高二英語選修七第二單元A BLOGRAPHY OF ISAAC ASIMOV的英語原文

高二英語選修七第二單元英語原文：

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.

附上中文翻譯：

伊薩克·阿西莫夫傳記

伊薩克·阿西莫夫是美國的科學(xué)家及作家.他有大約480本著作,包括偵探小說、科普和歷史書籍,甚至是有關(guān)《圣經(jīng)》和有關(guān)莎士比亞的書籍.

但是他最著名的作品還是他的科幻小說.阿西莫夫不但擁有非凡的想象力使得他能夠去探究未來的世界,而且擁有令人驚異的思維讓他能夠解釋一切,不管是現(xiàn)在還是過去.

伊薩克·阿西莫夫生于1920.1.2,俄羅斯；逝于1992.4.6,紐約.他死于由九年前的一次輸血引發(fā)的艾滋病毒感染.

在他三歲的時候,他搬到紐約和父母及大他一歲的姐姐一起住.在那里,他的父母買下一間此后經(jīng)營了四十多年的糖果鋪.他九歲的時候,媽媽懷了第三個孩子,伊薩克開始到糖果鋪幫忙.他中學(xué)和大學(xué)期間一直在糖果鋪工作,直到1942年,也就是他獲得化學(xué)碩士學(xué)位的一年以后.

從1942年到1945年,他一直在費城海軍工廠當(dāng)一名初級化學(xué)劑師.1948年,他獲得了化學(xué)博士學(xué)位.1949年起他成為了波士頓大學(xué)醫(yī)學(xué)院的生物化學(xué)教授.1958年他放棄了教學(xué)工作,成為一名專職作家.

直到阿西莫夫十一歲的時候他的才能或者說寫作才變得明顯.他曾經(jīng)他寫的故事的兩個章節(jié)講給他的一個朋友聽,那個朋友覺得他是在復(fù)述某本書上的故事.這件事真的讓阿西莫夫很吃驚 ,從那時起,他決定自己要真正做個作家.阿西莫夫自1939年起開始在科幻雜志上發(fā)表他的故事.1950年他出版了自己的第一本小說,1953年出版了第一本科普書.

在他的一生中,阿西莫夫在科幻小說和科學(xué)書籍方面得到了許多榮譽,在他所有的科幻作品中,有一個就是“基地系列”（1951-1953）使他贏得了獎項,這是三個有關(guān)未來銀河系中一個偉大帝國的滅亡和重生的故事.

他的小故事也很出名.《我,機(jī)器人》（1950),那里面,他提出了“機(jī)器人三條定律”.比如,其中的第一條是說：機(jī)器人不得傷害人,也不得見人受到傷害而袖手旁觀.他的一些關(guān)于機(jī)器人的觀點后來影響了其他的作家甚至科學(xué)家去他就人造智能.阿西莫夫結(jié)過兩次婚,他和第一位太太在1942年結(jié)婚并育有一子一女.他們的婚姻維持了31年.1973年在他離婚后不久,阿西莫夫有了另一段婚姻,但是他和他的第二位太太沒有子女.