Of Time and Space and Other Things

228 Pages·1965·9.718 MB·English

by  Isaac Asimov

ISAAC ASIMOV is undoubtedly America’s
foremost writer on science for the layman.
An Associate Professor of Biochemistry at
the Boston University School of Medicine,
he has written well over a hundred.books,
as well as hundreds of articles in publica-
tions ranging from Esquire to Atomic En-
ergy Commission pamphlets, Famed for his
science fiction writing (his three-volume
Hugo Award-winning THE FOUNDATION
TRILOGY is available in individual Avon
editions and as a one-volume Equinox edi-
tion), Dr. Asimov is equally acclaimed for
such standards of science reportage as THE
UNIVERSE, LIFE AND ENERGY, THE
SOLAR SYSTEM AND BACK, ASIMOV’S
BIOGRAPHICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF SCI-
ENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, and ADDING
A DIMENSION (all available in Avon
editions). His non-science writings include
the two-volume ASIMOV’S GUIDE TO
SHAKESPEARE, ASIMOV’S ANNOTATED
DON JUAN, and the two-volume ASIMOV'S
_ GUIDE TO THE BIBLE (available in a two-
volume Avon edition), Born in Russia,
Asimov came io this country with his par-
ents at the age of three, and grew up in
Brooklyn, In 1948 he received his Ph.D. in
Chemistry at Columbia and then joined the
faculty at Boston University, where he
works today.
Other Avon Books by
Isaac Asimov
ASIMOV’S GUIDE TO THE BIBLE,
THE NEw TESTAMENT 24786 $4.95
ASIMOV’s GUIDE TO THE BIBLE,
THE OLD TESTAMENT 24794 4.95
ADDING A DIMENSION 22673 sd OF2 5}
FROM EARTH TO HEAVEN 29231 175)
THE FOUNDATION TRILOGY 26930 4.95
LIFE AND ENERGY 31666 1.95
THE NEUTRINO 25544 1.50
SOLAR SYSTEM AND BACK 10157 1.25
VIEW FROM A HEIGHT 24547 1.25
FOUNDATION 29579 1.50.
FOUNDATION AND EMPIRE 30627 1.50
SECOND FOUNDATION 29280 1.50
THE FOUNDATION TRILOGY BOXED SET 30288 4.50
THE UNIVERSE: FROM FLAT EARTH
TO QUASAR 21979 1.95 |
a"
Se
OF TIME
AND SPACE
AND OTHER THINGS
ISAAC ASIMOV
E(e A DISaC US BOOK/PUBLISHED BY AVON BOOKS
All essays in this volume are reprinted from
THE MAGAZINE OF FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION.
AVON BOOKS
A division of
The Hearst Corporation
959 Righth Avenue
New York, New York 10019
Copyright © 1965 by Isaac Asimov
Copyright © 1959, 1963, 1964 by Mercury Press, Inc.
Published by arrangement with Doubleday and Company, Inc.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 65-17259
ISBN: 0-380-00325-2
All rights reserved, which includes the right
to reproduce this book or portions thereof in
any form whatsoever. For information address
Doubleday and Company, Inc., 277 Park Avenue,
New York, New York 10017.
First Discus Printing, May, 1975.
Third Printing
DISCUS TRADEMARK REG, U.S, PAT. OFF, AND
FOREIGN COUNTRIES, REGISTERED TRADEMARK—
MARCA REGISTRADA, HECHO EN CHICAGO, U.S.A.
Printed in the U.S.A.
CONTENTS
Introduction
Part I—Of Time and Space
The Days of Our Years 13
Begin at the Beginning 26
Ghost Lines in the Sky 38
The Heavenly Zoo 50
Roll Call 63
Round and Round and... 77
Just Mooning Around 87
First and Rearmost 99
LWOFN © Thoe BAlaNck Qof INigAhtN 111
rayi ) A Galaxy at a Time 123
Part II—Of Other Things
11 Forget It! 137
12 Nothing Counts 149
13 C for Celeritas 162
14 A Piece of the Action 174
15 Welcome, Stranger! 186
16 The Haste-Makers 199
17 The Slowly Moving Finger 212

INTRODUCTION
As we trace the development of man over the ages, it
seems in many respects a tale of glory and victory; of the
development of the brain; of the discovery of fire; of the
building of cities and civilizations; of the triumph of rea-
son; of the filling of the Earth and of the reaching out to
sea and space.
But increasing knowledge leads not to conquest only,
but to utter defeat as well, for one learns not only of new
potentialities, but also of new limitations. An explorer
may discover a new continent, but he may also stumble
_ over the world’s end. |
And it is so’-with mankind. We are distinguished from
all other living species by our power over the inanimate
universe; and we are distinguished from them also by our
abject defeat by the inanimate universe, for we alone have
learned of defeat.
Consider that no other species (as far as we know) can
possess our concept of time. An animal may remember,
but surely it can have no notion of “past” and certainly
not of “future.”
No non-human creature lives in anything but the
present moment. No non-human creature can foresee the
inevitability of its own death. Only man is mortal, in the
sense that only man is aware that he is mortal.
Robert Burns said it better in his poem To a Mouse.
He addresses the mouse, after turning up its nest with his
plough, apologizing to it for the disaster he has brought
upon it, and reminding it fatalistically that “The best-laid
_ schemes o’ mice and men / Gang aft a-gley.”
8 Introduction
But then, in a final soul-chilling stanza (too often lost in
the glare of the much more famous penultimate stanza
about mice and men), he gets to the real nub of the poem
and says:
“Still thou art blest compar’d wi’ me!
“The present only toucheth thee:
“But oh, I backward cast my e’e
“On prospects drear!
An’ forward tho’ I canna see,
“T guess an’ fear!”
Somewhere, then, in the progress of evolution from
mouse to man, a primitive hominid first caught and
grasped at the notion that. someday he would die. Every
living creature died at last, our proto-philosopher could
not help but notice, and the great realization somehow
dawned upon him that he himself would do so, too. If -
death must come to all life, it must come to himself as
well, and ahead of him he saw world’s end.
We talk often about the discovery of fire, which marked
man off from all the rest of creation. Yet the discovery of
death is surely just as unique and may have been just as
driving a force in man’s upward climb.
The details of both discoveries are lost forever in the
shrouded and impenetrable fog of pre-history, but they
appear in myths. The discovery of fire is celebrated most
famously in the Greek myth of Prometheus, who stole fire
from the Sun for the poor, shivering race of man.
And the discovery of death is celebrated most famously _
in the Hebrew myth of the Garden of Eden, where man _
first dwelt in the immortality that came of the ignorance
of time. But man gained knowledge, or, if you prefer, he
ate of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
And with knowledge, death entered the world, in the
sense that man knew he must die. In biblical terms, this
awareness of death is described as resulting from divine
revelation. In the solemn speech in which He apprises
Adam of the punishment for disobedience, God tells him