Comments on: Isaac, Part 2 of many

By: John Takao Collier

John Takao Collier — Sun, 03 Oct 2010 22:03:46 +0000

My family and I visited relatives in Brooklyn over the summer and I dearly wanted to visit site of the former Asimov candy store, but alas, we ran out of time and it was not to be.

However, I found a website that shows what the location currently looks like: http://brooklynometry.blogspot.com/2008/01/cbs-construction-once-asimov-candy.html

By: Bill Goodwin

Bill Goodwin — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 04:07:28 +0000

His words like dust encircle the world

In living mists of ink,

All of thought from pages unfurled

In one vast burst of Think.

By: Elizabeth Coleman

Elizabeth Coleman — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 21:45:52 +0000

@DavidPhilipOster
There’s a story called “Green Fire” written as a round robin between Eileen Gunn, Andy Duncan, Pat Murphy, and Michael Swanwick, which plays with the fact that The Philadelphia Experiment, Asimov and Heinlein were around at the same time. It’s in Eileen’s collection, “Stable Strategies,” and is weird, weird, weird.

By: Jerry

Jerry — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 18:18:17 +0000

Asimov had quite the system for his submissions to Campbell, didn\\\’t he? And I\\\’m kind of shocked at the genteel Antisemitism he encountered. I knew that was common in housing back then, but I didn\\\’t know it was so pervasive.

By: Bill Higgins-- Beam Jockey

Bill Higgins-- Beam Jockey — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 16:03:35 +0000

David Phillip Oster writes:

For years, I’ve wanted to ask this question of someone who would know, while Asimov, de Camp, and Heinlein were at the research facility at the Philadelphia Navy Yard during WWII, were they involved in any experiments involving making war ships invisible?

No.

I suppose Wikipedia is not allowed to say that something is complete nonsense, because that would violate their rule about \"neutral point of view.\" But I am free to say it. The \"Philadelphia Experiment\" is complete nonsense. Nonsense from a physics point of view and nonsense from a historical point of view.

Furthermore, there is no connection between the three SF writers and any of the aspects of the \"Philadelphia Experiment\" conspiracy theory– except that they were working at another Navy facility nearby (the Naval Aircraft Factory\’s Aeronautical Materials Laboratory, not the Philadelphia Navy Yard) during the same period.

Heinlein began in the spring of 1942, at first assisting with recruiting technical talent and other administrative tasks. This led to jobs for Asimov and de Camp, among others. Later Heinlein moved into work on plastics.

De Camp was a Navy lieutenant who was assigned to the NAF. He worked on a variety of engineering jobs, including supervising the construction of an altitude chamber and a \"cold room\" to test equipment at stratospheric and Arctic temperatures. He wrote, \"So for three and a half years Asimov, Heinlein, and I, along with scores of other technical people, navigated desks and fought the war with flashing slide rules.\"

If you want to see how L. Sprague de Camp himself answered Mr. Oster\’s question, see this link:
http://books.google.com/books?id=YUHzYPFrJyQC&pg=PA225

Asimov was a civilian chemist who arrived in May 1942. He worked in the Chemicals and Coatings unit. He has written about his work in the first volume of his autobiography, IN MEMORY YET GREEN, if you care to learn more.

I hope this is helpful.

By: Carl V.

Carl V. — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 14:03:06 +0000

These first two posts have been absolutely wonderful and I do hope that you keep them up. It is a great pleasure to learn more about you, and Isaac Asimov and others, through them.