In this novel, Isaac Asimov introduces Elijah Baley and R. Daneel Olivaw, later his favorite protagonists. They live roughly three millennia in Earth's future, a time when hyperspace travel has been discovered, and a few worlds relatively close to Earth have been colonized—fifty planets known as the "Spacer worlds". The Spacer worlds are rich, have low population density (average population of one hundred million each), and use robot labor heavily. Meanwhile, Earth is overpopulated (with a total population of eight billion), and strict rules against robots have been passed. The eponymous "caves of steel" are vast city complexes covered by huge metal domes, capable of supporting tens of millions each: the New York City of that era (wherein much of the story is set), encompasses present-day New York City, as well as large tracts of New Jersey. Asimov imagines the present day's underground transit connected to malls and apartment blocks, until no one ever exits the domes, and most of the population suffer from extreme agoraphobia. Even though the Robot and Foundationseries were not considered part of the same fictional universe until much later, the "caves of steel" resemble the planetTrantor. In The Caves of Steel and its sequels (the first of which is The Naked Sun), Asimov paints a grim situation of an Earth dealing with an extremely large population, and of luxury-seeking Spacers who limit birth to permit great wealth and privacy. Asimov, who described himself as a claustrophile, mentioned that a reader asked him how he could have imagined such an existence with no sunlight, and related that it had not struck him until then that living perpetually indoors might be construed as unpleasant. from wikipedia
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Comunication is the art of combine information
Imagination is the mental capacity to picture things.
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