NoelC wrote:A good friend and collaborator from England informed me tonight that we have lost a great man, inventor/writer/visionary Sir Arthur Charles Clarke, born in 1917 and died today, March 18, 2008, at age 90.
I see the APOD folks have included a link to Sir Arthur's Wikipedia bio on
today's APOD page.
----------------------------------------------
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Clarke
.....................................
<<Early in his career Clarke had a fascination with the paranormal and stated that it was part of the inspiration for his novel Childhood's End. He also said that he was one of several who were fooled by a Uri Geller demonstration at Birkbeck College. Although he eventually dismissed and distanced himself from nearly all pseudoscience he continued to advocate research into purported instances of psychokinesis and similar phenomena.>>
.....................................
<<As featured on Sky One's "50 Terrible Predictions" programme, Clarke once predicted that apes would function as household servants by the 1960's; "...with our present knowledge of animal psychology, we can certainly solve the servant problem with the help of the monkey kingdom.">>
.....................................
<<Clarke's most important scientific contribution may be his idea that geostationary satellites would be ideal telecommunications relays. He described this concept in a paper titled "Extra-Terrestrial Relays — Can Rocket Stations Give Worldwide Radio Coverage?", published in Wireless World in October 1945. The geostationary orbit is now sometimes known as the Clarke Orbit or the Clarke Belt in his honour. However, it is not clear that this article was actually the inspiration for the modern telecommunications satellite. John R. Pierce, of Bell Labs, arrived at the idea independently in 1954, and he was actually involved in the Echo satellite and Telstar projects. Moreover, Pierce stated that the idea was "in the air" at the time and certain to be developed regardless of Clarke's publication.>>
.....................................
<<Though different from Clarke's idea of telecom relay, the idea of communicating with satellites in geostationary orbit itself had been described earlier. For example, the concept of geostationary satellites was described in Hermann Oberth's 1923 book Die Rakete zu den Planetenräumen (The Rocket into Interplanetary Space) and then the idea of radio communication with those satellites in Herman Potočnik's (written by pseudonym Hermann Noordung) 1928 book Das Problem der Befahrung des Weltraums — der Raketen-Motor (The Problem of Space Travel — The Rocket Motor) section: Providing for Long Distance Communications and Safety published in Berlin. Clarke acknowledged the earlier concept in his book Profiles of the Future.>>
.....................................
<<Clarke lived in Sri Lanka from 1956 until his death in 2008, having emigrated there when it was still called Ceylon. He was an avid scuba diver and a member of the Underwater Explorers Club. Living in Sri Lanka afforded him the opportunity to visit the ocean year-round. It also inspired the locale for his novel The Fountains of Paradise in which he first described a space elevator. This, he believed, ultimately will be his legacy, more so than geostationary satellites, once space elevators make space shuttles obsolete.>>
------------------------------------------------------
While Arthur C. Clarke may have been a very good science fiction writer he should *NEVER EVER* be placed in the same category as, say, an Isaac Asimov [
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Issac_Asimov ] IMO.
Isaac Asimov was an extremely hard working and true genius.
Arthur C. Clarke was a somewhat clever and extremely lucky "beach bum" (IMO).
Long before Clarke's ONLY original scientific idea (i.e., a space elevator) comes to fruition (if ever) the strong materials necessary for same will be used to build giant skyscrapers (on top of Kilimanjaro?), giant aircraft and giant balloons that will provide for much more practical and efficient space launch facilities.
[quote="NoelC"]A good friend and collaborator from England informed me tonight that we have lost a great man, inventor/writer/visionary Sir Arthur Charles Clarke, born in 1917 and died today, March 18, 2008, at age 90.
I see the APOD folks have included a link to Sir Arthur's Wikipedia bio on [url=http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap080319.html]today's APOD page[/url].[/quote]
----------------------------------------------
[list]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Clarke
.....................................
<<Early in his career Clarke had a fascination with the paranormal and stated that it was part of the inspiration for his novel Childhood's End. He also said that he was one of several who were fooled by a Uri Geller demonstration at Birkbeck College. Although he eventually dismissed and distanced himself from nearly all pseudoscience he continued to advocate research into purported instances of psychokinesis and similar phenomena.>>
.....................................
<<As featured on Sky One's "50 Terrible Predictions" programme, Clarke once predicted that apes would function as household servants by the 1960's; "...with our present knowledge of animal psychology, we can certainly solve the servant problem with the help of the monkey kingdom.">>
.....................................
<<Clarke's most important scientific contribution may be his idea that geostationary satellites would be ideal telecommunications relays. He described this concept in a paper titled "Extra-Terrestrial Relays — Can Rocket Stations Give Worldwide Radio Coverage?", published in Wireless World in October 1945. The geostationary orbit is now sometimes known as the Clarke Orbit or the Clarke Belt in his honour. However, it is not clear that this article was actually the inspiration for the modern telecommunications satellite. John R. Pierce, of Bell Labs, arrived at the idea independently in 1954, and he was actually involved in the Echo satellite and Telstar projects. Moreover, Pierce stated that the idea was "in the air" at the time and certain to be developed regardless of Clarke's publication.>>
.....................................
<<Though different from Clarke's idea of telecom relay, the idea of communicating with satellites in geostationary orbit itself had been described earlier. For example, the concept of geostationary satellites was described in Hermann Oberth's 1923 book Die Rakete zu den Planetenräumen (The Rocket into Interplanetary Space) and then the idea of radio communication with those satellites in Herman Potočnik's (written by pseudonym Hermann Noordung) 1928 book Das Problem der Befahrung des Weltraums — der Raketen-Motor (The Problem of Space Travel — The Rocket Motor) section: Providing for Long Distance Communications and Safety published in Berlin. Clarke acknowledged the earlier concept in his book Profiles of the Future.>>
.....................................
<<Clarke lived in Sri Lanka from 1956 until his death in 2008, having emigrated there when it was still called Ceylon. He was an avid scuba diver and a member of the Underwater Explorers Club. Living in Sri Lanka afforded him the opportunity to visit the ocean year-round. It also inspired the locale for his novel The Fountains of Paradise in which he first described a space elevator. This, he believed, ultimately will be his legacy, more so than geostationary satellites, once space elevators make space shuttles obsolete.>>[/list]
------------------------------------------------------
While Arthur C. Clarke may have been a very good science fiction writer he should *NEVER EVER* be placed in the same category as, say, an Isaac Asimov [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Issac_Asimov ] IMO.
Isaac Asimov was an extremely hard working and true genius.
Arthur C. Clarke was a somewhat clever and extremely lucky "beach bum" (IMO). :(
Long before Clarke's ONLY original scientific idea (i.e., a space elevator) comes to fruition (if ever) the strong materials necessary for same will be used to build giant skyscrapers (on top of Kilimanjaro?), giant aircraft and giant balloons that will provide for much more practical and efficient space launch facilities.