Athur C. Clarke Dies at Age 90

Posted on March 19, 2008

Arthur C. Clarke has died in his adopted home of Sri Lanka at the age of 90. Clarke was best known for his work 2001: A Space Odyssey which was written as both a book and a screenplay simultaneously. Clarke also authored hundreds of other books and short stories during his lifetime. The UK Fantastic Fiction site has a lengthy list here. Arthur C. Clarke is also known for his three laws of prediction.

  1. When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.
  2. The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.
  3. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

One of the many things we should not forget about Arthur C. Clarke is his opinion of how important the space program is:

Arthur C. Clarke: "The inspirational value of the space program is probably of far greater importance to education than any input of dollars... A whole generation is growing up which has been attracted to the hard disciplines of science and engineering by the romance of space."

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