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Arthur C. Clarke: Dead at 90
Father of the satellite dead at 90:
Unfortunately, this brilliant man was a Christ hater, so you know where he's going:
Satan's waiting, he has a seat open at his table for you.
Sci-fi author Arthur C. Clarke is dead
Clarke was the author, or co-author, of dozens of fiction and non-fiction books. But he will likely always be best known for his novel 2001: A Space Odyssey, which he later turned into a landmark film with Stanley Kubrick. Clarke also was known for works such as Rendezvous with Rama, Childhood's End and The Fountains of Paradise, according to Wikipedia.
In a 2001 interview Clarke gave to CNET News.com, he talked at length about his then-current work in Sri Lanka as a "champion for gorillas" because of what he saw as a link between global cell phone use and the plight of gorillas in Central Africa due to prospectors hunting for tantalum, a material used in making many gadgets.
On the Web site for his foundation, the Clarke Foundation, he had a prominent quote, "If we have learned one thing from the history of invention and discovery, it is that, in the long run--and often in the short one--the most daring prophecies seem laughably conservative."
The fact that he was known as a writer yet spent some of the later years of his life fighting for the rights of apes and warning humankind that innovation is conservative might surprise people who think of him as always forward-looking. For someone with so much work under his belt, it probably shouldn't be surprising.
In a YouTube video in which Clarke talks about his reflections on life on the occasion of his 90th birthday, the author joked about his age. He said that many people had asked him what it was like to have completed 90 orbits around the sun.
"Well, I actually don't feel a day older than 89," Clarke said. There's no doubt that Clarke was seen as one of the leading lights of science fiction and even of pure science.
In the comments section of a post on his reported death on Boing Boing, a poster calling him or herself Padster123 wrote, "Rest in peace, voyager! You've always been an inspiration." Another poster, Jeff, wrote, "May he have a glorious experience as he travels to the world beyond, something like the star-gate scene from 2001. All hail Hal's daddy!"
Of course, Clarke, who was born on December 16, 1917, had just turned 90 three months ago. So the thoughts in his YouTube video very likely reflect much of his state of mind upon his death. He was born in Minehead, Somerset, England, and in 1988 was knighted by Queen Elizabeth of England.
"In 1945, a UK periodical magazine, Wireless World, published (Clarke's) landmark technical paper 'Extra-terrestrial Relays,'" his biography on his foundation's Web site reads, "in which he first set out the principles of satellite communication with satellites in geostationary orbits--a speculation realized 25 years later. During the evolution of his discovery, he worked with scientists and engineers in the USA in the development of spacecraft and launch systems, and addressed the United Nations during their deliberations on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space.
"Clarke's work, which led to the global satellite systems in use today, brought him numerous honors including the 1982 Marconi International Fellowship, a gold medal of the Franklin Institute, the Vikram Sarabhai Professorship of the Physical Research Laboratory, Ahmedabad, the Lindbergh Award and a Fellowship of King's College, London. Today, the geostationary orbit at 36,000 kilometers above the equator is named The Clarke Orbit by the International Astronomical Union."
Science fiction impresario Arthur C. Clarke is dead, according to published news reports.
And as of 3 p.m. PDT Tuesday, the Wikipedia article on Clarke has also already been updated with a banner across the top that reads, "This article is about a person who has recently died."
(Credit: Clarke Foundation)
And as of 3 p.m. PDT Tuesday, the Wikipedia article on Clarke has also already been updated with a banner across the top that reads, "This article is about a person who has recently died."
(Credit: Clarke Foundation)
In a 2001 interview Clarke gave to CNET News.com, he talked at length about his then-current work in Sri Lanka as a "champion for gorillas" because of what he saw as a link between global cell phone use and the plight of gorillas in Central Africa due to prospectors hunting for tantalum, a material used in making many gadgets.
On the Web site for his foundation, the Clarke Foundation, he had a prominent quote, "If we have learned one thing from the history of invention and discovery, it is that, in the long run--and often in the short one--the most daring prophecies seem laughably conservative."
The fact that he was known as a writer yet spent some of the later years of his life fighting for the rights of apes and warning humankind that innovation is conservative might surprise people who think of him as always forward-looking. For someone with so much work under his belt, it probably shouldn't be surprising.
In a YouTube video in which Clarke talks about his reflections on life on the occasion of his 90th birthday, the author joked about his age. He said that many people had asked him what it was like to have completed 90 orbits around the sun.
"Well, I actually don't feel a day older than 89," Clarke said. There's no doubt that Clarke was seen as one of the leading lights of science fiction and even of pure science.
In the comments section of a post on his reported death on Boing Boing, a poster calling him or herself Padster123 wrote, "Rest in peace, voyager! You've always been an inspiration." Another poster, Jeff, wrote, "May he have a glorious experience as he travels to the world beyond, something like the star-gate scene from 2001. All hail Hal's daddy!"
Of course, Clarke, who was born on December 16, 1917, had just turned 90 three months ago. So the thoughts in his YouTube video very likely reflect much of his state of mind upon his death. He was born in Minehead, Somerset, England, and in 1988 was knighted by Queen Elizabeth of England. "In 1945, a UK periodical magazine, Wireless World, published (Clarke's) landmark technical paper 'Extra-terrestrial Relays,'" his biography on his foundation's Web site reads, "in which he first set out the principles of satellite communication with satellites in geostationary orbits--a speculation realized 25 years later. During the evolution of his discovery, he worked with scientists and engineers in the USA in the development of spacecraft and launch systems, and addressed the United Nations during their deliberations on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space.
"Clarke's work, which led to the global satellite systems in use today, brought him numerous honors including the 1982 Marconi International Fellowship, a gold medal of the Franklin Institute, the Vikram Sarabhai Professorship of the Physical Research Laboratory, Ahmedabad, the Lindbergh Award and a Fellowship of King's College, London. Today, the geostationary orbit at 36,000 kilometers above the equator is named The Clarke Orbit by the International Astronomical Union."
Clarke: Well, I suspect that religion is a necessary evil in the childhood of our particular species. And that's one of the interesting things about contact with other intelligences: we could see what role, if any, religion plays in their development. I think that religion may be some random by-product of mammalian reproduction. If that's true, would non-mammalian aliens have a religion? Anyway, that's one of the nice things about the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) project; if it is successful, we could perhaps answer such questions one day. I've just seen Contact, by my late friend Carl Sagan. It's quite an impressive film that offers hints on this subject.
FI: If religion does indeed represent an immature stage of humanity, do you see any prospects for humanity growing up?
Clarke: Yes, there is the possibility that humankind can outgrown its infantile tendencies, as I suggested in Childhood's End. But it is amazing how childishly gullible humans are. There are, for example, so many different religions - each of them claiming to have the truth, each saying that their truths are clearly superior to the truths of others - how can someone possibly take any of them seriously? I mean, that's insane. And such insanity concerns me, especially now that waves of lunacy are washing over the United States and the world in the form of millennial cults. Time magazine recently reported on them. The crazy thing is, according to traditional Christian dogma, the real millennium was four years ago, for Jesus was supposedly born circa 5 B.C.E. - so it's already 2004! Apparently some millennial nuts are blithely ignoring their own dogma.
FI: Do you see any value at all in the various religions?
Clarke: Though I sometimes call myself a crypto-Buddhist, Buddhism is not a religion. Of those around at the moment, Islam is the only one that has any appeal to me. But, of course, Islam has been tainted by other influences. The Muslims are behaving like Christians, I'm afraid.
FI: What appeals to you in Islam?
Clarke: Historically, Islam had a great deal of tolerance for other views and offered the world its priceless wisdom in the form of astronomy and algebra. And, as you know, Islam helped rescue Western civilization from the Dark Ages by preserving classical texts and transmitting them to the West. We, on the other hand, burned the library at Alexandria. If Islam hadn't fallen into internecine warfare and had gone on to conquer the rest of Europe, we'd have avoided a thousand years of Christian barbarism.
FI: Your television series, The Mysterious World of Arthur C. Clarke, is still a classic. It appeals to the human yearning for mystery but also shows how to apply some scientific principles to get answers. Do you feel that the human yearning for unexplained mysteries will always be greater than the need for scientific explanation? That is, will people always reject scientific explanations if they can have an inspiring mystery or wonder?
Clarke: There does seem to be a tendency to do that. People get very exasperated when people like James Randi show how some trick is done or reveal the true, naturalistic explanation. They say, "No, the trick is really paranormal." How can you argue with people who want so badly to believe?
FI: If religion does indeed represent an immature stage of humanity, do you see any prospects for humanity growing up?
Clarke: Yes, there is the possibility that humankind can outgrown its infantile tendencies, as I suggested in Childhood's End. But it is amazing how childishly gullible humans are. There are, for example, so many different religions - each of them claiming to have the truth, each saying that their truths are clearly superior to the truths of others - how can someone possibly take any of them seriously? I mean, that's insane. And such insanity concerns me, especially now that waves of lunacy are washing over the United States and the world in the form of millennial cults. Time magazine recently reported on them. The crazy thing is, according to traditional Christian dogma, the real millennium was four years ago, for Jesus was supposedly born circa 5 B.C.E. - so it's already 2004! Apparently some millennial nuts are blithely ignoring their own dogma.
FI: Do you see any value at all in the various religions?
Clarke: Though I sometimes call myself a crypto-Buddhist, Buddhism is not a religion. Of those around at the moment, Islam is the only one that has any appeal to me. But, of course, Islam has been tainted by other influences. The Muslims are behaving like Christians, I'm afraid.
FI: What appeals to you in Islam?
Clarke: Historically, Islam had a great deal of tolerance for other views and offered the world its priceless wisdom in the form of astronomy and algebra. And, as you know, Islam helped rescue Western civilization from the Dark Ages by preserving classical texts and transmitting them to the West. We, on the other hand, burned the library at Alexandria. If Islam hadn't fallen into internecine warfare and had gone on to conquer the rest of Europe, we'd have avoided a thousand years of Christian barbarism.
FI: Your television series, The Mysterious World of Arthur C. Clarke, is still a classic. It appeals to the human yearning for mystery but also shows how to apply some scientific principles to get answers. Do you feel that the human yearning for unexplained mysteries will always be greater than the need for scientific explanation? That is, will people always reject scientific explanations if they can have an inspiring mystery or wonder?
Clarke: There does seem to be a tendency to do that. People get very exasperated when people like James Randi show how some trick is done or reveal the true, naturalistic explanation. They say, "No, the trick is really paranormal." How can you argue with people who want so badly to believe?
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