It inspired letters from fans describing their own experiments, including one on “neurotic thiotimoline”-in which the dissolution of thiotimoline activated a mechanism that prevented the water from being added, creating a paradox-and another on a “prediction machine” built from a chain of thiotimoline reactors. Unlike most stories in the same vein, it keeps a poker face throughout, and it evidently fooled a lot of readers, at least at first glance: Campbell later claimed that the New York Public Library was flooded with requests for the fictitious papers listed in its bibliography.

At a time when many of us dread the unfunny fake press releases that appear on every April Fool’s Day, it can be hard to appreciate the impression that it made. The article was a big hit with readers, and it remains a minor classic.

Campbell, who loved it, and the result, “The Endochronic Properties of Resubliminated Thiotimoline,” was published in the March 1948 issue of Astounding Science Fiction. Asimov proposed the idea to the editor John W. He was dreading the process of writing his dissertation in a dry academic style, and he thought that composing a parody would allow him to blow off some steam. It just seems to vanish without ever penetrating the water’s skin.Īs I watched it one morning I thought idly: What if it dissolves just before it hits the water?Īsimov saw immediately that this would be a good idea for a science fiction story, and he had the additional inspiration to write it up as a spoof article for a scientific journal about this imaginary compound. The result is that as soon as the catechol touches the surface of the water it dissolves.

As he describes it in his memoir In Memory Yet Green:Ĭatechol, as it happens, is very readily soluble, especially when it exists as fluffy crystals that present a large surface to the water. As part of the research he was conducting for his doctorate, he had to dissolve a compound called catechol in an enzyme solution and time the reaction with a stopwatch. In May of 1947, Isaac Asimov, who was then a graduate student in organic chemistry at Columbia University, was hard at work in the lab.

You can read the earlier installments here. Ron Hubbard, and the Golden Age of Science Fiction, I’ll be taking the opportunity to highlight works within the genre that deserve to be rediscovered, reappraised, or simply enjoyed by a wider audience. Note: As I dive into the research process for my upcoming book Astounding: John W.

Alec nevala lee astounding