It is the life's ambition of every decent, right-thinking scientists or near-scientist (I use the latter noun as an excuse to include myself) to influence the course of science. For the better, of course.
Most of us, alas, have to give up that ambition; I did so long ago. Never (so my heart told me) would there be an "Asimov's law to brighten the pages of a physics textbook, or an "Asimov reaction" to do the same for those of a chemistry textbook. Slowly, the possibility of an "Asimov theory" and even an "Asimov conjecture" slipped through my fingers, and I was left with nothing.
With nothing, that is, but my electric typewriter and my big mouth, and the hidden hope that some idle speculation of my own might spark better minds than mine into some worthwhile accomplishment.
And he goes on to tell the story of Hong Yee Chiu, at ther time of Asimov's writing a post-doctoral research worker at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, who wrote a paper on his theory of supernova formation after having been inspired by one of Asimov's essays.
No comments:
Post a Comment