Asimov tells the stories behind the science: the men and women who made the important discoveries and how they did it. Ranging from Galilei, Achimedes, Newton and Einstein, he takes the most complex concepts and explains it in such a way that a first-time reader on the subject feels confident on his/her understanding.

阿西莫夫对各门科学都有极大的兴趣和深入研究的毅力，并且愿意为广大的科学爱好者提供通俗浅显的文章。从1959年起，阿西莫夫就每月给《幻想和科幻》杂志撰写一篇科学专栏文章，他以不拘形式的笔法涉及了各门学科，内容深入浅出，文笔情趣满溢，许多深奥的科学道理经过他的叙述，就获得了引人入胜的效果。美国双日出版公司将这些文章按学科整理出版，以满足对某一学科分支特别感兴趣的额读者，这本书就是其中的数学分册。

本书是阿西莫夫的优秀作品之一。作者以通俗的语言，深入浅出地解释了现代科学中的一百个尖端课题。其中，有些是了解现代科学技术所必须具备的基础知识，如科学的研究方法、二进制数、相对论、亚原子粒子、核聚变、熵、晶体、病毒等。有些则是当代科学技术的前言阵地，如黑洞、统一场论、夸克、快子、金属氢等。作者对这些问题的来龙去脉，它们目前处在什么样的状态、有没有希望得到解决等问题均作了回答。

Isaac Asimov’s seminal Foundation trilogy—one of the cornerstones of modern speculative fiction—in a single hardcover volume.
It is the saga of the Galactic Empire, crumbling after twelve thousand years of rule. And it is the particular story of psychohistorian Hari Seldon, the only man who can see the horrors the future has in store—a dark age of ignorance, barbarism, and violence that will last for thirty thousand years. Gathering a band of courageous men and women, Seldon leads them to a hidden location at the edge of the galaxy, where he hopes they can preserve human knowledge and wisdom through the age of darkness.
In 1966, the Foundation trilogy received a Hugo Award for Best All-Time Series, and it remains the only fiction series to have been so honored. More than fifty years after their original publication, the three Foundation novels stand as classics of thrilling, provocative, and inspired world-building.

It is the year 12,020 G.E. and Emperor Cleon I sits uneasily on the Imperial throne of Trantor. Here in the great multidomed capital of the Galactic Empire, forty billion people have created a civilization of unimaginable technological and cultural complexity. Yet Cleon knows there are those who would see him fall - those whom he would destroy if only he could read the future.
Hari Seldon has come to Trantor to deliver his paper on psychohistory, his remarkable theory of prediction. Little does the young Outworld mathematician know that he has already sealed his fate and the fate of humanity. For Hari possesses the prophetic power that makes him the most wanted man in the Empire... the man who holds the key to the future - an apocalyptic power to be know forever after as the Foundation.

人類即將陷入全面的瘋狂，天空出現星斗、射下天火，世界即將毀滅……
薩羅大學天文系的畢奈發現了行星軌道的偏差、考古系的塞芙拉挖掘到足以推翻歷史的史前遺蹟、心理系的薛林親身體驗了神祕隧道的「黯黮」，這一切，都和光明使徒教派的預言不謀而合。科學家發出預警，然而《薩羅紀事報》的資深科學記者史蒙卻呼籲世人，不要被那群披著科學外衣的瘋子給欺騙了！
預言還是實現了，凱葛星球一片混亂。只有幾個人知道真相：那就是兩千年一次的文明回歸。
目睹夜幕低垂，以及黑夜帶來的瘋狂；然後，你會見到曙光帶來的希望。

In PRELUDE TO FOUNDATION, what happed in the many centuries before the events made famous in Asimov's other Foundation novels - hitherto only hinted at - is now revealed. The Key to the Future It is the year 12,020 G.E. and the last Galactic Emperor of the Autun dynasty, Cleon I, sits uneasily on the throne. These are troubled times and Cleon is desperate to find a way to calm them. When young Outworld mathematician Hari Seldon arrives on Trantor to present a paper on psychohistory, his astounding theory of prediction, the emperor believes that his future security may rest on Seldon's prophetic powers. But Hari Seldon becomes the most wanted man in the Empire as he struggles desperately to keep his remarkable theory from falling into the wrong hands. At the same time he must he must forge the key to the future - a power to be known as the Foundation.

The days of the Empire are numbered. On the Imperial world of Trantor, Cleon II rules over a multitude of worlds slowly descending into anarchy. Two individuals' destinies intertwine in the fight against chaos - Hari Seldon, and Eto Demerzel, a robot and the real power behind Cleon's throne.

For twelve thousand years the Galactic Empire has ruled supreme. Now it is dying. Only Hari Seldon, creator of the revolutionary science of psychohistory, can see into the future—a dark age of ignorance, barbarism, and warfare that will last thirty thousand years. To preserve knowledge and save humanity, Seldon gathers the best minds in the Empire—both scientists and scholars—and brings them to a bleak planet at the edge of the galaxy to serve as a beacon of hope for future generations. He calls this sanctuary the Foundation.

But soon the fledgling Foundation finds itself at the mercy of corrupt warlords rising in the wake of the receding Empire. And mankind’s last best hope is faced with an agonizing choice: submit to the barbarians and live as slaves—or take a stand for freedom and risk total destruction.

¿Es posible revertir el inevitable final del Universo, o el mundo debe acabar de todas formas? es la pregunta que desde un día del siglo XXI, hasta generaciones y generaciones posteriores en el tiempo, hacen los humanos a los ordenadores.
En un relato aparentemente sencillo sobre un asunto sobrecogedor, el fin de los días, Asimov demuestra, una vez más, una mente preclara y una mano maestra para sobrecoger al lector y dejarlo en vilo, incluso después de la lectura.

First published January 1, 1955
Andrew Harlan is an Eternal, a man whose job it is to range through past and present Centuries, monitoring and, where necessary, altering Time's myriad cause-and-effect relationships. But when Harlan meets and falls for a non-Eternal woman, he seeks to use the awesome powers and techniques of the Eternals to twist time for his own purposes, so that he and his love can survive together.

They mustn't harm a human being, they must obey human orders, and they must protect their own existence...but only so long as that doesn't violate rules one and two. With these Three Laws of Robotics, humanity embarked on a bold new era of evolution that would open up enormous possibilities, and unforeseen risks. For the scientists who invented the earliest robots weren't content that their creations should remain programmed helpers, companions, and semisentient worker-machines. And soon the robots themselves, aware of their own intelligence, power, and humanity, aren't either.
As humans and robots struggle to survive together, and sometimes against each other, on earth and in space, the future of both hangs in the balance. Here human men and women confront robots gone mad, telepathic robots, robot politicians, and vast robotic intelligences that may already secretly control the world. And both are asking the same questions: What is human? And is humanity obsolete?

From the writer whose name is synonymous with the science of robotics comes five decades of robot visions-36 landmark stories and essays, plus three rare tales-gathered together in one volume

In the twenty-second century Earth obtains limitless, free energy from a source science little understands: an exchange between Earth and a parallel universe, using a process devised by the aliens. But even free energy has a price. The transference process itself will eventually lead to the destruction of the Earth's Sun--and of Earth itself.
Only a few know the terrifying truth--an outcast Earth scientist, a rebellious alien inhabitant of a dying planet, a lunar-born human intuitionist who senses the imminent annihilation of the Sun.  They know the truth--but who will listen?  They have foreseen the cost of abundant energy--but who will believe?  These few beings, human and alien, hold the key to the Earth's survival.