Author: Isaac Asimov
Publisher: Avon Books 1984
Surprisingly, this is the first Asimov book I have read. (He has written more than 500 books according to Wiki and I have his “foundation” series.) He has divided the short essays into several categories titled Introduction, Physics, Chemistry, Astronomy, Mathematics, and The Fringe.
In the introduction he recalls a conversation he had with a local pharmacist when he was still in high school. The pharmacist said to him that “Scientists can’t even synthesize sucrose, something almost any plant can do”. Asimov replied, “So what?” “There are a million things scientists can’t do and don’t know. What’s that got to do with it?” The pharmacist insisted that the failure to synthesize sucrose proved the existence of a supernatural entity. In other words, since scientists can’t synthesize sucrose, God exists. Asimov then went on to explain what science is.
Science is not a collection of results, abilities, or even explanations. Those are products of science, but are not science itself—any more than a table is carpentry, or standing at the finish line is racing. The results, abilities, and explanations produced by science are tentative, and possibly wrong in whole or in part. They are almost certainly incomplete. None of that necessarily implies any flow or insufficiency in science itself. Science is a process; it is a way of thinking, a manner of approaching, a route by which one can produce order and sense out of disorganized and chaotic observations. Through it we achieve useful conclusions and results that are compelling and upon which there is a tendency to agree. These scientific conclusions are commonly looked upon as representing a reasonable approach to “truth”—subject to later emendation.
The Physics category is dedicated to the electromagnetic spectrum. In the first essay titled “Read out your book in verse” he talks about Newton’s and Young’s early findings of visible light. He recalls memorizing the sentence “Read Out Your Good Books In Verse” in high school. This was designed for children to remember the color spectrum Red, Orange, Yellow, Blue, Indigo, and Violet. He thought it was cool. He made up more sentences to remember other things until he realized that remembering sentences was more difficult than remembering the facts. So, in no time he abandoned this practice. Apparently, only Newton saw the Indigo. No one since then has seen the Indigo. So, the sentence is useless anyway.
In the Chemistry category Asimov investigates the possibility of silicon based life. All life is carbon based and silicon is the nearest element to carbon in the “carbon family” of elements. Carbon has 4 electrons in its outer shell and silicon has 4 electrons in its outer shell. Carbon with 4 electrons on the outskirts of its atoms has the kind of chemical properties that allow it to serve as the basis of life, ought not silicon with its 4 electrons on the outskirts also serve as a basis of life?
In the Astronomy category, the first three essays are about comets and the last three essays are about our galaxy. Halley, a contemporary of Newton, encouraged and funded the publication of Newton's Principia. Halley then wondered if the law of gravitation would also explain the motions of comets. He carefully plotted the path taken by the comet of 1682 and compared with paths taken by other comets. By 1705 he had plotted the courses of two dozen comets and was struck by the fact that comets of 1456, 1532, 1607, and 1682 had all followed about the same path and had appeared at intervals of about seventy five years. For the first time it occurred to someone that different comets might be periodic appearances of the same comet.
The fourth essay in the Astronomy category is titled “Whatzisname’s Orbit”. In a lecture he attended about how to use a geocentric orbit to place a solar power station, the speaker referred repeatedly to a “Clark orbit”. Puzzled by this Asimov spoke up. “Why the Clark orbit?” Who’s Clark?” The speaker, a good friend of Asimov, stared at him for a moment, and said, “The reference is to Arthur C. Clarke. Surely you have heard of him, Isaac.” When the subsequent loud laughter from the audience died down, Asimov said, “Well how the heck was I supposed to know you were referring to Arthur. You did not pronounce the silent e in his name.”
There is only one essay in the Mathematics category and it is about the “golden ratio”. In my entire high school education, I never heard about this “golden ratio”. But it is the favorite subject of all high school teachers in the US. In my humble opinion I am glad I did not hear about it when I was in high school. It is a solution of one quite ordinary quadratic equation \(x^2-x-1=0\). This is the weakest essay of this book. Asimov (a biochemist) admits, mathematics is not his strongest subject.
The last category of the book is quite interesting. Let me quote a story from this essay.
Carl Sagan tells a woman who had a solution simpler than that of the Hindus. She believed the flat Earth rested on the back of a turtle. She was questioned …
“And what does the turtle rest on?”
“On another turtle”, said the woman haughtily.
“And what does that other turtle—“
The woman interrupted. “I know what you are getting at, sir, but it’s no use. It’s turtles all the way down.
I was reading “The Gene” by Sidhartha Mukherjee at the same time and I read another version of this story within a day. The following is a story from The Gene.
In a famous story, a medieval cosmologist is asked what holds the earth up.
“Turtles” he says.
“And what holds up the turtles?” he is asked.
“More turtles”.
“And those turtles?”
“You don’t understand.” The cosmologist stamps his foot. “Its turtles all the way”.
“Mensa” is an organization of high IQ people. In one of those Mensa meetings in New York City, an attractive lady approached Asimov.
She said quite aggressively, “Where do you stand on astrology?”
Asimov sensed that she was in for a fight. So to avoid it, he replied with a minimal statement, “I am not impressed with it”.
She said at once, “Have you ever studied astrology?”
Asimov said “No”.
She said promptly, “If you studied it, you might find that you would be impressed with it.”
“I don’t think so”, replied Asimov and that was what she wanted.
Triumphantly, she said, “That means you are a narrow-minded bigot, afraid to shake your own prejudices by investigation.”
Instead of walking away Asimov found himself driven to a retort. “Being human, Miss, I suppose I do have a bit of bigotry about me, so I carefully expand it on astrology in order that I won’t be tempted to use it on anything with any shadow of intellectual decency about it.”
This is an excellent book. I like his witty humor, and his strong and forceful way of dismissing pseudoscience and fundamentalist beliefs. It will remain in my library for sure.
