In memoriam: Sir Arthur Charles Clarke, CBE

[unixronin]

So many people have already written about Arthur C. Clarke's death yesterday, at the age of 90 in his home in Colombo, Sri Lanka, that it's difficult to know what there is left to add.  It's taken me quite a while to think about it, because I feel the loss so keenly.

I think it should never be forgotten, though, that Sir Arthur Charles Clarke, CBE, wasn't "just" a science fiction writer (even though it was as a writer that he most wished to be remembered); he was a scientist and, perhaps most important of all, a visionary.  He made important contributions to the development of radar, which was at least partly responsible for winning the Battle of Britain, and thereby changed the course of the Second World War and all history that has followed it.  His radar and GCA (ground-controlled approach) work was vital to the success of the Berlin airlift, and was the direct ancestor of modern instrument landing systems that allow civil airliners to continue to land by night and in almost all weather.  As is also widely known, it was Clarke who saw — and first described in detail — the value of the geosynchronous orbit for telecommunications relays, and is thus credited with the invention of the communications satellite.  (And, indirectly, various other things a lot of us now take for granted, including the GPS system.  The odds are good that had communications satellites not paved the way, no-one would have thought of GPS.)  The International Astronomical Union officially recognizes the 36,000km equatorial geostationary orbit as the Clarke Orbit in his honor.  I don't believe it is an exaggeration to number him among those who shaped the course of the latter half of the 20th Century.

I know that he declared in September 2007 that he would never leave Sri Lanka again, being completely wheelchair-bound due to post-polio syndrome.  But I so dearly wish he'd been able to hang on long enough to take a trip into space.  If anyone ever deserved a complimentary ticket on the inaugural flight of Spaceship Two, surely it was Sir Arthur Charles Clarke.

"My god ...  It's full of stars."

Godspeed, Sir Arthur.

Comments

[smandal.livejournal.com]

Amen.

[dr-nebula.livejournal.com]

I believe he was also the originator of the 'space elevator' - which was prominent in the Fountains of Paradise.

He was my favorite 'hard science fiction' writer and it was books like Childhood's End that stirred my imagination in my youth.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

He didn't originate it as such; it was first described by Konstantin Tsiolkovsky. I think it's fair to say he popularized the concept, though.

[cipherpunk.livejournal.com]

"... as though I just lost a close friend?"

You did lose a close friend.

I think we all did.

Godspeed, Sir Arthur.

[wyrdling.livejournal.com]

i still can't find words.

[ithildae.livejournal.com]

I started reading science fiction with A C Clarke. To think of the enormity of the worlds he introduced me to, it is just staggering. He will be missed.