Isaac Asimov (c. 2 January 1920 – 6 April 1992) was a Russian-born American biochemist who was a prolific writer of both fiction and non-fiction, his works include the Foundation series and I, Robot.
Biography information from
Wikiquote·
Portrait adapted from
Wikimedia Commons, Phillip Leonian [1] from New York World-Telegram & Sun.[2] (Public domain / CC0)
Also Known As
Alternative Names:
Isaak Osimov
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Paul French
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Asimov
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Isaak Ozimov
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Itzhak Ozimov
Portrait from Wikimedia Commons. Credit: Phillip Leonian [1] from New York World-Telegram & Sun.[2]. Used under Public domain / CC0. Processed and styled by Quotewise.
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people live and die by nonsense. It's not what is so much as what people think is.
Inspect every piece of pseudoscience and you will find a security blanket, a thumb to suck, a skirt to hold. What does the scientist have to offer in exchange? Uncertainty! Insecurity!
What, then, of human activities? Is humankind itself hastening its own end? Man has, for instance, been burning carbon-containing fuel — wood, coal, oil, gas — at a steadily accelerating rate. All these fuels form carbon dioxide. Some is absorbed by plants and the oceans but not as fast as it is produced. This means the carbon dioxide content of the air is going up — slightly but nevertheless up. Carbon dioxide retains heat, and even a small rise means a warming of the Earth's atmosphere. This may result in the melting of the polar ice caps with unusual speed, flooding the world before we have learned climate control. In reverse, our industrial civilization is making our atmosphere dustier so that it reflects more sunlight away and cools the Earth slightly — thus making possible a glacial advance in a few centuries, also before we have learned climate control.
