Isaac Asimov "I, Robot"
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Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov’s classic collection of stories about a society where humans and robots live and work together on earth and in outer-space is both disturbing and futuristic. Today, most robots are simple machines. There are some robots that can clean houses, and others that can make things in factories. Scientists have also made a few robots that can move and speak like people. However, when Asimov wrote his stories, robots did not exist. They had not been invented. Asimov thought that, in the future, robots will do all the difficult and unpleasant jobs. In his stories, robots are intelligent machines. They can think and learn. But Asimov also believed that people might be frightened by these machines. So, he thought of three laws that robots had to obey. Each law had to be put into a robot’s memory when it was built. The laws controlled the robots’ behavior and made them safe. Asimov wanted to make the science in his stories as real as possible. He used a lot of scientific words and ideas. He also invented some special words for his stories. (See the list below.) Some of these words have now become part of the English language. For example, when people talk about the science of robots, they use Asimov’s word, robotics.
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Text Analysis: Unique words: about 1,400 Total words: about 18,620
Hard words: to gain, biochemistry, to divorce, out-of-date, space, to explore, exist, man-made satellite, to launch, astronaut, the solar system, to invent, obey, energy, harm, to conflict, protect, development, demonstrate, the case of, take apart, to bang, impatient, to sigh, nervous, expedition, get rid of, stratosphere, tractor, to protest, to ban, model, experimental, illogical, dot, planet, star, to run, radiation, advanced, absorb, efficiently, superior, serve, to hum, prophet, fix, replacement, data, spacesuit, air lock, mine, asteroid, rabbit, supervision, shift, to march, tunnel, ledge, cave-in, blast, emergency, shoot, mind-reading, procedure, expert, to affect, theory, complex, genius, calculation, to resign, suspend, to fall into a trap, cargo ship, to modify, to risk your existence, to dominate, stable, get lost, weight, gravity, to react, cubicle, suspicious, to detect, to attack, to elect, wheelchair, X-ray
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