How Did We Find Out about Dinosaurs?

How Did We Find Out #7

by Isaac Asimov, David Wool (Illustrator)

Traces the history of man's study of fossils and explains what this study has enabled him to learn about the dinosaurs.

Genres: Science

64 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1973

About the author

Works of prolific Russian-American writer Isaac Asimov include popular explanations of scientific principles, The Foundation Trilogy (1951-1953), and other volumes of fiction.

Isaac Asimov, a professor of biochemistry, wrote as a highly successful author, best known for his books.

Asimov, professor, generally considered of all time, edited more than five hundred books and ninety thousand letters and postcards. He published in nine of the ten major categories of the Dewey decimal classification but lacked only an entry in the category of philosophy (100).

People widely considered Asimov, a master of the genre alongside Robert Anson Heinlein and Arthur Charles Clarke as the "big three" during his lifetime. He later tied Galactic Empire and the Robot into the same universe as his most famous series to create a unified "future history" for his stories much like those that Heinlein pioneered and Cordwainer Smith and Poul Anderson previously produced. He penned "Nightfall," voted in 1964 as the best short story of all time; many persons still honor this title. He also produced well mysteries, fantasy, and a great quantity of nonfiction. Asimov used Paul French, the pen name, for the Lucky Starr, series of juvenile novels.

Most books of Asimov in a historical way go as far back to a time with possible question or concept at its simplest stage. He often provides and mentions well nationalities, birth, and death dates for persons and etymologies and pronunciation guides for technical terms. Guide to Science, the tripartite set Understanding Physics, and Chronology of Science and Discovery exemplify these books.

Asimov, a long-time member, reluctantly served as vice president of Mensa international and described some members of that organization as "brain-proud and aggressive about their IQs." He took more pleasure as president of the humanist association. The asteroid 5020 Asimov, the magazine Asimov's Science Fiction, an elementary school in Brooklyn in New York, and two different awards honor his name.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_As...

Reviews

[Joan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This focused more on how we found the dinosaurs, and evolution, than on specific dinosaurs. He did mention several more “popular” dinosaurs in chapter 6. Not being a dinosaur lover, I cannot tell you if any info is out of date except the obvious one of Brontosaurus, who was renamed Apatosaurus. This may not satisfy a young Dino lover who wants information on the different Dinos, the larger and scarier, the better. But it does an excellent job on telling us how we came to find these creatures and the implications for the age of the earth and evolution. Recommended.

[Basil Maas]

my pdf file of the book has a little inscription that reads big reptilian hugs and i think that's very sweet

overall, book is a very easy-to-read stuff and has a lot of funky looking dinosaur drawings