Asimov’s New Guide to Science: Isaac Asimov’s Tour of Physics, Chemistry, Biology and Technology
The microscopic world, the elements of the periodic table, their main components and the fundamental theories that explain them. Asimov’s New Guide to Science, published in Spanish as Introducción a la ciencia, is Isaac Asimov’s grand tour of what science knows and how it came to know it.
Author: Isaac Asimov (1920–1992)
Title: Asimov’s New Guide to Science (1984; earlier editions as The Intelligent Man’s Guide to Science)
Format: English paperback (Penguin), 896 pages
Scope: Popular science covering the physical and biological sciences
Amazon: www.amazon.es/dp/0140172130 (ASIN 0140172130)
From Atoms to Electricity
Subatomic particles were a mystery for years until, little by little, the twentieth century described them in more detail. The book covers great names such as Marie Curie, her husband Pierre and their daughter Irène, and the leading scientists of electricity and magnetism: Edison, Lorentz, Einstein and many more.
Inventions That Changed the World
It covers advances in every field, from medicine to aviation, engines and energy production, and the most original inventions: the telegraph and Morse code, the light bulb, the microwave, the laser and others.
The Nuclear Age
Nuclear fission and fusion, X-rays, the atomic bomb and its implications; the great technological leap of the Second World War, and the rivalry between the major powers, Britain, the Soviet Union and the United States. Everything is told briefly and concisely, bringing the reader up to date with the latest advances of its time.
A Book That Kept Growing
The guide first appeared in 1960 as The Intelligent Man’s Guide to Science, and Asimov revised and expanded it several times to keep up with new discoveries: as The New Intelligent Man’s Guide to Science (1965), Asimov’s Guide to Science (1972) and finally Asimov’s New Guide to Science (1984). Each edition reflects the science of its moment, which makes the book itself a small piece of history.
Two Great Halves
The book is divided into two main parts. The first deals with the physical sciences: the universe, the Earth, the atmosphere, the elements, particles, waves and machines. The second deals with the biological sciences: molecules, proteins, cells, micro-organisms, the body, the species and the mind. Asimov always explains how each discovery was made and by whom, so the reader understands not only what science knows but how it came to know it.
Isaac Asimov
Asimov (1920–1992) was born in Russia and grew up in New York. He trained as a biochemist and taught at Boston University, but he became famous as one of the great science-fiction writers, author of the Foundation series and the robot stories collected in I, Robot. He wrote or edited around five hundred books on an astonishing range of subjects, and his gift for clear explanation is nowhere more evident than here.
How to Read It
Few readers will go straight through almost nine hundred pages. It is better treated as a reference to dip into, one chapter at a time, whenever a subject catches your interest.
Still Worth Reading
Since 1984 science has advanced enormously, from the human genome to exoplanets and dark energy, so readers should look elsewhere for the latest discoveries. But as an account of how scientists built our understanding of the world, step by step, through observation, experiment and argument, Asimov’s guide has few rivals, and his enthusiasm for knowledge is contagious.
It also makes a superb gift for a curious teenager.
Why Read It
Asimov had a gift for making anything clear, and this is his most ambitious work of explanation. Some of it is inevitably dated, but as a history of how science reached the twentieth century it is still superb.
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