Detail
Title: Fact and Fancy ISBN: 9780380011742Published March 28th 1972 by Avon Books (Discus) (first published 1958) · Mass Market Paperback 208 pages
Genre: Science, Nonfiction, Writing, Essays, Science Fiction Fantasy
Must be read
- Queen of Wands (Tree of Ages #4)
- Cold Storage
- The Red Address Book
- Little Secrets
- 地獄楽 6 [Jigokuraku 6] (地獄楽 [Jigokuraku] #6)
- A Venom Dark and Sweet (The Book of Tea #2)
- I Want to Die But I Want to Eat Tteokpokki
- Dandelion Wine (Green Town #1)
- The Greatest Beer Run Ever: A Memoir of Friendship
- Big Bad Wolf (Third Shift #1)
User Reviews
Travis Tuttle
Made me think of a lot of things in a cool way
Liedzeit Liedzeit
Early essays without the personal anecdote at the beginning, or only mildly so. Catching up with Newton, I liked. Best: Battle of the Eggheads.
Maged Agpo
إلى أي ميدان يمكن أن أوجه حديثي ، سوي ميدان العلم ؛ فالعلم هو رسول الحقيقة كما نراها الآن لكنه مبعوث جامد و بارد . و هو ينادي : الحقائق أيها السادة ، و لا شيء غير الحقائق ؛ فالعيون المدققة تراقبنا عن كثب و عناية
أزيموف .. ببراعة شديدة يقف علي خيط دقيق بين العلم و الأدب .. بنظرة القصاص يحكي عن العلم و نشأته و ينتقل بين أعظم ميادين العلم ، بين الفلك و الرياضيات و علم النفس .. كتاب عن الشغف بسيرة العلوم و نشأتها .
قبس من نور الأفكار :
١- الفسفور من أهم مصادر الطاقة و يجب الحفاظ عليه و عدم القاؤه في المحيط عن طريق تنقية المصارف
٢ - الأرض تشع ليلا بالأشعة تحت الحمراء فتتخلص من حرارتها ( نظرية البيت الأخضر )
٣- لماذا لا تذيب المحيطاتco2 ؟ بالغاز قابل للذوبان بصورة كافية . و هناك ما يكفي من الماء في المحيطات فما الذي يحول دون ذلك ؟
٤- أطلق أرسطو علي العنصر السماوي الخامس اسم كوينتسنس و يعني أنقي و أهم شيء من كل شيء
٥- تجربة العمدة فون جيريك و إثبات وزن الهواء الجوي
٦- الفرق بين درجة الحرارة و كمية الحرارة ، فالجزيءات لها طاقة عالية كجزيءات منفردة ، أي أن درجة حرارة الجزيئات مرتفعة ، و لكن لا يوجد من هذه الجزيئات إلا العدد القليل بحيث تصير الطاقة الكلية ( كمية الحرارة ) مهملة
٧- شحنة كهربية من عدد كبير من الأيونات تسبب وهج ( الأورورا ) أو الفجر القطبي
٨- نيوتن لم يكتشف أن التفاح يسقط إلى الأرض بمجرد انفصاله عن الشجرة ، فقد كان ذلك من المعلومات العامة المعروفة ، الذي برهن عليه و أوضحه أن مسار القمر حول الأرض يمكن تفسيره بفرض أن القمر يقع تحت تأثير أو قبضة نفس القوة التي تشد التفاحة
٩- لا يمكن أن تكون قوي التجاذب بين أي جسمين تساوي صفر مهما بلغا من الصغر ، ما دامت كتلتهما أكبر من الصفر
١٠- يزداد معدل السقوط بانتظام بمضي الزمن
١١- سرعة الإفلات ما هي إلا مقياس للطاقة التي يجب استخدامها من أجل كسر و تحطيم سلاسل الجاذبية بأية طريقة
١٢- رجل قنطورس ( فاسنتاوري ) المجرة المجاورة متعددة الشموس ، مجرة المرأة المسلسلة
١٣- النجم الأكثر لمعانا في السماء هو الشعري اليمانية ثم سهيل ثم رجل قنطورس ( اكتشفه توماس هندرسون ) ثم النسر الواقع ( اكتشفه فيريدرك ولهلم ستروف )
١٤- يوجد بالمجرة حوالي ١٠٠ مليار نجم لا يظهر معظمهم لأنهم في نواة المجرة يحجبهم عنا سحب الغبار الكوني و فقط ملياران قبل الغبار يمكن أن نري منهم ٦٠٠٠، ٣٠٠٠ في كل نصف من السماء و ٣٠٪ يضيعوا بسبب الغلاف الجوي يمكن فقط أن نري ٢٥٠٠ نجم
١٥- ميرياد لفظ الإغريق للعدد ١٠٠٠٠
١٦- ألمع النجوم التي علي الحواف المائلة للزرقة بلغت من البريق ماءة مرة قدر ألمع النجوم المائلة للإحمرار التي في الداخل
Ahmed Alsabbagh
So, Asimov don't believe in saucers. Yet, he would delightfully write science fiction about them.
Nothing wrong so far but!, he said in the first half of the book that he thinks that there might be life in outer space that didnt reach us yet because, "maybe" humans are very primitive compared to aliens.
Summary: he thinks maybe there are aliens and they might visit earth one day and he's denying any chance of existance of space saucers "disbelief firmly".
My point is, this guy do not make sense. How is he suggesting aliens might visit? With uber?
I think Asimov did not experess his thoughts in a proper way which is a big fault for an author in my opinion.
I think he should have said that he dont believe the stories about saucers yet. but they might exist and they didnt visit earth yet. And they might not exist! Who knows!?
Krzysztof
Not a bad bunch of essays. Given the huge leaps in scientific progress since these were written, you might think a lot of what he writes is dated, but as far as I can tell, a lot of it still holds.
I do have to wonder, though, why he bothered with some of it. When I began this book, I was under the impression that he was going to take scientific principles and apply them to speculative concepts, possibly in the form of fiction. What we get instead (mostly toward the beginning of the book) are fairly mundane observations about the nature of gravity and the effect a double sun would have on our solar system. Unless I was missing something, there didn't seem to be much consequence in his musings. It kind of felt like he was rehashing well-established science for his own amusement, but as I am always in need of a refresher course, I was happy to go along.
The better essays, I thought, were those in which he discussed man's effect on nature (global warming), the advantage of habitually doubting new scientific concepts, and the raging anti-intellectualism (still going strong)in the U.S.A. There are also a few nice speculative bits in here about the future space-tourism industry and how we might employ the passing of comets and satellites to make it farther out into space.
It would have been nice to have his insight on things like dark matter and dark energy. I'm sure he would have had a lot to say about those. I wonder if he did get a word or two in on them before he died. As it is (in this book), he sort of latches onto a "something out of nothing" view of creation. I think it's only a matter of time (and not much more time, at that) before that is completely disproven. Not sure where his built-in-doubter was for that particular theory, but he was working with what he had and he can't be blamed for that.
Robu-sensei
Please see my review of X Stands for Unknown for general comments on Isaac Asimov's science essays.
Fact and Fancy is a collection of sixteen essays written by Issac Asimov for the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction between December 1958 and October 1960, plus one article ("Our Lonely Planet") that appeared in Astounding Science Fiction in November 1958. The collection is loosely organized into four sections: The Earth and Away, The Solar System, The Universe and The Human Mind. (The Wikipedia article gives the full list of the articles.) As the titles suggest, this collection is heavily weighted toward astronomy. Intriguingly, while Asimov's own area of expertise was chemistry, he wrote far more science articles about astronomy—perhaps a consequence of his ardent love of science fiction.
The Good Doctor seems to be at home—and therefore at his best—writing about the universe, as well. Nonetheless, Fact and Fancy contains only one exceptional essay, "The Planet of the Double Sun," a speculation on the consequences of replacing Neptune with a red-dwarf star. Surprisingly, though the night sky would become far more interesting, life on Earth would not likely be vastly different.
Anthony Faber
Reprints of Asimov's science fact F&SF columns from 1958 to 61 (plus one other from elsewhere), including what was probably one of the first columns saying that global warming might happen geared for the layman.
Miguel
I've gotten caught up in Asimov's enthusiasm about space and space exploration from the late fifties. Asimov projects the excitement over the endless possibilities of scientific discovery of his time, when the rush of innovation that we take for granted today was just getting started, and when the popular focus was on outward vs. inward looking exploration.
In addition to providing a lot of interesting information about the solar system, he goes into planetary ecology, including the prescient speculation that human activity will warm climate. I imagine some of the science is obsolete (Is phosphorous still considered life's bottleneck? The Earth does not appear blurry from space.) but Asimov has motivated me to find out how much of what he writes is still current.
Don Murphy
The first few essays are just tough, tough reads. The man's smart, there's no doubt about that. Maybe a little too smart. Golly, he's smart. He says words that are big. And smart.
However, as the essays progress (and they do build on one another), they get more humanistic and easier to digest. The second section of essays are rather interesting - wondering about the outer planets, what we would see in a dual-star system, etc. The most interesting essay is 15: Those Crazy Ideas. He explores where ideas come from and how people come up with ideas.