A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W Y Z
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Life and Works: UK writer, resident since 1956 in Sri Lanka, one of the grand masters of science fiction with Isaac Asimov and Robert A. Heinlein. Arthur C. Clarke was born in the seaside town of Minehead, Somerset, England on December 16, 1917. He became interested in science in early age, and constructed his first telescope at thirteen. While in school Clarke started to writes 'fantastic' stories and read eagerly the magazine Astounding Stories. He also read works from such writers as H.G. Wells and Jules Verne and looked at the stars through his homemade telescopes. Lacking sufficient money for higher education, in 1936 he moved to London where he worked as a government auditor from 1936 to 1941 and joined the British Interplanetary Society. There he started to experiment with astronautic material in the BIS, write the BIS Bulletin and science fiction. From 1941 to 1946 Clarke served in the Royal Air Force, becoming a radar instructor and technician. During this time he was in charge of the first radar talk-down equipment, the Ground Controlled Approach, during its experimental trials. His only non-science-fiction novel, Glide Path, is based on this work. While in the service he published his first science-fiction stories (Rescue Party, 1945) and in 1945 wrote for Wireless World an article entitled Extra-Terrestrial Relays, predicting in detail a communications satellite system in geostationary orbits that would relay radio and television signals all over the world. His invention has brought him numerous honors, such as 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 42,000 kilometers is named The Clarke Orbit by the International Astronomical Union. After the war, he returned to London and to the BIS, which he presided in 46-47 and 50-53, and obtained a degree from King's College, London (B.Sc., 1948), with honours in physics and mathematics, and then became a prolific science-fiction writer, known especially for such novels as Childhood's end (1953), a story about the beginning of the age of Humankind after Overlods have eliminated ignorance, disease and poverty; Earthlight (1955), A Fall of Moondust (1961), a tale of marooned moon schooner, Rendezvous with Rama (1973), in which a research team is sent to investigate a cylindrical object hurtling through the solar system; The Fountains of Paradise (1979), Rama II (1989) and The hammer of God (1993) about an asteroid hurtling toward Earth. Collections of essays and lectures include Voices from the Sky (1965), The View from Serendip (1977), Ascent to Orbit: A Scientific Autobiography (1984), and Astounding Days: A Science Fictional Autobiography (1989). In 1954 Clarke started to give up space for the sea. About the reasons, he said: "I now realise that it was my interest in astronautics that led me to the ocean. Both involve exploration, of course - but that's not the only reason. When the first skin-diving equipment started to appear in the late 1940s, I suddenly realized that here was a cheap and simple way of imitating one of the most magical aspects of spaceflight - weightessness." He moved to Colombo, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), where he embarked on a second career combining skin diving and photography; he reported his various underwater ventures in a succession of books, the first of which was The Coast of Coral (1956). In the book Profiles of the Future (1962) he looks at the probable shape of tomorrow's world. In this book he states his Three Laws. In the 1960s Clarke collaborated with motion-picture director Stanley Kubrick in making the innovative and highly praised science-fiction film 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), based on Clarke's short story The Sentinel (1951) and subsequently developed into a novel (1968). In the story a mysterious monolith is found buried beneath the surface of the moon. It send's a signal towards Jupiter. To solve the mystery astronauts are sent to Jupiter with the help of the super-computer HAL 9000. With the amazing computer Clarke presents one of the basic philosophical questions: can there be intelligence without consciousness? After series of accident's and HAL's operations, one of the astronauts, David Bowman, is left alone as the ship reaches the planet. He embarks on the final step in humankind's next developmental stage. In 1985, He published a sequel to 2001: 2010: Odyssey Two that was released as a film in 1984. Later novels in the series include 2061: Odyssey Three (1987) and 3001: The Final Odyssey (1997). Among Clarke's central themes in his fiction is the spiritual rebirth and the search for man's place in the universe. However, his technological details are flawless, and often he has guessed right new advances in science. In the 1980s Clarke was a presenter of the television series Arthur C. Clarke's Mysterious World (1980) and World of Strange Powers (1985), that have now been screened in many countries. He made part of other TV series about the space, as Walter Cronkite's Universe series in 1981. In December 2007 on his 90th birthday, Clarke recorded a video message to his friends and fans bidding them good-bye. Clarke died in Sri Lanka on 19 March 2008 after suffering from breathing problems, according to Rohan de Silva, one of his aides, only a few days after he had reviewed the final manuscript of his latest work, The Last Theorem, co-written with Frederik Pohl. He was buried in Colombo in traditional Sri Lankan fashion on March 22. Selected works:
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