. Sorry, that page doesn't exist or is preventing translations. Something went wrong, please try again. Try using the Translator for the Microsoft Edge extension instead. Isaac Asimov. Three Laws of Robotics [ edit | edit source ] Asimov is famous for his creation of the Three Laws of Robotics (as well as coining the term "robotics"). They are unbreakable rules built into his robots' positronic brains that govern their behavior. They are: 1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. 2. A robot must obey the orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law. 3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws. He later added a "Zeroth" Law that would supersede the previous three. 0. A robot may not harm humanity, or, by inaction, allow humanity to come to harm. Selected Bibliography [ edit | edit source ] Foundation Series Galactic Empire Series The Robot Series I, Robot Nightfall with Robert Silverberg. Connection to the Dark Tower Series [ edit | edit source ] In The Dark Tower Series, the company, North Central Positronics, creates a line of robots that they call Asimov Robots. The Asimov Robots shared the positronic brain that Asimov described in his novels. Though, North Central's robots lacked the Three Laws and could harm people. The Crimson King took advantage of this by having Andy spy on the people of Calla Bryn Sturgis and help the Wolves kidnap their children. The Dark Ages by Isaac Asimov. Pebble in the Sky [S3] by Isaac Asimov (1950) Joseph Schwartz was a happily retired tailor in 1949 Chicago until he became a helpless stranger on Earth during the heyday of the first Galactic Empire. Earth is a backwater, just a pebble in the sky, despised by all the other 200 million planets of the Empire because its people dare to claim it's the original home of man. Asimov's first novel is Golden Age SF at its finest. The Stars, Like Dust [S1] by Isaac Asimov (1951) A young man attending the University of Earth flees an unknown assassin. He subsequently learns that his highly respected father has been murdered after being caught conspiring against the Tyranni - rulers of a minor empire that maintains control of its subject worlds by suppressing science. Asimov's "least favorite novel" lays the foundation for his Galactic Empire series. Foundation [S1] by Isaac Asimov (1951) The Galactic Empire is dying. Only Hari Seldon, creator of the revolutionary science of psychohistory, can see into the future to the dark age to come. To preserve knowledge and save mankind, Seldon gathers the best minds in the Empire and brings them to a bleak planet at the edge of the Galaxy to serve as a beacon of hope for a future generations. He calls his sanctuary the Foundation. Foundation and Empire [S2] by Isaac Asimov (1952) The incredible story of a new breed of man who create a new force for galactic government. Thus, the Foundation hurtles into conflict with the decadent, decrepit First Empire. In this struggle for power amid the chaos of the stars, man stands at the threshold of a new, enlightened life which could easily be put aside for the old forces of barbarism. Intelligent golden age sci-fi. Second Foundation [S3] by Isaac Asimov (1953) So far the Foundation was safe. But there was a hidden Second Foundation to protect the first. The Mule has yet to find it, but he was getting closer all the time. The men of the Foundation sought it, too, to escape from Mule's mind control. Only Arkady, a 14 year-old girl seemed to have the answer. The last novel in the original Foundation trilogy is a genuine mind-boggler. The Caves of Steel by Isaac Asimov (1954) A millennium into the future two advancements have altered the course of human history: the colonization of the galaxy and the creation of the positronic brain. Future Earth inhabitants live underground in a vast world city. When a robotics expert is murdered, a detective and his robot partner hunt for the killer in the city's elaborate network of corridors. The End of Eternity by Isaac Asimov (1955) Eternals are temporal technicians who range through past and present keeping things on track by altering time. When an Eternal falls in love he decides that a more conventional mortal lifestyle might be a good idea. Perhaps Asimov's best stand-alone (there aren't many), although many will find the love story a bit clumsy. Fans of the master will no doubt lap it up. The Naked Sun by Isaac Asimov (1956) On the beautiful Outer World planet of Solaria, a handful of human colonists lead a hermit-like existence, their every need attended to by their faithful robot servants. A detective Elijah Baley, sent from the streets of New York with his positronic robot partner to solve an incredible murder that has rocked Solaria to its foundations. The Laws of Robotics are seriously challenged. The Dark Ages by Isaac Asimov. It is a truly daunting task to try and write a blog post about an utterly unique and undisputed classic of literature like Isaac Asimov’s Foundation (1951). On the other hand, it is almost impossible to not write about such a book after reading it, considering the torrent of ideas it bombards and infuses you with. I’ve never gotten very deep into science fiction in my life, and in recent years I’ve been trying to correct that by hunting down the classics: Foundation does not disappoint. Originally a series of short stories that was turned into a novel, Foundation chronicles 150 years of history of an organization called, well, the Foundation, which has been created in a remote corner of the galaxy to preserve the history and knowledge of humanity and restore it after what amounts to a galactic Dark Age. The book starts in the year 0 F.E. (“Foundation Era”), the year that mathematician and psychologist Hari Seldon creates the Foundation. Seldon is the pioneering founder of a new branch of science called psychohistory, a field that uses advanced mathematics to accurately predict the behavior of large populations of people, and is able to make reliable predictions far, far into the future. Seldon’s mathematics have demonstrated, with almost perfect certainty, that the 12,000 year old Galactic Empire (consisting of millions of inhabited worlds) is destined to collapse within 300 years, leading to a period of chaos, violence and ignorance that will last for 30,000 years. This horrible fate is too far along to be avoided, but it can be shorted dramatically. Seldon begins to create the Foundation, which will preserve humanity’s collected knowledge and reduce the length of the Dark Age to a mere 1,000 years. The officials of the Empire aren’t particularly keen to have a doomsayer living on their capital world, so they banish Seldon and his 100,000 workers and families to a remote, resource-poor world called Terminus that lies on the edge of the galaxy. However, things are not as bleak as they appear. Seldon anticipated the banishment, and even manipulated events in order to force it to happen. Seldon has a plan for the Foundation that is more intricate than anyone realizes, and he has planned out its entire future using psychohistory. He cannot share this information, however, as that knowledge would make his models unpredictable and likely change them for the worse. He must rely on those leaders that come after him to overcome the numerous existential threats to the Foundation that he has predicted, which become known as “Seldon crises.” But how can a weak, resource-starved community with no army fend off the violent monarchs and warlords that rise as the Empire collapses? Foundation consists of five chapters — The Psychohistorians, The Encyclopedists, The Mayors, The Traders, The Merchant Princes — that tell the early history of the Foundation and the trials it faces. The first chapter, as noted, describes Seldon’s forming of the society. Three of the other chapters feature Seldon crises; the remaining chapter, though it is not obvious at first, details events that will lead to a Seldon crisis. As I have already said, Foundation was originally written as a collection of short stories, much like I, Robot (1950), the first book in another of Asimov’s classic sci-fi series. The stories in Foundation form a much more coherent whole, however, as they form key moments in a fictional history. One would hardly think that a book that features a different protagonist in each chapter would not be compelling, especially when it is a book that focuses almost entirely on politics and economics. Asimov is a truly gifted writer, however, and the story is never boring. I spent two hours at lunch the other day because I couldn’t put the book down until I was finished! There are so many amazing things to say about Foundation . It is, to me, clearly a celebration of science and reason, as well as an ode to thinking strategically over long time scales. Problems are solved using this long-term planning, and practically solve themselves, without bloodshed. Indeed, as one Foundation member notably says, “Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.” And he is proven right, as the novel contains what I consider to be one of the greatest and most brutal examples of pwning in science fiction history. The protagonist gets to literally sit and sip wine as plans, implemented decades ago, come to fruition and wreak havoc — without warfare — on a deadly enemy of the Foundation. The ability to use foresight to avoid violence is a recurring theme throughout the book. There is a fascinating irony about the heroics in Foundatio n. Both the crises that hit the organization, and the solutions, have been planned and predicated years earlier by Seldon’s psychohistory; often, the most significant action a leader can take is to simply let events take their natural course until their is only one possible solution left, which is almost certainly the solution Seldon foresaw. Asimov was obviously quite knowledgeable in the way science is done, and I can’t help but wonder if this odd type of heroics was his way of gently taking the piss out of the idea of “great men of science.” Though we regularly celebrate the achievements of groundbreaking researchers like Albert Einstein, it is less acknowledged that many of the discoveries of such great people were practically inevitable at the time. Einstein’s special relativity, for instance, was preceded by important work on the speed of light and spacetime by scientists and mathematicians like Lorentz, Minkowski, and Riemann. That isn’t to say that Einstein’s work was not hugely and fundamentally important, but to say that science is a cultural, societal phenomenon and progress with inevitability. In Foundation , we see that those leaders that arise during each of the Seldon crises are fulfilling a role that had been built up by social and psychological forces far greater than them. Speaking of Seldon and his psychohistory, Asimov has a clear inspiration for it, which is even overtly discussed in the book: statistical mechanics. “Because even Seldon’s advanced psychology was limited. It could not handle too many independent variables. He couldn’t work with individuals over any length of time; any more than you could apply kinetic theory of gases to single molecules. He worked with mobs, populations of whole planets, and only blind mobs who do not possess foreknowledge of the results of their own actions.” Statistical mechanics is the branch of physics that deals with the behavior of large systems of interacting particles, such as the constantly-in-motion atoms and molecules of a solid, liquid or gas. It is not possible to track or predict the behavior of individual molecules, as the interactions between all the particles is far too complicated, but it is possible to use statistical methods to describe the behavior of the gas as a whole. From these models, much of the bulk behavior of liquids and gasses can be predicted with certainty: for example, the phase transition of water from liquid to solid when the temperature hits 0° C. In Asimov’s psychohistory, the essentially random motions and interactions of people are modeled statistically to predict the overall behavior of civilizations. Though it is a fictional concept, Asimov gives us a lot to chew over with it, both scientifically and philosophically. For example: we have noted that Seldon had to keep his plans secret from people, lest their knowledge change the results. Is this Asimov’s way of saying that people have free will, given sufficient knowledge? Or does the concept even make sense in this context? I don’t know, but it’s fascinating to think about it. There are eerie parallels between some of the ignorant politicians in Foundation and those currently serving in the U.S. government. It seems that Asimov was almost doing a bit of psychohistory himself. For instance, consider this dialogue between Seldon and skeptical officials of the Empire, after he explains his prediction of the fall: Q: You do not consider your statement a disloyal one? A: No, sir. Scientific truth is beyond loyalty and disloyalty. Q: You are sure that your statement represents scientific truth? A: I am. Q: On what basis? A: On the basis of the mathematics of psychohistory. Q: Can you prove that this mathematics is valid? A: Only to another mathematician. Q: (with a smile) Your claim then is that your truth is of so esoteric a nature that it is beyond the understanding of a plain man. It seems to me that truth should be clearer than that, less mysterious, more open to the mind. Replace “the fall” with “climate change” and “psychohistory” with “climate science,” and this might be a conversation between a scientist and a Republican congressman. This is a common tactic of people who denigrate science politically: imply that any “true” statement should be so simple and obvious as to be understood by anyone. It is such a strategy that led Senator James Inhofe to bring a snowball onto the Senate floor in 2015 as an argument against global warming. James Inhofe (R – Idiot) Or consider this other question asked by a nobleman, after visiting the Foundation’s extensive encyclopedia-building operation: “This is all very interesting,” he said, “but it seems a strange occupation for grown men. What good is it?” GOP congressmen have made it a regular hobby to cherry-pick research projects, seeking out those that look frivolous, and make an example of them. You may recall the “shrimp on a treadmill” scandal that turned out to not be a scandal at all, at least from the science point of view. Very recently, Representative Lamar Smith has been targeting climate scientists for harassment, an even more sinister tactic that shows deep disrespect for science. But, oddly enough in these dark political times, Asimov’s Foundation gives me hope, too. Its paean to foresight and long-term planning suggests that, even in the direst circumstances, things can be turned around. In the short-term, we may lose rights and freedoms, and we may not personally see it return in our own lifetimes, but it can be regained. It will take much collective effort to fix what has been broken, but Asimov makes me think that it can be done — and he even shows somewhat how to do it. But enough about politics! If you haven’t read Foundation , you should. It is an amazing novel with a very compelling story and profound ideas. I highly recommend it. Foundation was followed by a pair of sequels that turn it into a trilogy, and much later he added a pair of prequel novels and a pair of sequels. I will definitely be reading at the very least the full trilogy.