Isaac Asimov, the late grand master of science fiction, 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 culture. Though he's often thought of as a New Yorker, he spent three very important landmark years in Philadelphia. From 1942 to 1945, while living and working here during WWII as a chemist at the Philadelphia Navy Yard, Isaac 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.

It was at an apartment on the corner of 50th and Spruce streets in West Philadelphia where Asimov wrote these historic stories. So with the support of your signature, the Philadelphia Weekly is petitioning the Pennsylvania Historical Marker Commission to dedicate a marker at that location honoring Asimov's profound literary accomplishment.