Arthur C. Clarke has died at his Sri Lankan home, aged 90.
Clarke is best known as the author of 2001: A Space Odyssey, but his reach stretched beyond Science Fiction. In 1945 he accurately predicted the use of Satellites as a communications tool, and later joined Walter Cronkite in covering the Apollo space launches.
Clarke was knighted in 2000 and the 2001 Mars Odyssey orbiter was named in his honor.
Although too old to be involved online in his later years, his visionary works inspired a generation to develop much of the tech we use today.
Clarke’s Wikipedia entry can be read here.
(via AP)
Sad loss.
RIP
(fyi: your typos were very distracting)
childhood’s end was the craziest book I’ve ever read.
shame, great visionary
how about adding a link to his wikipedia entry for those not up on him.
http://en.wikip...rthur_C._Clarke
darren
added.
you forgot the bit where he’s acused of being a pædophile
is amiestreet.com taking off?
I think I am not sad he died. 90 y/o is a long time. An not to say the feller had some fun. But … I have to say that the man was a genius of those that do not come twice in a life time and am happy to had red many of the books and stories he wrote. My favorite: Star Dog.
My condolences to his surviving family.
HAL 9000: What is going to happen?
Dave Bowman: Something wonderful.
HAL 9000: I’m afraid.
Dave Bowman: Don’t be. We’ll be together.
HAL 9000: Where will we be?
Dave Bowman: Where I am now.
Thank you for inspiring us all Mr. Clarke. RIP.
RIP. what was he doing in Sri Lanka.
The headline should rather say “Sir Vale Arthur C. Clarke 1917-2008″.
Wow what a sad day
@ 10. JosefVirek
He was living in Sri Lanka since 1956. I’m a Sri Lankan and I’m proud to have him in my country. He has helped us in many ways in technological matters.
And we have an Arthur C. Clarke Center in Moratuwa university as a tribute to this great person.
RIP.
“The Sentinel”, this one I loved the most. It is a sad loss.
Rendezvous with Rama is probably one of the best SciFi novels I’ve read. Right up there with the best of Asimov’s work.
RIP Arthur.
Earlier today Sydney time I posted a brief piece for Crikey. It’s behind their paywall at http://www.crik...ankyou#comments but it’s also on my own site at http://stilgher..._c_clarke_dead/ … enjoy!
On, and ClarkeFan, I agree re “Rendezvous with Rama”… a movie is currently in pre-production.
He was one of my favourite writers. I particularly liked a short spooky story by him called Nine Billion Names of God when I was a child. It appeared in the Reader’s Digest collection of short mystery and horror stories in the mid 80s. It was the first Arthur Clarke story I read. Then I read quite a few more. Rendezvous with Rama is one of his best works.
I did my MSc on Space Odyssey. Clarke was a great mind. RIP.
RIP to one of our great thinkers and one of my biggest influences. Sad day…
Old futurists never die… they just fade into space.
@ number 6: Yeah, he was accused by the Sunday Times, a well known British “quality” newspaper. Respect to the great writer.
I’m another that was inspired as a child, and a teenager, and to this day, by his work, and work by others inspired by him.
If there’s an afterlife, I hope he’s having a damn good time.
I heard persistent rumors that Sir Clarke had an “affinity” for younger (much much younger) males, hence his self-imposed banishment to Sri Lanka, where … ahem… indiscretions… were more likely to go unnoticed. People have alluded to this in comments on boards, but I’ve seen no mention of it in an official obit stories – only a vague note at the end regarding how he has been “unmarried” for the past 40 years.
His 3 laws are smart
Arthur C. Clarke formulated the following 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.
http://en.wikip...%27s_three_laws
@22 i think you mean the Sunday ‘Mirror’, the Sunday ‘Times’ is actually a quality newspaper (the sunday mirror is a rag famous for its many baseless accusations)
Sri Lankan police later found that the mirror’s accusations were baseless, there has been no evidence
Mother world has lost a great visionary .