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Only A Trillion
''Only a Trillion'' is a collection of ten science essays and three scientific spoof articles by Isaac Asimov. It was the first collection of science essays published by Asimov. It was first published by Abelard-Schuman in 1957. A paperback edition published by Ace Books in 1976 included updates of outdated material (re-issued in 1980). The book was also published under the title ''Marvels of Science'' by Collier Books in 1962. The title refers to the number of atoms of astatine-215 in the top 10 miles of the Earth's crust of the North and South American continents – only a trillion. Contents # The Atoms That Vanish (first published in ''Change!'', 1957) # The Explosions Within Us (original article) # Hemoglobin and the Universe (first published in ''Astounding Science Fiction'', Feb. 1955) # Victory on Paper (first published in ''Astounding'', Sept. 1955) # The Abnormality of Being Normal (first published in ''Astounding'', May 1956) # Planets Have an Air About Them (first publi ...
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Isaac Asimov
yi, יצחק אזימאװ , birth_date = , birth_place = Petrovichi, Russian SFSR , spouse = , relatives = , children = 2 , death_date = , death_place = Manhattan, New York City, U.S. , nationality = Russian (1920–1922)Soviet (1922–1928)American (1928–1992) , occupation = Writer, professor of biochemistry , years_active = 1939–1992 , genre = Science fiction (hard SF, social SF), mystery, popular science , subject = Popular science, science textbooks, essays, history, literary criticism , education = Columbia University ( BA, MA, PhD) , movement = Golden Age of Science Fiction , module = , signature = Isaac Asimov signature.svg Isaac Asimov ( ; 1920 – April 6, 1992) was an American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University. During his lifetime, Asimov was considered one of the "Big Three" science fiction writers, along with Robert A. Heinlein and Arthur C. Clarke. A prolific writer, he wrote or edited more than 500 books ...
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Astounding Science Fiction
''Analog Science Fiction and Fact'' is an American science fiction magazine published under various titles since 1930. Originally titled ''Astounding Stories of Super-Science'', the first issue was dated January 1930, published by William Clayton, and edited by Harry Bates. Clayton went bankrupt in 1933 and the magazine was sold to Street & Smith. The new editor was F. Orlin Tremaine, who soon made ''Astounding'' the leading magazine in the nascent pulp science fiction field, publishing well-regarded stories such as Jack Williamson's '' Legion of Space'' and John W. Campbell's "Twilight". At the end of 1937, Campbell took over editorial duties under Tremaine's supervision, and the following year Tremaine was let go, giving Campbell more independence. Over the next few years Campbell published many stories that became classics in the field, including Isaac Asimov's ''Foundation'' series, A. E. van Vogt's ''Slan'', and several novels and stories by Robert A. Heinl ...
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Essay Collections By Isaac Asimov
An essay is, generally, a piece of writing that gives the author's own argument, but the definition is vague, overlapping with those of a letter, a paper, an article, a pamphlet, and a short story. Essays have been sub-classified as formal and informal: formal essays are characterized by "serious purpose, dignity, logical organization, length," whereas the informal essay is characterized by "the personal element (self-revelation, individual tastes and experiences, confidential manner), humor, graceful style, rambling structure, unconventionality or novelty of theme," etc. Essays are commonly used as literary criticism, political manifestos, learned arguments, observations of daily life, recollections, and reflections of the author. Almost all modern essays are written in prose, but works in verse have been dubbed essays (e.g., Alexander Pope's ''An Essay on Criticism'' and ''An Essay on Man''). While brevity usually defines an essay, voluminous works like John Locke's ''An Ess ...
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Internet Speculative Fiction Database
The Internet Speculative Fiction Database (ISFDB) is a database of bibliographic information on genres considered speculative fiction, including science fiction and related genres such as fantasy, alternate history, and horror fiction. The ISFDB is a volunteer effort, with the database being open for moderated editing and user contributions, and a wiki that allows the database editors to coordinate with each other. the site had catalogued 2,002,324 story titles from 232,816 authors. The code for the site has been used in books and tutorials as examples of database schema and organizing content. The ISFDB database and code are available under Creative Commons licensing. The site won the Wooden Rocket Award in the Best Directory Site category in 2005. Purpose The ISFDB database indexes speculative fiction (science fiction, fantasy, horror, and alternate history) authors, novels, short fiction, essays, publishers, awards, and magazines in print, electronic, and audio formats. ...
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Galaxy Science Fiction
''Galaxy Science Fiction'' was an American digest-size science fiction magazine, published in Boston from 1950 to 1980. It was founded by a French-Italian company, World Editions, which was looking to break into the American market. World Editions hired as editor H. L. Gold, who rapidly made ''Galaxy'' the leading science fiction magazine of its time, focusing on stories about social issues rather than technology. Gold published many notable stories during his tenure, including Ray Bradbury's "The Fireman", later expanded as ''Fahrenheit 451''; Robert A. Heinlein's ''The Puppet Masters''; and Alfred Bester's ''The Demolished Man''. In 1952, the magazine was acquired by Robert Guinn, its printer. By the late 1950s, Frederik Pohl was helping Gold with most aspects of the magazine's production. When Gold's health worsened, Pohl took over as editor, starting officially at the end of 1961, though he had been doing the majority of the production work for some time. Under Pohl ''Gala ...
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Floyd C
Floyd may refer to: As a name * Floyd (given name), a list of people and fictional characters * Floyd (surname), a list of people and fictional characters Places in the United States * Floyd, Arkansas, an unincorporated community * Floyd, Iowa, a city in Floyd County * Floyd, Ray County, Missouri, an unincorporated community * Floyd, Washington County, Missouri, an unincorporated community * Floyd, New Mexico, a village * Floyd, New York, a town * Floyd, Texas, an unincorporated community * Floyd, Virginia, a town in Floyd County * Floyd County (other) * Floyd River, Iowa, a tributary of the Missouri River * Floyd Township (other) * Camp Floyd / Stagecoach Inn State Park and Museum, a short-lived U.S. Army post near Fairfield, Utah * Floyd's Bluff, a hill near Sioux City, Iowa Storms * Hurricane Floyd, major hurricane of 1999 * Tropical Storm Floyd (other), for other storms named Floyd Sports * Floyd (horse), a National Hunt racehorse * Fl ...
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Pâté De Foie Gras (short Story)
''Pâté de Foie Gras'' is a 1956 science fiction short story by American writer Isaac Asimov, originally published by ''Astounding Science Fiction''. Like Asimov's " The Endochronic Properties of Resublimated Thiotimoline", "Pâté de Foie Gras" is a scientific spoof article, updating one of Aesop's Fables, The Goose that Laid the Golden Eggs. Plot A Department of Agriculture employee tells of the discovery on a farm in Texas of a goose that lays golden eggs, and how US government and academic researchers try to solve the mystery of the goose. While its eggs are valuable as pure gold, learning how the bird produces the metal is more important. After the scientists realize that the goose is unharmed despite the enzyme-catalyzed nuclear process that converts oxygen-18 to gold-197 producing gamma rays, they discover that it is immune to all radioactivity, converting any unstable isotope to a stable isotope. The goose is "the perfect defense against the atomic age", one researc ...
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Thiotimoline
Thiotimoline is a fictitious chemical compound conceived by American biochemist and science fiction author Isaac Asimov. It was first described in a spoof scientific paper titled "The Endochronic Properties of Resublimated Thiotimoline" in 1948. The major peculiarity of the chemical is its "endochronicity": it starts dissolving before it makes contact with water. Asimov went on to write three additional short stories, each describing different properties or uses of thiotimoline. Chemical properties In Asimov's writings the endochronicity of thiotimoline is explained by the fact that in the thiotimoline molecule, there is at least one carbon atom such that, while two of the carbon's four chemical bonds lie in normal space and time, one of the bonds projects into the future and another into the past. Thiotimoline is derived from the bark of the (fictitious) shrub ''Rosacea karlsbadensis rufo'', and the thiotimoline molecule includes at least fourteen hydroxy groups, two am ...
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Trillion (short Scale)
This list contains selected positive numbers in increasing order, including counts of things, dimensionless quantities and probabilities. Each number is given a name in the short scale, which is used in English-speaking countries, as well as a name in the long scale, which is used in some of the countries that do not have English as their national language. Smaller than (one googolth) * ''Mathematics – random selections:'' Approximately is a rough first estimate of the probability that a typing "monkey", or an English-illiterate typing robot, when placed in front of a typewriter, will type out William Shakespeare's play ''Hamlet'' as its first set of inputs, on the precondition it typed the needed number of characters. However, demanding correct punctuation, capitalization, and spacing, the probability falls to around 10−360,783. * ''Computing:'' 2.2 is approximately equal to the smallest positive non-zero value that can be represented by an octuple-precision I ...
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Abelard-Schuman
Thomas Y. Crowell Co. was a publishing company founded by Thomas Y. Crowell. The company began as a bookbindery founded by Benjamin Bradley in 1834. Crowell operated the business after Bradley's death in 1862 and eventually purchased the company from Bradley's widow in 1870. History The company began publishing books in 1876, and in 1882 T. Irving Crowell joined his father in the business. Jeremiah Osborne Crowell became the sales manager. In 1909, after Thomas Y. Crowell died, T. Irving Crowell became the company's president. Then in 1937, after T. Irving Crowell retired, the third generation Robert L. Crowell took over and moved towards publishing trade books and biographies. They were sold to Dun & Bradstreet in 1968. In 1974, Crowell acquired the textbook publisher Intext, which also owned the trade publisher Abelard-Schuman. In 1978, the company was sold to Harper & Row, which bought Lippincott and combined the two into Lippincott & Crowell in 1979. Lippincott & Crow ...
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Earth's Crust
Earth's crust is Earth's thin outer shell of rock, referring to less than 1% of Earth's radius and volume. It is the top component of the lithosphere, a division of Earth's layers that includes the crust and the upper part of the mantle. The lithosphere is broken into tectonic plates whose motion allows heat to escape from the interior of the Earth into space. The crust lies on top of the mantle, a configuration that is stable because the upper mantle is made of peridotite and is therefore significantly denser than the crust. The boundary between the crust and mantle is conventionally placed at the Mohorovičić discontinuity, a boundary defined by a contrast in seismic velocity. The temperature of the crust increases with depth, reaching values typically in the range from about to at the boundary with the underlying mantle. The temperature increases by as much as for every kilometer locally in the upper part of the crust Composition File:Elemental abundances.svg, ...
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Astatine-215
Astatine (85At) has 39 known isotopes, all of which are radioactive; the range of their mass numbers is from 191 to 229. There are also 24 known metastable excited states. The longest-lived isotope is 210At, which has a half-life of 8.1 hours; the longest-lived isotope existing in naturally occurring decay chains is 219At with a half-life of 56 seconds. List of isotopes , - , 191At , style="text-align:right" , 85 , style="text-align:right" , 106 , , 1.7(+11−5) ms , , , (1/2+) , , - , style="text-indent:1em" , 191mAt , colspan="3" style="text-indent:2em" , , 2.1(+4−3) ms , , , (7/2−) , , - , rowspan=2, 192At , rowspan=2 style="text-align:right" , 85 , rowspan=2 style="text-align:right" , 107 , rowspan=2, 192.00314(28) , rowspan=2, 11.5(0.6) ms , α (99.79%) , 188Bi , rowspan=2, 3+# , rowspan=2, , - , β+, SF (0.21%) , (various) , - , rowspan=2 style="text-indent:1em" , 192mAt , rowspan=2 colspan="3" style="text-indent:2em" ...
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