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Trantor
The Galactic Empire is an interstellar empire featured in Isaac Asimov's ''Robot'', ''Galactic Empire'', and '' Foundation'' series. The Empire is spread across the Milky Way galaxy and consists of almost 25 million planets settled exclusively by humans. For over 12 millennia the seat of imperial authority was located on the ecumenopolis of Trantor, whose population exceeded 40 billion, until it was sacked in the year 12,328. The official symbol of the empire is the Spaceship-and-Sun. Cleon II was the last Emperor to hold significant authority. The fall of the empire, modelled on the fall of the Roman Empire, is the subject of many of Asimov's novels. Background Asimov created the fictional Galactic Empire in the early 1940s based upon the Roman Empire, as a proposal to John W. Campbell, after reading Edward Gibbon's ''The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'' when he was working at the Philadelphia Navy Yard with Robert Heinlein. The concept evolved through ...
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Trantor
The Galactic Empire is an interstellar empire featured in Isaac Asimov's ''Robot'', ''Galactic Empire'', and '' Foundation'' series. The Empire is spread across the Milky Way galaxy and consists of almost 25 million planets settled exclusively by humans. For over 12 millennia the seat of imperial authority was located on the ecumenopolis of Trantor, whose population exceeded 40 billion, until it was sacked in the year 12,328. The official symbol of the empire is the Spaceship-and-Sun. Cleon II was the last Emperor to hold significant authority. The fall of the empire, modelled on the fall of the Roman Empire, is the subject of many of Asimov's novels. Background Asimov created the fictional Galactic Empire in the early 1940s based upon the Roman Empire, as a proposal to John W. Campbell, after reading Edward Gibbon's ''The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'' when he was working at the Philadelphia Navy Yard with Robert Heinlein. The concept evolved through ...
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Foundation Series
The ''Foundation'' series is a science fiction book series written by American author Isaac Asimov. First published as a series of short stories in 1942–50, and subsequently in three collections in 1951–53, for thirty years the series was a trilogy: '' Foundation''; '' Foundation and Empire''; and '' Second Foundation''. It won the one-time Hugo Award for "Best All-Time Series" in 1966. Asimov began adding new volumes in 1981, with two sequels: ''Foundation's Edge'' and '' Foundation and Earth'', and two prequels: '' Prelude to Foundation'' and ''Forward the Foundation''. The premise of the stories is that, in the waning days of a future Galactic Empire, the mathematician Hari Seldon spends his life developing a theory of psychohistory, a new and effective mathematics of sociology. Using statistical laws of mass action, it can predict the future of large populations. Seldon foresees the imminent fall of the Empire, which encompasses the entire Milky Way, and a Dark Age ...
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Ecumenopolis
Ecumenopolis (from el, οἰκουμένη '' oecumene'' 'world', and ''polis'' 'city', thus 'a world city'; plural ''ecumenopolises'' or ''ecumenopoleis'') is the hypothetical concept of a planetwide city. Description The word was invented in 1967 by the Greek city planner Constantinos Apostolou Doxiadis to represent the idea that, in the future, urban areas and megalopolises would eventually fuse, and there would be a single continuous worldwide city as a progression from the current urbanization, population growth, transport and human networks. According to Doxiadis, it was the fifteenth level of ekistic units and the most significant one as the uppermost echelon of the classification. This concept was already current in science fiction in 1942, with Trantor in Isaac Asimov's ''Foundation'' series. When made public, Doxiadis' idea of ecumenopolis seemed "close to science fiction", but today is "surprisingly pertinent" according to geography researchers Pavle Stamenovic, ...
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Hari Seldon
Hari Seldon is a fictional character in Isaac Asimov's ''Foundation'' series. In his capacity as mathematics professor at Streeling University on the planet Trantor, Seldon develops psychohistory, an algorithmic science that allows him to predict the future in probabilistic terms. On the basis of his psychohistory he is able to predict the eventual fall of the Galactic Empire and to develop a means to shorten the millennia of chaos to follow. The significance of his discoveries lies behind his nickname "Raven" Seldon. In the first five books of the ''Foundation'' series, Hari Seldon made only one in-the-flesh appearance, in the first part of the first book (''Foundation''), although he did appear at other times in pre-recorded messages to reveal a "Seldon Crisis". After writing five books in chronological order, Asimov retroactively added two books to expand on the genesis of psychohistory. The two prequels—''Prelude to Foundation'' and '' Forward the Foundation''—describe Se ...
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Terminus (planet)
''Foundation'' is a science fiction novel by American writer Isaac Asimov. It is the first published in his ''Foundation Trilogy'' (later expanded into the ''Foundation'' series). ''Foundation'' is a cycle of five interrelated short stories, first published as a single book by Gnome Press in 1951. Collectively they tell the early story of the Foundation, an institute founded by psychohistorian Hari Seldon to preserve the best of galactic civilization after the collapse of the Galactic Empire. Origin and early publication history Four of the five stories had been earlier published in '' Astounding Science Fiction'' between 1942 and 1944 under different titles. A fifth part, the first in fictional chronology, was added for the 1951 Gnome Press edition. The original four stories also appeared in 1955 as part of Ace's double novel series as D-110 under the title ''The 1,000-Year Plan''. Two further books, each consisting of two novellas, were published shortly after and the thr ...
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Mule (Foundation)
This is a list of characters in Isaac Asimov's ''Foundation'' series. Through the centuries-spanning nature of the ''Foundation'' series, the lives of its various characters are limited to one or two of its nine episodes. In spite of the great success of the series, its characters have been described as "undifferentiated and one-dimensional" speaking with an "impoverished vocabulary". Their consciousness "shows absolutely no historical development and hence fails to evoke in the reader any feeling for the future universe they inhabit". Characterization in general is subordinated to the overall conception of Asimov's project. Through the eyes of the characters the inevitability of the forces of history, made manifest in the Seldon Plan, is demonstrated to the reader repeatedly. Charles Elkins sees the characters in ''Foundation'' not as "tragic heroes. They are nondescript pawns, unable to take their destiny into their own hands." Only those elite few characters who understand the ...
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Arkady Darell
This is a list of characters in Isaac Asimov's ''Foundation'' series. Through the centuries-spanning nature of the ''Foundation'' series, the lives of its various characters are limited to one or two of its nine episodes. In spite of the great success of the series, its characters have been described as "undifferentiated and one-dimensional" speaking with an "impoverished vocabulary". Their consciousness "shows absolutely no historical development and hence fails to evoke in the reader any feeling for the future universe they inhabit". Characterization in general is subordinated to the overall conception of Asimov's project. Through the eyes of the characters the inevitability of the forces of history, made manifest in the Seldon Plan, is demonstrated to the reader repeatedly. Charles Elkins sees the characters in ''Foundation'' not as "tragic heroes. They are nondescript pawns, unable to take their destiny into their own hands." Only those elite few characters who understand the ...
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Cleon II
This is a list of characters in Isaac Asimov's ''Foundation'' series. Through the centuries-spanning nature of the ''Foundation'' series, the lives of its various characters are limited to one or two of its nine episodes. In spite of the great success of the series, its characters have been described as "undifferentiated and one-dimensional" speaking with an "impoverished vocabulary". Their consciousness "shows absolutely no historical development and hence fails to evoke in the reader any feeling for the future universe they inhabit". Characterization in general is subordinated to the overall conception of Asimov's project. Through the eyes of the characters the inevitability of the forces of history, made manifest in the Seldon Plan, is demonstrated to the reader repeatedly. Charles Elkins sees the characters in ''Foundation'' not as "tragic heroes. They are nondescript pawns, unable to take their destiny into their own hands." Only those elite few characters who understand th ...
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Galactic Empire Series
The ''Galactic Empire'' series (also called the ''Empire'' novels or trilogy) is a science fiction sequence of three of Isaac Asimov's earliest novels, and extended by one short story. They are connected by their early place in his published works and chronological placement within his overarching ''Foundation'' universe, set around the rise of Asimov's Galactic Empire, between the ''Robot'' and '' Foundation'' series to which they were linked in Asimov's later novels. Works in the series In order of internal chronology the ''Empire'' series consists of: # '' The Stars, Like Dust'' (1951), novel # '' The Currents of Space'' (1952), novel # ''Pebble in the Sky'' (1950), his first novel # " Blind Alley" (1945), a short story also set between the ''Robot'' and ''Foundation'' series (However, Asimov stated in 1988 in the "Author's Note" to ''Prelude to Foundation'' that book #6 was "The Currents of Space" (1952), and that this was "the first of my Empire novels," and that book #7 wa ...
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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 book ...
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Robert A
The name Robert is an ancient Germanic given name, from Proto-Germanic "fame" and "bright" (''Hrōþiberhtaz''). Compare Old Dutch ''Robrecht'' and Old High German ''Hrodebert'' (a compound of ''Hrōþ, Hruod'' ( non, Hróðr) "fame, glory, honour, praise, renown" and ''berht'' "bright, light, shining"). It is the second most frequently used given name of ancient Germanic origin. It is also in use Robert (surname), as a surname. Another commonly used form of the name is Rupert (name), Rupert. After becoming widely used in Continental Europe it entered England in its Old French form ''Robert'', where an Old English cognate form (''Hrēodbēorht'', ''Hrodberht'', ''Hrēodbēorð'', ''Hrœdbœrð'', ''Hrœdberð'', ''Hrōðberχtŕ'') had existed before the Norman Conquest. The feminine version is Roberta (given name), Roberta. The Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish form is Roberto (given name), Roberto. Robert is also a common name in many Germanic languages, including English ...
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Philadelphia Naval Shipyard
The Philadelphia Naval Shipyard was an important naval shipyard of the United States for almost two centuries. Philadelphia's original navy yard, begun in 1776 on Front Street and Federal Street in what is now the Pennsport section of the city, was the first naval shipyard of the United States. It was replaced by a new, much larger yard developed around facilities begun in 1871 on League Island, at the confluence of the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers. The Navy Yard expansion stimulated the development over time of residential and businesses in South Philadelphia, where many shipyard workers lived. During World War II, some 40,000 workers operated on shifts around the clock to produce and repair ships at the yard for the war effort. The United States Navy ended most of its activities there in the 1990s, closing its base after recommendations by the Base Realignment and Closure commission. In 2000, the Philadelphia Industrial Development Corporation, on behalf of the city of P ...
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