astronomy

The Bicentennial Man

The Bicentennial Man is a astronomy topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand The Bicentennial Man rather than just read about it. In short: "The Bicentennial Man" is a novelette in the Robot series by American writer Isaac Asimov. According to the foreword in Robot Visions, Asimov was approached to write a story, along with a number of other authors who would do the same, for a science fiction collection to be published in honor of the United States Bicentennial.

Key takeaways

The Bicentennial Man belongs to astronomy; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect The Bicentennial Man to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of The Bicentennial Man from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

"The Bicentennial Man" is a novelette in the Robot series by American writer Isaac Asimov. According to the foreword in Robot Visions, Asimov was approached to write a story, along with a number of other authors who would do the same, for a science fiction collection to be published in honor of the United States Bicentennial. However, the arrangement fell through, leaving Asimov's the only story actually completed for the project. Asimov sold the story to Judy-Lynn del Rey, who made some small changes to the text. Asimov restored the original text when the story was collected in The Bicentennial Man and Other Stories (1976). The story formed the basis of the novel The Positronic Man (1992), co-written with Robert Silverberg, and the 1999 film Bicentennial Man, starring Robin Williams. In terms of setting, this novelette spans a time period of 200 years. Chapter 13 of the novelette states that "Susan Calvin, the patron saint of all roboticists" had been dead for "nearly two centuries". According to I, Robot, Susan Calvin was born in the year 1982 and died at the age of 82—either in 2064 or 2065. This suggests that the earliest events of the story took place somewhere between the 2050s and early 2060s.

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with The Bicentennial Man

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what The Bicentennial Man claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In astronomy, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to The Bicentennial Man before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about The Bicentennial Man ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of The Bicentennial Man

In research: The Bicentennial Man appears in astronomy research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses The Bicentennial Man in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: The Bicentennial Man is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1970s novellas, 1970s science fiction short stories, 1976 American novels, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for The Bicentennial Man outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study The Bicentennial Man in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what The Bicentennial Man means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain The Bicentennial Man out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is The Bicentennial Man in simple terms?

Why does The Bicentennial Man matter?

Because it connects several astronomy ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study The Bicentennial Man?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on The Bicentennial Man.