Page 6 - June 2024 Newsletter

ISAAC ASIMOV AND THIOTIMOLINE

In 1948 Isaac Asimov was 28 years old and already one of the
world’s leading writers of science fiction (SF). Over 40 of his
stories had appeared in the various SF magazines of the time,
including the most prestigious of all of them, Astounding Science
Fiction. Asimov’s contributions to Astounding included most of
the material that was later collected in the Foundation trilogy and
the book I, Robot.
At the same time Asimov
was coming to the end of a
three year postgraduate
course in chemistry at
Columbia University in New
York. As well as all that
fiction, he was busy writing a
thesis called “The kinetics of
the reaction inactivation of
tyrosinase during its catalysis of the aerobic oxidation of
catechol”. It just so happens that catechol is a compound that
dissolves very readily in water—the instant it hits the surface—
and this fact fascinated Asimov. He later recounted in his book
The Early Asimov:
Idly, it occurred to me that if the catechol were any more
soluble than it was, it would dissolve before it struck the
water surface. Naturally, I thought at once that this notion
might be the basis for an amusing story. It occurred to me,
however, that instead of writing an actual story based on
the idea, I might write up a fake research paper on the
subject and get a little practice in turgid writing .
The result was a spoof research paper, “The Endochronic
Properties of Resublimated Thiotimoline”, written in the
meticulous, impersonal style of the scientific journals of the time
(or of today, for that matter). In spite of that, Asimov submitted the
piece to his favourite SF magazine, Astounding Science Fiction.

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