Asimov's Guide to Science

Asimov, Isaac. Asimov's Guide to Science. New York : Basic Books 1960. Print.

First Sentences:

Almost in the beginning was curiosity....There comes a point where the capacity to receive, store, and interpret message from the outside world may outrun sheer necessity. An organism may for the moment be sated with food, and there may, at the moment, be no danger in sight. What does it do then?....[The] higher organisms, at least, still show a strong instinct to explore the environment. Idle curiosity we may call it. ....The more advanced the brain, the greater the drive to explore....[Curiosity] for its simplest definition is "the desire to know."


Description:

This is a first for The First Sentence Reader. I am recommending a book that: 1) I have not finished reading yet and therefore will only review the first 100-page section; and 2) It is a book I don't expect anyone else to read (although I would hope someone out there would be interested enough in some content to at least flip through it and maybe even get caught up enought o read a section or two - or the entire book as I will certainly do.)

Behold, I enthusiastically recommend Isaac Asimov and his thrilling, all-encompassing, wonderful, 945-page Asimov's Guide to Science. 

As a very poor student of any science class but still an interested outsider, I finally wanted to try to understand the world around me. Asimov to the rescue! In his Guide to Science, Asimov covers in separate sections and chapters:

• What is science?
• The Physical Science (The Universe, Earth, Atmosphere, Elements, Energy, etc.)
• The Biological Sciences (Molecules, Proteins, Cells, Microorganisms, The Body, The Mind, etc.)  

Already I can sense your feeling of being overwhelmed by this vast amount of information. Maybe you've never really been interested in science in general. But Isaac Asimov is the most gentle, understanding, clear-thinking, and readable non-fiction author you will ever find. Pick a random subject in any field of science that interests you and he will give you the background, historic figures of relevant scientists in this field and their discoveries, the current advancements, and the plans for the future. 

 

And it is all delivered in easy-to-read sentences chock full of fascinating details that pull you along from paragraph to paragraph until you find you have read 20 pages (or even more) on this scientific topic - and miraculously you've understood it. And you'll also find that you cannot wait to bend the ears of friends and family with fascinating scientific tidbits from Asimov about the world around us.

So as I said, I have only started this tome, finishing the first 100+ pages on "What Is Science" and "The Universe." Both were absolutely riveting. What did I learn?

• What separates humans from most other animals and drives science is curiosity, the "need to know" and to find answers;
• How to measure great distances, such as miles from the Earth to the Moon, to the Sun, to other planets, and far-flung stars as well as determine planetary and other astronomical orbits;
• With the naked eye, we can see about 6,000 stars on a clear night;
• Galileo's telescope showed for the first time that the Milky Way was composed of millions of stars and was flat-shaped;
• A light year is 5.88 trillion miles, i.e., 186,282 miles per second (the speed of light) x 31,536,00 (the number of seconds in a year);
• The unsolved question whether the universe is "evolutionary" (continually expanding and contracting), or whether it is "steady-state" (density of galaxies remains the same);
• A nova is not the death of a star but simply its sudden expansion (sometimes "a millionfold in less that a day") before settling back into its usual brightness;
• Clear explanations and examples of white dwarfs, red giants, super novas, comets, quasars, interstellar gas, dust clouds, telescopes, spectrum photography, radio waves, and so much more)

 

Hope I haven't bored you already. If so, I am very chagrined to have done so. For me, it's so exciting to finally be able to understand scientific terms and the descriptions of the universe I see or read about daily, and in words and examples I can comprehend. I found every page, almost every paragraph, fascinating, informative, and very entertaining. And although I have a lot of the book to go, I cannot wait to dip into its treasures with Asimov as my patient, understanding, and wise guide.

[P.S. I just noticed Asimov wrote an updated and expanded version of his Guide to Science (see below). This new text was written 22 years after the original Guide, so covers new discoveries in fields of computers, AI, robotics, astronomy, biology, etc. Looks like I have my lifetime To Be Read list filled up for the near future. FR]

[N]o one can really feel at home in the modern world and judge the nature of its problems -- and possible solutions to those problems -- unless he has some intelligent notion of what science is up to. But beyond this, initiation into the magnificent world of science brings great esthetic satisfaction, inspiration to youth, fulfillment of the desire to know, and a deeper appreciation of the wonderful potentialities and achievements of the human mind.

[If this book interests you, be sure to check out:]

 Asimov, Isaac. Asimov's New Guide to Science.

Updated version (written 25 years later in 1984) of the original Guide to Science, and covers new discoveries in physics, robotics, biology, astronomy, computers, artificial intelligence, and other fields.

 Happy reading.

Fred

[P.S. Click here to browse over 480 more book recommendations by subject or title and read the introduction to The First Sentence Reader.]