dbratman
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response 25 of 28:
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Nov 24 18:44 UTC 2000 |
picky correction department ...
It had nothing to do with a chemistry conference in Ireland, or with a
presentation he was making. Asimov just needed the chemical for his
research, noted that the name made a perfect fit, and then absent-
mindedly mumbled his earworm the next day in front of a secretary of
Irish descent, who said, "Oh! You know it in the original Gaelic!"
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dbratman
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response 28 of 28:
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Nov 30 23:23 UTC 2000 |
That's what Asimov said. Years of writing plain pulp fiction left him
unprepared, he said, for turgid academic prose. So he invented
thiotimoline (inspired by a fast-dissolving chemical he was actually
using) as a dry run. Even at that, his advisers said his thesis "read
like a novel," which they did not mean as a compliment. But when at
his orals they finished by asking him to discuss thiotimoline, he knew
he'd passed (because they wouldn't have pulled that joke if he hadn't).
After getting his Ph.D., Asimov spent eight years as a biochemistry
professor at Boston U. Mostly he taught first-year med students and
wrote textbooks, which led to his later lecturing and non-fiction
career, but he also did cancer research - which, he said, he was no
good at. He preferred the teaching and disliked having to do lab work,
so when he found he was making more money from outside writing, he quit.
[This is a bald and somewhat inaccurate summary, but it'll give you a
rough idea.]
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