Wow

That's a very cool story :D I was a huge fan of his growing up and still am.

My cousin turned me onto him as a teen. I've never stopped being a fan.

@@butchgriggs6325oh…doooo tell! 😉

Cool 💫

Social media

@@JK_Clark of course

or video calling

@markc871 Any of it is amazing. I mean this is so early in the 80's, 40 years later this man would be impressed with himself

@@wardengentles53 he seemed like a guy you’d want at your dinner party too.

He is the founder of modern science fiction.

I read his book Worlds Within Worlds and it sparked a lifelong fascination with physics.

I loved his books as a kid! My favorite sci fi writer is Ray Bradbury. Asimov is like an old friend!

First book was Foundation, got hooked on SF ever since. That was 55y ago.

Hienlien ​@@hackman669

For sure. He was asked a question and he answered it directly and to the point. Maybe I watch too much politics but this seems missing in our culture today. It was very refreshing!

Especially against this anchor guy

Amazing. He makes statements that don't end in a question tone.

you can see the gear moving while he talks, he was an extremely intelligent and charismatic man.

@@zaug1561 "For sure. He was asked a question and he answered it directly and to the point. Maybe I watch too much politics but this seems missing in our culture today. It was very refreshing! " The exact polar opposite of a politician like F. Joe Biden. They are also separated by ~150 IQ points.

hahaha nice one

He might have gotten some enjoyment out of the prequels, maybe.

After Star Wars was successful Lucas said he wanted to do a trilogy of trilogies, which is why Asimov mentions nine. He took a long time to get to the second three (or the first three.) The later stuff may not have been part of his original vision.

@@EinsteinsHair The later stuff most certainly was not part of his original vision. It has been well documented that Disney's purchase of Lucasfilm included story treatments for a sequel trilogy, but that these were set aside in favor of alternate plotlines when Disney produced those films.

@@chadmelonite9999 A couple people did videos recently about his "treatment" and we didn't miss much. If he'd stayed home with his wife while Marquand directed _Return of the Jedi_ then maybe Leia wouldn't have been Luke's sister and he would have worked on the next set of movies.

I may have read 3 or 4 of his books back then . There was something wooden in his style and I couldn't be interested to read anymore of his stuff . Arthur C Clarke and Fred Hoyle might be in the same category as Isaac Asimov. Fred Hoyle the astronomer wrote The Black Cloud which was a good read and he wrote a non fiction book ~~The Next Ice Age or suchlike , being also a good read and reference book . I don't know if I read C Clarke, I think I started but... Fred Hoyle had the original insight that we are all star-stuff which Carl Sagan liked to quote . The politics in Cambridge may have robbed him of the Nobel prize for such because of his expressed views in Scottish brogue about Anthony Hewish who stole the credit from Jocelyn Bell for the discovery of pulsars and it's he who received a Nobel prize for such. Jocelyn Bell has the credit of discovery today along with the Breakthrough Prize which is better than Nobel prize anyway. And now I recall I used to read the Science Readers Digest in the late sixties and seventies and there was always an essay by Isaac Asimov. I think I enjoyed reading those essays which is now I remember why I looked at reading his SciFi novels . My mother couldn't read his novels that I had . She'd pinch plenty of my other novels though.

He's my favorite author. I miss his writing a lot. I found his work so easy to read, understand and enjoy. It's a pity he died when and how he did. And it's sad that his son has put a dark mark on his legacy.

His books "hooked" me on science fiction before I started high school, motivated me to finish engineering college seeking a career in aerospace that would help me get to Mars. What his books didn't cover then was what it would take to get ordinary people off Earth, the massive problem of a government-controlled, military space industry wrapped in the sheep's clothing of NASA. I graduated as the largest layoff in the industry's history happened. I've been watching from "outside the fence" for 50 years for our government to realize that they screwed the pooch when they decimated the space program and turned NASA into an employment cash cow for the makers of no longer needed ICBMs, companies that have never completed a contract on time and on budget - literally engineer's hell. There's nothing manned that we contributed toward building to see in space except for one tiny failing international habitat, about to fall down, that's 1/1000th the distance to the Moon. If it weren't for one engineer devoting his personal fortune and life to it, the US would still be where we've been since 1970, looking up. The ISS would be at the mercy of Russia for supply delivery. Our greatest international cooperative space effort would fit in one of that engineer's current, privately funded, prototype SPACECRAFT. It's sitting on the ground because of a civilian AIRCRAFT regulatory agency. If the last prototype had been a USAF MILITARY experimental rocket that exploded, rather than nitpicking over a list that the contractor had prepared of the things that they had found and already fixed, the FAA would have been told to back off, shut up, and clear multiple launch windows.

And humorous, even in technical writings.

​@Zipperscarr Oh yes, he had a pretty good sense of humour. In that light I'd have loved to hear his take on what has become of the Star Wars franchise

As someone who works with the communication industry, he’s also spot on there too with fiber optic and satellite communications.

As a type 1 diabetic, I gotta say thank you for your work

Is time travel real or how does this fiction writer knows all this stuff.

@@stevensteven3417 study of tech, progress, human behaviors, etc. Some of these things were in their infancy, but not always obvious. Example could be flying cars. We’ve had the tech to do this and could have, but understanding economics, logistics, and humans, the actual implementation isnt feasible and you don’t want average commuters flying above your head when they don’t maintain cars or drive safe. It’s impressive that he understood the human side enough to know which way things would drive

​@@stevensteven3417very educated

You should read some of his science paperbacks from the 1960s and earlier.

See if you can his books on humour.

😂😂🎉🎉🎉🎉

Well done sir 👏👏👏

My man bringing the heat with those chops!

Well played😊

Lol 😂

That’s why we can’t let libs win

Goodness! He's one of the many that redeem the army of asses spoiling the world at that time.

That accent is called Aut

When exactly did we gave up on reason? And who is 'we' exactly?

Reminds?

This is my first time seeing Letterman interview someone without making fun of that person. Great interview.

His late-night persona was targeted to a particular audience. This clip is from his morning show.

Even letterman not dumb enough to miss the chance of Asimov just being Asimov

It was a different time. I can only imagine what a farce it'd be if Fallon interviewed him.

He's also a big influence. Everyone is making fun of everyone these days. "It's just a joke". Letterman should go back to morning shows. Inform us don't offend us.

That’s gross. You eat dinner with a dead guy?!

Well said.

​@@ContentRemoved___"if you COULD" (...) "alive or dead"

UKposts proves him right

where? how? ; )

Social media

"And closed circuit television will become the great thing". Skype, Zoom, Teams...

@@footoiwoh gimme that big ass chocolate bar 😂

A big loss indeed. And he was right that quite a few of the 9 star wars movies (main story) came out after he died. Though i have a feeling he wouldn't have been too happy with those.

I went to the library, and went to look in the catalog, which were binders of printed paper sheets, life was SO DIFFERENT before computers !. One of the staff had it, when they updated a page they took the sheet out, and typed the update onto the sheet. I read the name on the sheet and said "Hey, has Dr Asimov written something new ?" and she saw that I looked happy, she looked sad and said "No son, he passed away yesterday". She had added a death date to the page. I remember saying "Oh, do you do that for all the authors in the catalog ?" and she said something mordant like "Yes, eventually".

Greetings from Germany, close to Ramstein Airport. Hope your flight did go well. Just starting to discover Asimov and his visions. Seems missed something great, I knew he was an author, but had no idea how special he was.

You have an uneducated guy (didn't go past the fith grade) named Billy Meier who wrote thousands of pages of Sci Ff (or ... is it ?) available for free on internet, the plejaren contact notes.

thats so amazing when you add just the books he wrote 40 +383 + 280 is 703 books he only lived to 72 years old thats about 10 a year for every year he was alive its like a book every 7 weeks non stop for his entire life ive no idea how he did that

You forget his academic career. As an academic by he was equally productive.

Prolific doesn't quite cover it.

Can an atheist really be that intelligent, seems ironic to me? To know a lot about much and yet nothing about everything.

The answer would be YES!@@elvisbrando6523

​@@elvisbrando6523 enlighten us with your knowledge on everything, oh divine one!

@@elvisbrando6523 "Can an atheist really be that intelligent, seems ironic to me?" I'm sure the irony of your own statement is lost on you. lol. It's well proven that Atheists are more intelligent, on average, than your everyday religious person. The more intelligent one is, the more probable it is that they are going to be, or become, an atheist.

​@@Frusciante1221 God can't show envy; that's why He created @MarlonPresley.

Pure genius! Love his work .

lol, I like how you said this, as if Isaac was over your place for brunch a mere couple of years ago.

was going to add a like but the number is to funny.

The wonders of AI will one day allow humans to talk to Dr Assimov as if he was still alive.

@@ngcastronerd4791 Well if Cave Johnson was any indication, Isaac's mind will have to fit in a boulder sized head.

i've always enjoyed "azamov's guide to the bible." there's a lot of archeological and historical information i'd not encountered before that.

Then try his history books, greece, rome and such. Amazing

He seems super level headed I wonder how many books he did in all

@@dustintacohands1107 Over 221. :)

I also liked his mysteries. Look for the "Black Widows Club" books. I have read every book of his I could find at the library and bought every one I've seen in the bookstores.

I agree Dave really got sour. He became unwatchable.

Yes to both comments here. Letterman became an unwatchable sour old cynic.

The SciFi artwork captured my attention and the stories captured my imagination.

So true. A degeneration

true genius isnt forgotten

Yeah, but to be fair, most of them are probably in their fifties and sixties now. I doubt the current generation reads a lot of Asimov. All good things eventually fade away.

Dave - it's so weird seeing this he was kinda early in his career - but wow! Turned out great interview.

Isaac was a great racontuer and humourist, and loved jokes - not only in his SF, but in his non-fiction works he would put one in at any good opportunity. One of his good example collections (authored with his wife, Janet Jeppson, a distinguished author herself) was 'Laughing Space', a compendium of SF humour short stories.

He had a great sense of humor. He once convinced three scientists to collaborate on a paper just because of their names: Alpher, Bethe and Gamov!!! He was truly a king among the nerds.

Actually, that wasn't Isaac - rather, it was George Gamow himself, the last name in the list of the paper's authors (the paper itself won Gamow a Nobel Prize) - the ABC paper as it is known is all about stellar fusion nucleosynthesis of the elements. Gamow included Hans Bethe in the list of authors to round out the list as otherwise, in his words, 'It would not have been fair to the Greek Alphabet !' @@graxxor

I think Dave wanted Asimov to give the audience a more wild science fiction future with crazy predictions, aliens, time travel, etc. But Asimov focused more on what was actually achievable as in science more than fiction with space stations and space shuttles and his predictions were almost 100% true. Russians eventually built their own shuttle (though later than he expected and it didn't fly for long) and space stations were and are very much operational. But these weren't so thrilling to the audience, and I don't think Dave thought this was a great interview

WOW he nailed the communication devices thing!

no kidding, this is even before sagan's "cosmos." that came out the same year of this interview. those of us who grew up with cosmos have always had popular science educators out in the popular culture. that wasent really a thing for those who came before.

It'd be interesting to research who was first with that. Arthur C Clarke or Isaac Asimov. Perhaps both came up with similar stuff independently . C Clarke actually . But no , Isaac mentioned stuff from 1950 .

Unfortunately, all the man could do was fantasize about future worlds but had no real impact from any sort of inventions or advancing technology in any way.

@@srobeck77 his calling was story telling. He was a biologist and had a PhD and had a position at Boston University, I think. But, he never produced research that matched his impact on imaginations of people. But, apparently, he was an incredible lecturer and students loved his science courses.

Same goes for me. His best quote.

It's the earliest I've seen of David Letterman. I imagine he was still developing a persona though to settle on .

@@philip5940 This looks like his morning show.

He was being outplayed and was smart enough to realize that.

@@23ravensby98 good observation. I’ve heard that Letterman is actually quite intelligent, maybe this proves it!

He’s a fanboy 😂.

My copy is on a shelf where I can see it from where I'm typing.

I'd rather read about the Bible from a believer, thanks. How would he find the book of Revelation, since we kinda seem to be living it! 'We'll' be watching for that Third Temple!

@@elvisbrando6523 You're missing out. His examinations of the text are very informative and even-handed. If you didn't know he was an atheist, it wouldn't be obvious from this book. As for "living" the Book of Revelation, people have been saying that for CENTURIES, always adapting its narrative to whatever events happen to be occurring at the moment. Same old nonsense.

The man thoughtful polite always let his guests have the podium class act

Predicting the future is a sure way to end up looking foolish in hindsight, but his guesses here were spot on. Biotech and genetic engineering are very hot right now, not that many people were talking about them then. What he said about communications was true as well, except regarding the use of lasers. Satellites and cell towers have indeed made the volume and quality of communication far better. And everyone having their own TV station-Hello, UKposts, Instagram, TikTok, etc! Sadly he was too optimistic about weapon spending possibly being obsolete in 30 years. Several parts of the world are getting caught up in an arms race, and sadly we may be coming closer to “no us” than no weapons.

​@@mattm56I think (but may be wrong) that it is laser diodes that transmit data in fibre optic cabels

@@mattm56lasers are used for communications in a way. Fiber Optic transmissions is how we communicate. Light transmissions.

@mattm56 Starlink V2 satellites have lasers.

@@mattm56 It was mostly the advent of nuclear weapons, to some extent the advent of large scale firebombing, that made so many predict either an end to war or an end to us. And interestingly, since the acceleration of the recent arms races you mentioned, we've seen an increase in worries about the end of us as well. We've been lucky so far to keep from using those massive destructions on a global scale. And those old futurists really expected that end by the time we have industry in space. Once we can drive those massive rocks around, we don't want anyone to be motivated to start throwing them at the Earth.

And don't forget we have MultiVac, the universal source of information.

@@ericlackford6718ChatGPT perhaps represents an early version.

his vison was pedophilia.

Yeeees and in modern times with the me2 movement he wouldn't survive for 3 days before being sent to the HR, getting cancelled on Twitter and ending his public and certainly teaching career for sexual assault. Funny how he never predicted THAT becoming an issue eh? 🤔

take your pills @@GK-cb3vc

@@GK-cb3vc Why would he predict stupidity?

yeah, as an academic he was as productive as a science-fiction teller. The Reddit also mentions Princeton, besides his own study, which he proudly credits, at Columbia University. Isaac Asimov's Guide to Earth and Space, 1992. This book is pretty ... It is based on a course that was taught by the authors at Princeton.

This is possibly the only thing he got wrong. Too optimistic a believer in a sound mind of the humankind. Alas...

You can't go home again I'm afraid.

Today's "hosts" are too stupid for this to ever happen. Johnny Carson is dead and will never return.

Late Night is too consumed with saying "orange man bad" at least twice a minute to ever comeback. Traditional TV is on the way out.

I loved his morning show. I was laid off from a factory back then, and my layoff period coincided within just a few weeks with the run of the morning show. So I saw almost all of them. Edie McClurg was a hoot.

If he was here now in today's society they will cancel him for being a thinker with a self opinion, people who don't follow the narrative get shutdown now days.

Well, he got a Tandy TRS-80 Model II microcomputer around the year 1981. He wrote many books using it.

He was never humble at all. He had access to word processing machines and early computers, but chose to keep using the typewriter. You have to think to compose on a typewriter. On a computer, you can always rearrange things and edit easily.

Humble? Nah… Dude was a serial groper and sexual harasser; doing that takes a lot of arrogance. These aren’t accusations, btw--it was widely and well-known. People in his circle found his behavior hilarious. He was a good writer but not a great person.

Which of his books is your favorite?

I am still waiting for a general edition of all of his books.

He’ll have all of eternity to think about those chapters in the Bible...if you “believe” that kind of stuff!

He was Jewish

@@Celticowl4136He was an atheist, but grew up in a Jewish family. He told about someone insisting that he couldn’t just be atheist, who then declared that Dr. Asimov was a Jewish Atheist.

Back when writers understand that the foundation of _good Sci-Fi_ was *exploring the social and moral implications of technology.* Now in TV & Movies we get bland characters and preaching over “issues” no one cares about.

@@MichaelPohoreski Whelp, the studios can only make what they figure they won't go bankrupt from making. Personally, I think Ridley Scott is one of those victims to misguided popular internet opinions wrecking the opportunity to hear the ending of an interesting story. The the "loud" internet sites insisted that the "Alien cinematic universe" should be about singleminded killer aliens, even though Scott clearly wanted to discuss the undoing of mankind by us creating superior intellect in AI. I mean, he made that pretty obvious by not naming the next movie Alien 2. But hey, it's easy to deconstruct anything on the internet with lazy buzzwords like plot devices, character arches and turn necessary editing into an argument against the editing. So, we get Marvel movies where nothing matters but the easy laughs and big CGI battles.

Seychelles. They were all together at Clarke's estate in the Seychelles. This would have been *before* the group shifted their activities to Little St. James. It's not a secret - the Seychelles were called the "Island of Spies" for a reason. Clarke's preferences were openly known, and the open arrangement that Robert and Virginia Heinlein had wasn't a secret either. Read "Time Enough for Love" if you don't believe me. Children. The connection you don't want to make is children. I'm a fan. I was. It's how I figured it out.

@@MichaelPohoreski I think there's an important distinction between "no one I relate to cares about" and "no one cares about". At the very least, either the writers care about it or their audience does. Because if a writer doesn't care about a topic, and their audience doesn't care, then they'd have no incentive to write about it.

That sounds intensional

Jar Jar Binks 😂

*prequals

@@Nekotaku_TV The prequels were cringe, but fun. The sequels murdered the brand.

@@av_oid The first prequel was pretty bad. After that they weren't the originals but I think they had merit. The only one I've seen since then that was okay was where they CGIed Peter Cushings head, that was okay. The rest were disasters. Without George Lucas there is no Star Wars. We fans should have been more appreciative.

------------------------------ words of praise sincerely EvelynWood ....thanks4sharing

He wrote I, Robot.

Then the robots made robot lawyers and gamed the system.

along with his friend Mr. Campbell, the editor who mentored him

Not on diabetes

War

he probably made more money from giving talks on cruise ships (he, ironically, hated flying) than he did from his books. Those talks were the modern equivalent of TED talks and very popular.

tbh some of those jokes seemed well-rehearsed... Not that there's anything wrong with that, just saying

Robots are boss.😁

lmao

Dave just happened to live in New York. He's a Hoosier.

25 years before YT. Incredible.

That's what I said . . . except I guess I could have read more than I did. I did read many though, and have returned to reading mostly his non-fiction and autobiographies again in my evening years.

He was like Nostradamus, except way more accurate.

The reason he could predict the future is he is part of the world cult and has had access to this information just like Nostradamus did. The world cult has underground bases where research is done and they are 30 years ahead of us.

That’s dumb @@crazycat1345

@@crazycat1345Well at least you are honest enough to have ‘crazy’ in your name.

He was talking about Return of the Jedi, this appearance was in 1980. That said, I guess you could say that Isaac Asimov getting AIDS and dying was worth it if he didn't have to see the prequels??

He said he thought they were making 9 films, hence why he would miss them.

And a whole lot turned out to be wildly inaccurate, lol. People tend to forget about those, human nature being what it is. They want a visionary, so they focus on what he might have got right. Sort of like Nostradamus, who actually predicted nothing, but people who want to believe will allways see hidden meanings.

@@Tugela60 I don't care about percentage accuracy, it's seeing how things can potentially happen. Things can go millions of different ways. What he called here was political, not scientific.

@@glenwaldrop8166 Accuracy is important, otherwise you could just make a bunch of predictions and just get lucky on some. The point is that people focus on the stuff that sort of happened, but not on the details, which mostly did not. That sort of wishful thinking just reinforces a preconcieved idea that something happened. It is human nature, but it is not an accurate reflection of what was predicted, rather you find the predictions because you want to find them.

@@Tugela60 I'm talking about the creativity coupled with reality, not accuracy in percentages. True creativity is hard to come by. Again, this was mostly a political prediction.

Radio only stayed on for short-distance and space-bounced use. Smartphones and laptops weren't clear paths in 1980, so the Wi-Fi/cell radio niche wasn't obvious. And even with the ubiquity of those, their short range means most traffic by bandwidth times distance is still over fiber.

Dave didnt appear comfortable with how to proceed at first but he shows a lot of composure and patience to let Isaac speak. He lets him finish and listens and adapts to play off how he responds. This is an example where Dave is humble to allow the interview and his guest shine. Dave isn't always my cup of tea but he deserves his accolades as an entertainer and interviewer. Well done.

​@@mengshunhis innate intelligence and curiosity shines through here

imagine such a stupid comment

They can’t because there’s no one else like him and he’s dead.

@@SWalkerTTU Plenty of eccentric geniuses (that never invent a thing) out there today. Elon Musk and Neil Negrasse Tyson for example.

@@srobeck77 Neither of these guys is remotely a genius. Tyson is a science popularizer and as for Musk--the less said the better.

Like everyone having a “channel” UKposts

He wasn't humble. And he was proud of it.

There was zero humble there, were u drunk by chance when he went on about being the most handsome writer. 🍻

@@srobeck77 LOL... he was being self-depricating. Or where you drunk and didn't notice?😜

@@stevekirkby6570 i think your current drink is spiked with stupid and u just chugged a full glass of it

Brilliant man. Great books. Delightful and shy nephew.

My favorite is the Foundation series

@@SurLaMer_ Nice Zappa handle.