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Jupiter, the spotted giant

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Introduces the largest planet, one composed largely of gases and having numerous satellites.

32 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1980

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About the author

Isaac Asimov

4,399 books28.7k followers
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...

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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
Profile Image for James.
Author 15 books104 followers
January 10, 2011
Quite interesting and wide-ranging ruminations on what humanity has thought and learned about the largest planet in our system over the years. Some of the information has been made obsolete since this was written, e.g. the number of Jupiter's moons, but most is still accurate. Asimov not only wrote a great number of science fiction stories and books, he wrote science and math textbooks and taught college courses - I wish I had a time machine and could sit in on some of his classes. This is a great book for teens or adults - its writing style is relaxed and conversational, flows easily, and presents a lot of information without being dry or pedantic.
Profile Image for Alvaro Zinos-Amaro.
Author 69 books68 followers
July 17, 2016
Great quick primer on Jupiter, containing the basic facts about the planet and its moons as they were known in 1989. Given the new data coming in from the Juno space probe, this seemed like an excellent time to brush up on Jupiter. I also look forward to reading Asimov's longer, older book on Jupiter from the 1970s (which will likely contain a lot of history about its discovery etc. that will still be accurate).

For the curious, this is Asimov's 419th published book, and his 55th on Astronomy.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews