The World Has Lost the Amazing Sir Arthur C. Clarke 20080319

[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 today's APOD page. (corrected link - bystander)

Just yesterday on this very forum I mentioned something from "2001 a Space Odyssey" (adapted from a story Sir Arthur wrote). I have only just received a Foreward written by Sir Arthur for inclusion in my upcoming book. I was so looking forward to providing him some copies.

We have lost a great man. Sir Arthur C. Clarke, we will miss you.

-Noel

[neufer]

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.

Just yesterday on this very forum I mentioned something from "2001 a Space Odyssey" (adapted from a story Sir Arthur wrote). I have only just received a Foreward written by Sir Arthur for inclusion in my upcoming book. I was so looking forward to providing him some copies.

We have lost a great man. Sir Arthur C. Clarke, we will miss you.

-Noel

A tad eccentric in his old age perhaps:
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Enigma Issue 16: News Roundup
by Paul Vigay | Spring 1998

<<Arthur C. Clarke recently commented on NASA spacecraft Galileo's photos of Jupiter's moon Europa: "Running right across one of the pictures is an absolutely straight narrow line, and if you saw this you'd say, well, that's obviously a highway or a railroad track, and no-one can explain it - it's about 200 km long and its dead straight except for a slight wriggle where there's sort of a change of terrain, and we're all very, very puzzled about this and in fact I'm beginning to think the unthinkable.">>
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http://www.enterprisemission.com/images/arthur.jpg
http://www.enterprisemission.com/images/sir-Clarke2.jpg
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The Sixth Voyage of Sinbad the Sailor

<<"My soul yearned for travel and traffic." Sinbad falls asleep as he journeys through the darkness and awakens in the city of the king of Serendib (Ceylon, Sri Lanka), "diamonds are in its rivers and pearls are in its valleys." The king marvels at what Sinbad tells him of the great Haroun al-Rashid, and asks that he take a present back to Baghdad on his behalf, a cup carved from a single ruby, with other gifts including a bed made from the skin of the serpent that swallowed the elephant ("and whoso sitteth upon it never sickeneth"),
and a slave-girl "like a shining moon [Europa? Enceladus?] ". And so Sinbad returns to Baghdad, where the Caliph wonders greatly at the reports Sinbad gives of the land of Ceylon.>>

[Pete]

Godspeed, ACC.

[Erilon]

Godspeed, ACC.

[bystander]

Open the pod bay doors, please, HAL.

I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that.

I'm sure the universe is full of intelligent life. It's just been too intelligent to come here.

Quotes by AC Clarke: http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Arthur_C._Clarke

[neufer]

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.

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• 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.>>

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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.

[Indigo_Sunrise]

I'm sure the universe is full of intelligent life. It's just been too intelligent to come here.

So apropos!

Sir Arthur C. Clark was a very interesting person, a visionary (I've read several of his books and really enjoyed them), and he will definitely be missed....

[apodman]

To those who know only the later works of Arthuur C. Clarke, I wish to recommend the novel "Childhood's End" (1953). You will recognize its profound influence in many modern fictionalizations of mankind's future.

I was shocked to learn that the first chapter has been rewritten from the version I read long ago to eliminate savvy observation on attitudes held during the Cold War. (It was rewritten in 1990 - by Clarke or another I don't know yet - coincidentally when the old-school USSR was fading out of style.) The Cold War is important background for much fiction from WWII to present, notably in the questioning of man's ability to handle his own affairs in the light of advanced knowledge and technology. So why eliminate it from the work of a visionary?

The excuse is that the setup is anachronistic. Duh. That's why we put dates of publication on books, so they can be enjoyed in and along with the historical context in which they were written. I hope serious readers can still get their hands on the original version.

[apodman]

http://www.sfreviews.net/clarke_childhoods_end.html

[neufer]

http://www.sfreviews.net/clarke_childhoods_end.html

http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008 ... hur-c.html

[Arramon]