Arthur C. Clarke dies

When I was a child, I read quite a lot of science fiction. There were, then, three giants of the genre: Robert Heinlein, Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke. Each of these three science fiction authors had their own approach, style and interests - but they all shared one thing in common: the generation of ideas and perspectives on how the world could be.

This is, I think, the most important contribution of any science fiction author: showing the way, to others of less imagination, to how the world might one day be, if only we make the effort to make it so.

Arthur C. Clarke died, on Tuesday, of breathing difficulties and heart failure. He was 90. His life was one of intellectual adventure - of imagining the world as it was not yet, but just might be - and penning his imagined worlds in clear, well-written prose. He was also something very rare: a billionaire who could have been, but wasn't. Why was this so? Well, because in 1945 he published an article detailing his vision for geostationary telecommunications satellites, filled with the requisite equations to show that it would work and how. In not patenting his idea (he had sought advice from a lawyer who had dismissed the whole thing as too far-fetched), he lost out on royalties for the global telecoms revolution that began in the sixties. Had he patented his thoughts, Arthur C. Clarke would have become a billionaire.

His article, however, inspired others to seek ways to make his dream come true - and, in due course, his imagined satellites became reality. Thus, Arthur C. Clarke was fulfilling the profound role that writers of science fiction play: inspiring others to make their visions real. In a sense, therefore, such writers write self-fulfilling prophecies: in imagining, they also lead others to create the visions they have.

Global fame came to Arthur C. Clarke, with the collaboration with Stanley Kubrick on 2001, a Space Odyssey, the 1968 film that took a poetic look at a spacefaring human race - and a superhuman computer, HAL. The film was based on a short story, The Sentinel, that Clarke had written sometime before. It wrote of an artifact that an alien race had left as a kind of warning beacon, to divine the presence of any spacefarers - like the humans who found it.

Arthur C. Clarke relished his fame. He even had a room in his house, jestingly called the Ego Room, in his house in Sri Lanka, where he settled in 1956 and lived for the rest of his life. The Ego Room features pictures of Clarke with the various luminaries and dignitaries he had met in life.

As what he wrote of, came to pass, Clarke's reputation as a visionary and futurist grew. He once predicted that man would land on the moon, at a time in the first half of the twentieth century, when space flight seemed to be an absurd dream. He was, of course, right. His books painted a future of super-fast computers, instant telecommunications, manned space flight and space stations, when these things seemed to be nothing but fantasies. All have since come true.

He became a television personality, too. He commentated on the Apollo missions with Walter Cronkite for CBS and presented two television series: Arthur C. Clarke's Mysterious World and Arthur C. Clarke's World of Strange Powers. These were syndicated globally, making him a familiar face, everywhere.

Not all was easy, though. A bout of polio in the 1950s haunted him lifelong with post-polio syndrome, leading to him being wheelchair bound in the later years of his life. He commented, however, that "Underwater I am fully operational". Hence, his love of Sri Lanka, with its beautiful diving opportunities. There he became a lifelong explorer of the weightless underwater world - so like the zero g of the space of his imagination.

Though credited with inventing the idea of geostationary satellites, he was of the opinion that, eventually, a second idea of his would bring him greater credit: that of space elevators, which he also wrote of, before others. He believed that when technology made it possible to realize that particular dream, that he would be credited with predicting it.

Arthur C. Clarke will be remembered long after the 21st century is forgotten. Why? Well, because the orbit in which geostationary satellites are situated was named as the Clarke Orbit, or the Clarke Belt, in his honour, by the International Astronomical Union (IAU). Therefore, Arthur C. Clarke, will be remembered by scientists, astronomers and the telecoms industry - even if by no-one else - long after our time, itself, has been forgotten.

Oddly, a friend of mine, who was in Sri Lanka as recently as a week ago, had tried to make an appointment to meet Arthur C. Clarke. He had been told that he was presently in hospital. It feels strange that he should pass away so soon after a friend had nearly met him.

Arthur C. Clarke was as famed for being an atheist, as for being a futurist. So, I won't say R.I.P. I will, however, say: thanks for all the books.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged eight years and one month, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, four years and seven months, and Tiarnan, two years exactly, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, College, University, Chemistry, Science, genetics, left-handedness, precocity, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, gifted adults and gifted children in general. Thanks.)

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged eight years and one month, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, four years and seven months, and Tiarnan, two years exactly, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, College, University, Chemistry, Science, genetics, left-handedness, precocity, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, gifted adults and gifted children in general. Thanks.)