all lowercase letters: the 1950 Doubleday cover has the title and asimov's name all in lowercase.Agony Beam: The neuronic whip has several degrees of power, but Dr Arvardan gets to experience the highest levels, which cause every nerve in the body to react in pain, overstimulating him into unconsciousness.After being experimented on, he begins to adjust to the strange future, learning that he's currently in the year 827, Galactic Era. The lack of transition initially gives Schwartz the impression that he's an amnesiac, and he's unable to speak the future language. Accidental Time Travel: Joseph Schwartz is a fairly average man from the mid-twentieth century, when an accident at a local university sends him into the distant future.It is also extremely dangerous and almost uniformly fatal, as the human brain breaks down under the strain.

It does that and more, with two of its subjects gaining telepathic powers. It is explained as making people think faster.

90% of Your Brain: The Institute for Nuclear Research in Chica is developing a device they call a 'Synapsifier', which is intended to increase the human learning capacity.

An early draft of this story, called Grow Old With Me, is published in The Alternate Asimovs. Pebble in the Sky was republished in Two Complete Science Fiction Adventure Books (Winter 1950 issue), Urania (issue #442, 1966 August), and several Omnibuses. With hatred between all factions the question is if galactic catastrophe can be averted.

Simultaneously, Bel Arvardan, a young Galactic archeologist who wishes to prove that Earth is the original homeworld of humanity, stumbles into the same conspiracy after meeting Pola Shekt, the daughter of an Earth scientist who has been pressed into the conspiracy's service. Joseph Schwartz is drawn into an ongoing web of intrigue, as Earth-born terrorists prepare a biological weapon against the Galactic Empire. It's a strange world the Galaxy is inhabited, but the people of Earth are social outcasts, discriminated against because the planet is largely radioactive wasteland. Joseph Schwartz, a retired and uneducated tailor, suddenly finds himself in the year 827 of the Galactic Era. The first Novel that Isaac Asimov ever published, this Science Fiction speculative novel is about a contemporary man being flung into the far future by accident. First published in January 1950 by Isaac Asimov at Doubleday, this is the first note (third in the internal chronological order) book in what would later be published as The Empire Novels.

Pebble in the sky by isaac asimov