Isaac Asimov (1920 - 1992) was an American science fiction and popular science author and professor of biochemistry at Boston University who brought his passion for science to literature. He wrote hundreds of short stories across a broad range of genres, best known for creating unified "future histories" in three series: Foundation, Galactic Empire, and Robot. Our favorite short story collection is I, Robot (1950), adapted into the provocative 2004 movie, I, Robot.
Asimov's scientific credentials hint of his future as a great science fiction author; his 1948 doctoral thesis was titled Kinetics of the Reaction Inactivation of Tyrosinase During Its Catalysis of the Aerobic Oxidation of Catechol. Few of his works are in the public domain, we hope you enjoy reading his 1952 novella, Youth. We feature Asimov in our Science Fiction Study Guide and Dystopian Stories.
In the introduction of his book, Worlds Within Worlds, The Story of Nuclear Energy, volume 1 (1958), Asimov writes:
"Nothing in the history of mankind has opened our eyes to the possibilities of science as has the development of atomic power. In the last 200 years, people have seen the coming of the steam engine, the steamboat, the railroad locomotive, the automobile, the airplane, radio, motion pictures, television, the machine age in general. Yet none of it seemed quite so fantastic, quite so unbelievable, as what man has done since 1939 with the atom ... there seem to be almost no limits to what may lie ahead: inexhaustible energy, new worlds, ever-widening knowledge of the physical universe."
