''Asimov's Biographical Encyclopedia of Science and Technology'' is a history of science by
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov ( ; – April 6, 1992) was an Russian-born 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. H ...
, written as the biographies of initially 1000 scientists and later with over 1500 entries. Organized chronologically, beginning with
Imhotep (entry "
) and concluding with
Stephen Hawking (entry "
510), each biographical entry is numbered, allowing for easy cross-referencing of one scientist with another. Nearly every biographical sketch contains links to other biographies. For example, the article about
John Franklin Enders 195has the sentence "
Alexander Fleming's
077penicillin was available thanks to the work of
Howard Florey 213and
Ernst Boris Chain 306 . . ." This allows one to quickly refer to the articles about Fleming, Florey, and Chain. It includes scientists in all fields including biologists, chemists, astronomers, physicists, mathematicians, geologist, and explorers. The alphabetical list of biographical entries starts with
ABBE, Cleveland 38and ends with
ZWORYKIN, Vladimir Kosma 134
In the Second Revised Edition
Isaac Newton
Sir Isaac Newton () was an English polymath active as a mathematician, physicist, astronomer, alchemist, theologian, and author. Newton was a key figure in the Scientific Revolution and the Age of Enlightenment, Enlightenment that followed ...
receives the greatest coverage, a biography of seven pages.
Galileo
Galileo di Vincenzo Bonaiuti de' Galilei (15 February 1564 – 8 January 1642), commonly referred to as Galileo Galilei ( , , ) or mononymously as Galileo, was an Italian astronomer, physicist and engineer, sometimes described as a poly ...
,
Michael Faraday
Michael Faraday (; 22 September 1791 – 25 August 1867) was an English chemist and physicist who contributed to the study of electrochemistry and electromagnetism. His main discoveries include the principles underlying electromagnetic inducti ...
and
Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein (14 March 187918 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist who is best known for developing the theory of relativity. Einstein also made important contributions to quantum mechanics. His mass–energy equivalence f ...
tie, with five pages each, and
Lavoisier and
Charles Darwin
Charles Robert Darwin ( ; 12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English Natural history#Before 1900, naturalist, geologist, and biologist, widely known for his contributions to evolutionary biology. His proposition that all speci ...
get four pages each.
Dutch writer
Gerrit Krol said about the book, "One of the charms of this encyclopedia is that to each name he adds those with whom this scientist has been in contact." The book has been revised several times, by both Asimov himself, and most recently, by his daughter Robyn Asimov.
Entries
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Asimov's Biographical Encyclopedia Of Science And Technology
Books by Isaac Asimov
Books about the history of science
Science and Technology
Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) is an umbrella term used to group together the distinct but related technical disciplines of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. The term is typically used in the context of ...
1964 non-fiction books