A View From A Height is the second anthology of essays written for Fantasy and Science Fiction, published in 1963.
The essay titles to the left are listed in the order they appear in the book. Because one of the purposes of these critiques is to examine Asimov's growth as a writer, the essays are covered in chronological order in the body of this page.
In his Introduction, Asimov likens science to an orchard. It used to be small, but now it's grown so huge that no one person can tend it all. But Asimov can look down on it 'from a height' and perhaps see patterns.
Quote from Introduction
"To be a proper science fiction writer (in my opinion) one must somehow retain a nodding acquaintance with as many branches of sciences as possible."
A View From A Height (1962)
That's About the Size of It
The Egg and Wee
That's Life
Not As We Know It
The Element of Perfection
The Weighting Game
The Evens Have It
Now Hear This!
The Ultimate Split of the Second
Order! Order!
The Modern Demonology
The Height of Up
Hot Stuff
Recipe For A Planet
The Trojan Hearse
By Jove!
Superficially Speaking
Oct 1961
Jun 1962
Mar 1961
Sep 1961
Nov 1960
April 1962
Aug 1961
Dec 1960
Aug 1959
Feb 1961
Jan 1962
Oct 1959
July 1962
July 1961
Dec 1961
May 1962
Feb 1962
Essays listed chronologically
The Ultimate Split of the Second
The Height of Up
The Element of Perfection
Now Hear This!
Order! Order!
That's Life
Recipe For A Planet
The Evens Have It
Not As We Know It
That's About the Size of It
The Trojan Hearse
The Modern Demonology
Superficially Speaking
The Weighting Game
By Jove!
The Egg and Wee
Hot Stuff
.
Aug 1959
Oct 1959
Nov 1960
Dec 1960
Feb 1961
Mar 1961
July 1961
Aug 1961
Sept 1961
Oct 1961
Dec 1961
Jan 1962
Feb 1962
April 1962
May 1962
June 1962
July 1962
The essays below are discussed as written in chronological order, not as they appeared in the book. The paragraph in grey is the opening lines of each essay.
The Ultimate Split of the Second (August 1959)
Occasionally, I get an idea for something new in science; not necessarily something important, of course, but new anyway. One of these ideas is what I will devote this chapter to.
The notion came to me some time ago, when the news broke that a subatomic particle called "xi-zero" (with "xi" pronounced "ksee," if you speak Greek, and "zigh" if you speak English) had been detected for the first time. Like other particles of its general nature, it is strangely stable, having a half-life of fully a ten-billionth of a second or so.
Personal details?
None.
Comments on religion?
None.
Comments on politics?
None.
Comments on women?
None.
Subject and notes
Asimov discusses the distances between the stars, with terms such as "light-seconds" and "light-years."
Asimov's present this idea: "My idea is intended to make split seconds more visualizable, and I got it from the device used in a realm of measurement that is also grotesque and also outside the range of all common experience - that of astronomical distances.
Instead of concentrating on the tremendously long distances light can cover in ordinary units of time, why not concentrate on the tremendously short times required for light to cover ordinary units of distance?
Has the fermi been officially adopted for the unit of length equal to a millionth of a millimicron, or to 10 -13 centimeters?
Wikipedia says it is widely used by nuclear and particle physicists. www.sizes.com (whoever they are) says: Now obsolete, replaced by the SI term femtometer (symbol, fm); one fermi = one femtometer.
Quotes?
None.
The Height of Up (October 1959)
Most of us would consider the surface of the sun to be pretty hot. It's temperature, as judged by the type of radiation it emits, is about 6,000 degrees K (with K standing for the Kelvin scale of temperature).
However, Homo sapiens, with his own hot little hands, can do better than that. He has put together nuclear fission bombs which can easily reach temperatures well beyond 100,000 degrees K.
Personal details?
None
Comments on religion?
None
Comments on politics?
None
Comments on women?
None
Subject and notes
Asimov wonders if there is any limit to how hot something can be. "How hot is hot?" he asks.
He then goes into a history of the various temperature scales.
Quotes?
None
The Element of Perfection (November 1960)
In the old days of science fiction, when writers had much more of the leeway that arises out of scientific innocence, a "new element" could always be counted on to get a story going or save it from disaster. A new element could block off gravity, or magnify atoms to visible size, or transport matter.
Personal details?
None.
Comments on religion?
None.
Comments on politics?
None
Comments on women?
None
Subject and notes
Asimov discusses the history of helium was discovered, (and argon) and why scientific discoveries must be proven by rigorous tests. "A new spectral line does not necessarily signify a new element." Asimov references the proved-false elements of "nebelium", "coronium" and "geocoronium."
Helium is found in the soil as well as the atmosphere, and wells of natural gas also contain helium. What will the world do for computers once helium is gone?
Asimov refers to helium dipped computers as "cryonotized."
He suggests that one day Jupiter will have to be mined of its helium.
Quotes?
None.
Now Hear This! (December 1960)
The ancient Greeks weren't always wrong.
I am taking the trouble to say this strictly for my own good, for when I trace back the history of some scientific concept, I generally start with the Greeks, then go to great pains to show how their wrong guesses had to be slowly and painfully corrcted by the great scientists of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, usually against the strenuous opposition of traditionalists.
Personal details?
None
Comments on religion?
None
Comments on politics?
None
Comments on women?
None
Subject and notes
Asimov discusses both the intelligence of dolphins and porpoises, the concept of sonar and sound under water, and from there to light and sound waves.
Quotes?
None
Order! Order! (February 1961)
One of the big dramatic words in science is entropy. It comes so trippingly and casually to the tongue; yet when the speaker is asked to explain the term, lockjaw generally sets in. Nor do I exonerate myself in this respect. I, too, have used the word with fine abandon and have learned to change the subject deftly when asked to explain its meaning.
But I must not allow myself to be cowardly forever. So, with lips set firmly and with face a little pale, here I go...
Personal details?
None.
Comments on religion?
None
Comments on politics?
None.
Comments on women?
None
Subject and notes
Asimov begins with the law of conservation of energy...then moves on to 1905 and Albert Einstein's theory of relativity which proves it beyond doubt. He then goes on to discuss the three laws of thermodynamics.
Quotes?
None
That's Life (March 1961)
My son is fiendishly interested in outer space. This is entirely without reference to his father's occupation, concerning which he is possessed of complete apathy. Anyway, in honor of this interest of his, we once bought a recording of a humorous skit entitled "The Astronaut" (which was soon worn so thin as a result of repeated playings, that the needle delivered both sides simultaneously.
Personal details?
Asimov references his son! This is extremely unusual. In future essays he mentions his daughter several times, but never his son.
Comments on religion?
None
Comments on politics?
None
Comments on women?
None
Subject and notes
Asimov discusses the definition of life, and what life is - a continuation of his comments about cells from an earlier essay. Throughout the essay he continues to modify the definition as he discusses various principles.
Quotes?
"We will never understand the organization until we have a thorough understanding of the parts being organized, and it is my hope that when the DNA molecule is laid out plain for all to see, many of the current mysteries of life will fall neatly into place - organization and all.
Recipe For A Planet (Jul 1961)
Slowly, American scientists (and I believe, Soviet scientists, independently) are making ready to drill a hole through the earth's crust to reach the layer beneath.
This projected "Mohole" (and I'll explain the name, for those of you who happen not to know, later on) will, if it succeeds, bring us the first direct information concerning any portion of our planet other than the very rind. This is exciting for several reasons, one of which is that it will lower the high-blood prressure of many a geologist who for years has had to watch man make ready to go millions of miles out in space while totally unable to penetrate more than a few miles below earth's outer surface. And there is something annnoying (if you're a geologist) in the thought that mankind will certainly feel, in its own corporeal hands, a sample of the surface of Mars long before it can possibly feel a sample from the central regions of its own planet.
Personal details?
None.
Comments on religion?
None.
Comments on politics?
None.
Comments on women?
None
Subject and notes
Asimov discusses the elements that make up the earth, and speculates on the composition of the earth's core, with inferences made because of the way various waves go through, or do not go through, the core.
The earth's core is referred to as a nickel-iron core not because scientists know that that's what it is, but because they speculate. Meteorites come in three types - "iron," "stony," and "troilite." It is 'tempting to suppose that these meterorites are remnants of an earthlike planet (between Mars and Jupiter, where else?) that broke into fragments; that the stony meteorites are fragments of the mantle of that planet, the iron meteorites are fragments of its core, an the troilite meteorites fragments of an intermediate zone at the bottom of its mantle.' Because the percentage of iron in iron meteorites is 90.78 an nickel 8.79 (with cobalt at .63)...the earth's core is referred to as an iron-nickel core.
Quotes?
None
The Evens Have It (August 1961)
Some time ago, I was asked (by phone) to write an article on the use of radio isotopes in industry. The gentleman doing the asking waxed enthusiastic on the importance of isotopes, but after a while I could stand it no more, for he kept pronouncing it ISS-o-topes, with a very short "i."
Finally I said, in the most diffident manner I could muster, "EYE-so-topes, sir," giving it a very long "i."
"No, no," he said impatiently, "I'm talking about ISS-o-topes."
And so he did, to the very end, and on subsequent phone calls, too. But I fooled him. I eventutally wrote the article about EYE-so-topes.
Personal details?
Asimov discusses, briefly, how he is commissioned for an assignment.
Comments on religion?
None.
Comments on politics?
None
Comments on women?
None
Subject and notes
Asimov dealt only with the 'practical' applications of isotopes in the article he referenced above. "There is much that is impractical about isotopes that I'd like to discuss," he says, and does so.
First he discusses the way the word isotope entered the scientific vocabulary. Then he goes on to explain that the most common elements usually have even/even isotopes. About 87% of the earth's crust is made up of the elements with even atomic numbers.
Quotes?
None
Not As We Know It (Sept 1961)
Even unpleasant experiences can be inspiring.
For instance, my children once conned me into taking them to to a monster-movie they had seed advertised on TV.
It's science fiction," they explained. They don't exactly know what science fiction is, but they''ve gathered its something daddy writes, so the argument is considered very powerful.
I tried to explain that it wasn't science fiction by my definition, but alkthough I had logic on my side, they had decibels on theirs.
Personal details?
Asimov shares a brief personal anecdote about his children. Referring to his children may not be unusual, referring to son David singly is.
Comments on religion?
Asimov mentions that people have seen water as a sign of Divine Providence. Howver he points out: Life has evolved to fit the watery medium in which it developed. Life fits water, rather than the reverse.
The end line: "How easy it would be to observe the Tenth Commandment then!"
(According to Wikipedia: "Do not covet your neighbor's house"
One is forbidden to desire and plan how one may obtain that which God has given to another. Maimonides makes a distinction in codifying the laws between the instruction given here in Exodus (You shall not covet) and that given in Deuteronomy (You shall not desire), according to which one does not violate the Exodus commandment unless there is a physical action associated with the desire, even if this is legally purchasing an envied object.')
Comments on politics?
None
Comments on women?
None
Subject and notes
Asimov discusses how life on other worlds might have evolved, if they are not from an Earth-type planet. In what other forms of atmosphere could life evolve?
Ammonia?
Still unknown after 40 years?
Asimov says: "Brain tissue, in particular, contains giant lipid molecules of complex structure (and of unknown function.)
"No one has yet, as far as I know, dealt with the problem of fluoroproteins or has even thought of dealing with it."
Quotes?
"It got me to thinking about the lack of imagination in movieland's monsters. Their only attributes are their bigness and destructiveness. They include big apes, big octopuses..., big eagles, big spiders, big amoebae. In a way, that is all Hollywood needs... This alone suffices to drag in huge crowds of vociferous human larvae, for to be big and destructive is the secret dream of every red-blooded little boy and girl in the world."
That's About the Size of It (Oct 1961)
No matter how much we tell ourselves that quality is what counts, sheer size remains impressive. The two most popular types of animals in any zoo are the monkeys and the elephants, the former because they are embarrassingly like ourselves, the latter because they are huge. We laugh at the monkeys but stand in silent awe before the elephant. And even among the monkeys, if one were to place Gargantua in a cage, he would outdraw every other primate in the place. In fact, he did.
Personal details?
None
Comments on religion?
None.
Comments on politics?
None.
Comments on women?
Pg. 9. "No one has ever seen a fat shrew or ever will. (And if anyone wishes to send pictures of the neighbor's wife in order to refute that statement, please don't.")
Subject and notes
Asimov discusses how large human beings are in comparison with other species on earth throughout history, taking as his examples the ratio of man's size to the blue whale and the shrew. His theme is that man's domination of the planet is not as a tiny David against Goliath, but as a Goliath (man) winning against the Davids - unless rodents, insects, bacteria and viruses get us in the end.
There's a lot of math computation in this essay, focusing on logarithms.
Quotes?
"As any fourth-grader and many adults will maintain, division comes under the heading of advanced mathematics."
The Trojan Hearse (December 1961)
The very first story I published (never mind how long ago that was) concerned a spaceship that had come to grief in the asteroid zone. In it, I had a character comment on the foolhardiness of the captain in not moving out of the plane of the ecliptic (i.e. the plane of the earth's orbitwhich is close to that in which virtually all the components of the solar system move) in order to go over or under the zone and avoid almost certain collision.
Personal details?
None
Comments on religion?
None
Comments on politics?
None
Comments on women?
None
Subject and notes
Asimov discusses the Trojan asteroids. When people think of the asteroid belt - they normally think of asteroids clustered very closly together, but this isn't the case. Asimov calculates that the average distance between asteroids in the belt is 10,000,000 miles.
He then explains "Kirkwood's gaps" - areas around Jupiter 'swept clean' of asteroids.
Asimov points out that Phobos is not unusual in the fact that it revolves around Mars in less time than Mars rotates on its axis. The rings of SAturn - made up of millions of tiny satellites, do the same.
And finally Asimov mentions Jupiter's Trojan satellites. Asimov says he wouldn't be surprised "if every pair of bodies which met the 25.8 to 1 mass-ratio requirement was accompanied by some sort of rubble in the Trojan position."
"Practical Application" for Lagrangian points
Asimov postulates his idea, which is "original, as far as I know."
He suggests disposing of radioactive wastes by firing them into Trojan positions around the earth, such that they'd be trapped there. [Asimov points out that firing radioactive waste into space is not a new idea, but the idea is usually to fire it into the s un. Asimov's idea of using the Trojan positions is the new idea.]
Quotes?
None
The Modern Demonology (January 1962)
You would think, considering my background, that had I ever so slight a chance to drag fantasy into any serious discussion of science, I would at once do so with neon lights flashing and fireworks blasting.
And yet, in the previous chapter on entropy, I completely ignored the most famous single bit of fantasy in the history of science. Yet that was only that I might devote another entire chapter to it.
Personal details?
None
Comments on religion?
"I could almost wish, at this point, that I were in the habit of expressing myself in theological terms, for if I were, I might be able to compress my entire thesis into a sentence.
All knowledge of every variety (I might say) is in the mind of God-and the human intellect, even the best, in trying to pluck it forth can but "see through a glass, darkly."
Comments on politics?
None
Comments on women?
None
Subject and notes
Asimov begins the discussion by explaining why Scottish mathematician James Clerk Maxwell invented, for the purpose of illustrating, or dramatising, an argument about entropy, a "Demon" to better exxplain to the layman how things worked.
Asimov then applies the idea of entropy to the writings of Shakespeare, before moving on to Darwin and living organisms.
Why do organisms evolve - not by growing 'worse' but 'better'. "On the whole, living organisms have grown more complex and more specialized over the aeons. Out of unicellular creatures came multicellular ones. Out of two ger=m layers came three. Out of a two-chambered heart came a four-chambered one."
To explain this, Asimov postulates "Darwin's demon" - otherwise known as natural selection.
Quotes?
"Nothing the mind of man can create is truly created out of nothing. All possible mathematical relationships; natural laws; combinations of words, lines, colorssounds; all-everything-exists at least in potentiality. A particular man discovers one or another of these but does not create them in the ultimate sense of the word.
Superficially Speaking (February 1962)
For the last century, serious science-fiction writers, from Edgar Allan Poe onward, have been trying to reach the moon; and now governments are trying to get into the act. It kills some of the romance of the deal to have the project become a "space spectacular" designed to show up the other side, but if that's what it takes to get there, I suppose we can only sigh and push on.
So far, however, governments are only interested in reaching the moon,and as science fiction fans we ought to remain one step ahead of them and keep our eyes firmly fixed on populating the moon.
Personal details?
None
Comments on religion?
None
Comments on politics?
Only obliquely. As he states in the opening paragraph - it was clear to Asimov that the space race - just getting underway - was just to 'show up' the other side, not to actually accomplish anything.
Comments on women?
None
Subject and notes
Asimov does not specifically mention the problem of over-population of the earth, but that's pretty much what this essay is about - fantasizing how humans can populate the entire solar system, by hollowing out the moon and various asteroids so that humans might live in them..and breaking up the planets - including the earth - to provide yet more living space for humans.
In order to dramatize how big the earth is, as well as how big the biggest asteroids are, Asimov uses the analogy of a US unit - because more people than ever were jetting around the United States, they now knew exactly how large the USA was and could more easily picture the size of other countries and other asteroids using the USA as a guide. Asimov doesn't say whether this analogy is original with him - but it is a good one and made things very clear.
Asimov does not use 'superficial' in the term that it is mostly used about people, but in its meaning as : "being at, on, or near the surface"
Quotes?
None
The Weighting Game (April 1962)
Scientific theories have a tendency to fit the intellectual fashions of the time.
For instance, back in the fourth century BC, two Greek philosophers, Leucippus of Miletus and Democritus of Abdera, worked out an atomic theory. All objects, they said, were made up of atoms. There were as many different kinds of atoms as there were fundamentally different substances in the universe. (The Greek recognized for fundamentally different substances, or "elements": fire, air, water and earth.)
Personal details?
None
Comments on religion?
None
Comments on politics?
None
Comments on women?
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Subject and notes
Asimov's topic is how the internal structure of the atom was discovered over years of scientific theory and search, beginning with Greece and moving upward in time. He then moves on to the table of elements and the controversy between the chemists and the physicists concerning the differences between "chemical atomic weight" and "physical atomic weight" and what standard should be used. They compromised in the end - which Asimov saw as a victory for both physicists, chemists, and the world at large. "Now that is the way to run the world-but I'll refrain from trying to point a moral."
Quotes?
None
By Jove (May 1962)
Suppose we ask ourselves a question: On what world of the solar system (other than earth itself, of course) are we most likely to discover life?
I imagine I can plainly hear the unanimous answer shout, Mars!
Personal details?
None
Comments on religion?
None
Comments on politics?
None
Comments on women?
None
Subject and notes
Asimov speculates on which planet in the solar system is more likely to hold life - and points out that it is Jupiter. In so doing, he is echoing the speculations of Carl Sagan: "Carl Sagan, an astronomer at Harvard University, doesn't take that attitude at all (the belief that the gas giant planets couldn't have life). "Professor Sagan was kind enough to send me a reprint of the paper, knowing that I would be interested in the subject."
Asimov comments that he saw an astronomy book that dramatized the fact that Saturn is less dense than earth by showing an ompressive illustration of Saturn, rings and all, floating in a choppy sea. Unfortunately he doesn't name the book.
He comments that where it was once believed (by science fiction writers) that Venus would have a world-wide ocean, complete with dinosaur-like creatures, it is Jupiter that is more likely covered by liquid, and that life might be able to evolve within it.
Quotes?
None
The Egg and Wee (June 1962)
Every once in a while, you will come across some remarks pointing up how much more compact the human brain is than is any electronic computer.
It is true that the human brain is a marvel of compactness in comparison to man-made thinking machines, but it is my feeling that this is not because of any fundamental difference in the nature of the mechanism of brain action as compared with that of computer action. Rather, I have the feeling that the difference is a matter of the size of the components involved.
Personal details?
None.
Comments on religion?
None.
Comments on politics?
None.
Comments on women?
None.
Subject and notes
Asimov discusses the cell, and what is it about a living organism that makes it "alive." He answers the questions, "How compact can a living stucture be? How small can an object be and still have the capacity for life?"
Quotes?
None
Hot Stuff (July 1962)
It is the life's ambition of every decent, right-thinking scientis or near-scientist (I use the latter noun to include myself) to influence the course of science. For the better, of course.
Most of us, alas, have to give up that ambition; I did so long ago. Never (so my heart told me) would there be an "Asimov's law" to brighten the pages of a physics textbook, or an "Asimov reaction" to do the same for those of a chemistry textbook. Slowly, the possibility of an "Asimov theory" and even an "Asimov conjecture" slipped through my fingers, and I was left with nothing.
With nothing, that is, but my electric typewriter and my big mouth, and the hidden hope that some idlee speculation of my own might spark better minds than mine into some worthwhile accomplishment.
Personal details?
Asimov tells the story of Princeton graduate student Hong-Yee Chiu, who was so struck by a comment Asimov made in one of his essays that he changed his field of study from elementary particle physics to astrophysics, in order to investigate maximum possible temperatures.
Comments on religion?
None
Comments on politics?
None
Comments on women?
None
Subject and notes
Asimov then goes on to begin at the beginning (as usual) to study the history of temperature, by beginning with the neutrino.
Finagle's Constant
- designed to prove a wrong term right. An 'ad hoc' device.
That's what Asimov calls and defines it in this essay, and I found a use of it in a 1955 short story by Eric Frank Russell called "Allamagoosa". Wikipedia only has the definition for Finagle's Law:
Finagle's Law of Dynamic Negatives (also known as Finagle's corollary to Murphy's Law) is usually rendered:
Anything that can go wrong, will?at the worst possible moment
One variant (known as O'Toole's Corollary of Finagle's Law) favored among hackers is a takeoff on the second law of thermodynamics (also known as entropy):
The perversity of the Universe tends towards a maximum.
The term "Finagle's Law" was first used by John W. Campbell, Jr., the influential editor of Astounding Science Fiction (later Analog). He used it frequently in his editorials for many years in the 1940s to 1960s but it never came into general usage the way Murphy's Law has.
Eventually the term "Finagle's law" was popularized by science fiction author Larry Niven in several stories depicting a frontier culture of asteroid miners; this "Belter" culture professed a religion and/or running joke involving the worship of the dread god Finagle and his mad prophet Murphy.
Hanlon's Razor (or Hanlon's Law) is a corollary of Finagle's law. Hanlon's Razor says "Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity."
Asimov finishes with: If his theory is correct, it ought to be possible to detect stars that are about to go supernova by the quantity of neutrons they put out. As supernova-hood is approached, the rate, according to Dr. Chiu, reaches 10 ^53 per second. He quotes Chiu: "Therefore, the establishment of a neutrino monitor station in terrestrial or spatial laboratories may help us predict forthcoming supernovae.
Chiu has had a few books published, including Neutrino Astrophysics (1964)and Stellar Evolution (1972).
Quotes?
None
All quotes maintain their original copyright and are presented here for research, reference and review.
Thanks to Doubleday for permission to use selected quotes.
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