Words from the Myths

🔖 The Greek god of the sky was Ouranos. The Romans later called him Uranus. In the eighteenth century, an astronomer named a new planet after this mighty deity... and a chemist, in turn, named a newly discovered metal after the planet. He called it uranium. As author Isaac Asimov points out, "the oldest of the Greek gods still lives in a word connected with the newest and most dreadful of scientific weapons". So live countless gods, demigods, legendary mortals, old fears and old desires in our everyday language. In "Words from the Myths", Isaac Asimov retells the ancient stories - from Chaos to the siege of Troy - and describes their influence on modern language... and modern life.