Editing Thiotimoline (section)

=="The Micropsychiatric Applications of Thiotimoline"==
In 1952, Asimov wrote a second spoof scientific paper on thiotimoline called "The Micropsychiatric Applications of Thiotimoline".  Like the first, it included charts, graphs, tables, and citations of fake articles from fake journals (along with one real citation: Asimov's own earlier spoof article from ''Astounding'', which was listed tongue-in-cheek as the ''Journal of Astounding Science Fiction'').  This second article described the use of thiotimoline to establish a quantitative classification of "certain mental disorders".  It also expounds a putative rationale for thiotimoline's behaviour: namely that the [[chemical bond]]s in the compound's structural formula are so starved of space that some are forced into the time dimension.  According to the second article, thiotimoline's time of solubility varies depending on the determination of the person adding the water.  It also claims that one effect is that when people with [[dissociative identity disorder|multiple personalities]] add the water, some parts of the thiotimoline dissolve before others, due to some of the individual's personalities being more determined than others.  "The Micropsychiatric Applications of Thiotimoline" appeared in the December 1953 issue of ''Astounding''.

The first two thiotimoline "articles" appeared together in Asimov's first collection of science essays, ''[[Only a Trillion]]'' (1957), under the joint title "The Marvellous Properties of Thiotimoline". Asimov also included the original article in his 1972 collection ''[[The Early Asimov]]''. The first article also appeared in ''Fifty Years of the Best Science Fiction from Analog '' (Davis Publications, 1982).