Spell My Name with an S

"Spell My Name with an S" is a short story by Isaac Asimov. The story first appeared in the magazine Star Science Fiction Stories of January 1958, and was reprinted in the collection Nine Tomorrows in 1959. It was originally titled "S, as in Zebatinsky".

The story concerns Marshall Zebatinsky, a Polish-American nuclear physicist. He is concerned that his career has stalled, and in desperation consults a numerologist for advice on restarting it. The numerologist advises him to change the first letter of his name to "S": Sebatinsky. A complicated series of events ensue in which Zebatinsky is investigated by the Security establishment, who feel that he must be trying to hide something. His Polish origins lead them to suspect that he is trying to distract attention from relatives in the Eastern Bloc. Then they discover that he does have a distant cousin who is also a physicist, and looking into what he is doing leads to the discovery that the Soviet Union is working on force-fields as a nuclear defense. The Americans immediately start to develop their own counter-defense. They still have no real reason to suspect Zebatinsky/Sebatinsky, but just in case they look for a discreet way to get him out of the classified project in which he is engaged. Much to his surprise (and delight), Zebatinsky/Sebatinsky is appointed to a senior professorial post, which is exactly what he hoped for when he went to the numerologist.

At the end of the story, it is revealed that the numerologist is actually an extra-terrestrial and that he was involved in a bet as to whether he could avert a nuclear war on Earth with a minor stimulus (see Butterfly effect). Though it is not explicitly specified, it is clear that the extra-terrestrial in question is a brilliant school-boy (or the equivalent among creatures of pure energy who live in space) who made a bet with another pupil.

The story was inspired by Asimov's frustration with the frequent misspelling of his name as "Azimov".