Entire publishing houses would have gone into bankruptcy, no doubt, without the steady, sure income that Isaac’s science books have generated for them over the decades. And will continue to generate for untold decades to come. The wood pulp and paper industry would be in a chronic state of depression if Isaac had not turned out all those hundreds of books and thousands of articles. Canada might have become a Third World nation, save for Dr. Isaac Asimov.

To make it more personal, I would have never started to write popularizations of science if it had not been for Isaac’s works-and for his personal encouragement and guidance. The gods themselves are the only ones who know how many writers have been helped by Isaac, either by reading his books or by asking him for help with science problems that had them stumped.

Blighted careers, ruined corporations, benighted people wandering in search of an enlightenment that they cannot find-that is what the world would be like if Isaac had not poured his great energies and greater heart into nonfiction books about science.

A final word about a word: popularization.

In the mouths of certain critics (including some professional scientists) “popularization” is a term of opprobrium, somewhat akin to the sneering “pulp literature” that is still sometimes slung at science fiction. “Popularizations” of science are regarded, by those slandering bastards, as beneath the consideration of dignified persons.

Such critics regard themselves as among the elite, and they disdain “popularizations” of science with the same lofty pigheadedness that George III displayed toward his American subjects.

To explain science is probably the most vital task any writer can attempt in today’s complex, technology-driven society. To explain science so well, so entertainingly, that ordinary men and women all over the world clamor for your books-that is worthy of a Nobel Prize. Too bad Alfred Nobel never thought about the need to explain science to the masses. I’m certain he would have created a special prize for it.