As Philadelphia Weekly writes, “Isaac Asimov. The late grand master of science fiction who authored 500 books across every Dewey Decimal category and invented the very idea of ‘robotics’ as a field of study, thus shaping the course of 20th- and 21st-century geekdom. He is generally thought of as a New Yorker—but he spent three very important years in Philadelphia.

Photo by Kyle Cassidy from Philadelphia Weekly.

“From 1942 to 1945, while living and working here during WWII as a chemist at the Navy Yard, Asimov wrote half a dozen of the key stories that comprise his two most influential cultural masterpieces: the Foundation series, which introduced the idea of ‘psychohistory,’ the mathematical modeling of the future; and the Robot series, which introduced the famous Three Laws of Robotics governing how artificial intelligences should behave.”Without those stories sparking the imagination of generations of computer scientists and engineers, it’s hard to conceive what our world of technology would look like today. But we know one thing: It wouldn’t look the same.” 

On April 6th, “a horde of local Asimov fans of all ages met up at Barkan Park in West Philly, right across the street from the apartment building where the author lived and wrote.” Included in the crowd were local luminaries Gardner Dozois, Michael Swanwick, Tom Purdom, Gregory Frost, and Victoria McManus.The petition, hosted by Change.org, is available on this page.