高二英语选修七第二单元A BLOGRAPHY OF ISAAC ASIMOV的英语原文

高二英语选修七第二单元英语原文：

Unit 2 RobotsUsing LanguageA BIOGRAPHY OF ISAAC ASIMOV

Isaac Asimov was an American scientist and writer who wrote around 480 books that included mystery stories, science and history books, and even books about the Holy Bible and Shakespeare.

But he is best known for his science fiction stories. Asimov had both an extraordinary imagination that gave him the ability to explore future worlds and an amazing mind with which he searched for explanations of everything, in the present and the past.

Asimov's life began in Russia, where he was born on 2 January, 1920. It ended in New York on 6 April, 1992, when he died as a result of an HIV infection that he had got from a blood transfusion nine years earlier.

When Asimov was three, he moved with his parents and his one-year-old sister to New York City. There his parents bought a candy store which they ran for the next 40 or so years. At the age of nine, when his mother was pregnant with her third child, Asimov started working part-time in the store. He helped out through his school and university years until 1942, a year after he had gained a master's degree in chemistry.

In 1942 he joined the staff of the Philadelphia Navy Yard as a junior chemist and worked there for three years. In 1948 he got his PhD in chemistry. The next year he became a biochemistry teacher at Boston University School of Medicine. In 1958 he gave up teaching to become a full-time writer.

It was when Asimov was eleven years old that his talent for writing became obvious. He had told a friend two chapters of a story he had written. The friend thought he was retelling a story from a book. This really surprised Asimov and from that moment, he started to take himself seriously as a writer. Asimov began having stories published in science fiction magazines in 1939. In 1950 he published his first novel and in 1953 his first science book.

Throughout his life, Asimov received many awards, both for his science fiction books and his science books. Among his most famous works of science fiction, one for which he won an award was the Foundation trilogy (1951-1953), three novels about the death and rebirth of a great empire in a galaxy of the future.

It was loosely based on the fall of the Roman Empire but was about the future. These books are famous because Asimov invented a theoretical framework which was designed to show how ideas and thinking may develop in the future.

He is also well known for his collection of short stories, I, Robot (1950), in which he developed a set of three "laws" for robots. For example, the first law states that a robot must not injure human beings or allow them to be injured. Some of his ideas about robots later influenced other writers and even scientists researching into artificial intelligence.

Asimov was married twice. He married his first wife in 1942 and had a son and a daughter. Their marriage lasted 31 years. Soon after his porce in 1973, Asimov married again but he had no children with his second wife.

附上中文翻译：

伊萨克·阿西莫夫传记

伊萨克·阿西莫夫是美国的科学家及作家.他有大约480本著作,包括侦探小说、科普和历史书籍,甚至是有关《圣经》和有关莎士比亚的书籍.

但是他最著名的作品还是他的科幻小说.阿西莫夫不但拥有非凡的想象力使得他能够去探究未来的世界,而且拥有令人惊异的思维让他能够解释一切,不管是现在还是过去.

伊萨克·阿西莫夫生于1920.1.2,俄罗斯；逝于1992.4.6,纽约.他死于由九年前的一次输血引发的艾滋病毒感染.

在他三岁的时候,他搬到纽约和父母及大他一岁的姐姐一起住.在那里,他的父母买下一间此后经营了四十多年的糖果铺.他九岁的时候,妈妈怀了第三个孩子,伊萨克开始到糖果铺帮忙.他中学和大学期间一直在糖果铺工作,直到1942年,也就是他获得化学硕士学位的一年以后.

从1942年到1945年,他一直在费城海军工厂当一名初级化学剂师.1948年,他获得了化学博士学位.1949年起他成为了波士顿大学医学院的生物化学教授.1958年他放弃了教学工作,成为一名专职作家.

直到阿西莫夫十一岁的时候他的才能或者说写作才变得明显.他曾经他写的故事的两个章节讲给他的一个朋友听,那个朋友觉得他是在复述某本书上的故事.这件事真的让阿西莫夫很吃惊 ,从那时起,他决定自己要真正做个作家.阿西莫夫自1939年起开始在科幻杂志上发表他的故事.1950年他出版了自己的第一本小说,1953年出版了第一本科普书.

在他的一生中,阿西莫夫在科幻小说和科学书籍方面得到了许多荣誉,在他所有的科幻作品中,有一个就是“基地系列”（1951-1953）使他赢得了奖项,这是三个有关未来银河系中一个伟大帝国的灭亡和重生的故事.

他的小故事也很出名.《我,机器人》（1950),那里面,他提出了“机器人三条定律”.比如,其中的第一条是说：机器人不得伤害人,也不得见人受到伤害而袖手旁观.他的一些关于机器人的观点后来影响了其他的作家甚至科学家去他就人造智能.阿西莫夫结过两次婚,他和第一位太太在1942年结婚并育有一子一女.他们的婚姻维持了31年.1973年在他离婚后不久,阿西莫夫有了另一段婚姻,但是他和他的第二位太太没有子女.