Isaac Asimov

About Isaac Asimov

Isaac Asimov (1920–1992) was a prolific American writer best known for his works in science fiction and popular science, serving as one of the genre's "Big Three." His historical importance, reflected in his #920 rank by the MIT Pantheon project, stems largely from his foundational contributions to science fiction, including pioneering the Three Laws of Robotics and creating the extensive Foundation series. Beyond fiction, Asimov was instrumental in making complex scientific concepts accessible, writing on virtually every topic in the Dewey Decimal System, which cemented his cultural and educational impact across various fields.

Despite this substantial historical influence, Asimov’s modern internet attention shows an over-indexing relative to his rank. In 2025, his Wikipedia pages garnered an annualized 1.6 million views, resulting in an Attention Gap calculation indicating a +5x overattention compared to his historical importance score. This suggests that his body of work remains highly relevant and actively sought out online, even when compared to figures ranked significantly higher, such as Pope Urban VIII, who ranks #579 in importance but received only 109K views in the same period.

Further analyzing the digital interest, Asimov's attention shows a slight cooling trend, with a -8% drop in momentum between Q1 and Q3 of 2025. However, this follows a strong +13.6% year-over-year growth, indicating that while interest may have dipped mid-year, the overall digital engagement with the author remains robust compared to the previous year.