Today the world has lost a great inspirational author of science fiction, Arthur C. Clarke of "2001: A Space Odyssey" fame. He was 90 years old and was living on an island off Sri Lanka. Aside from his well-known body of science-fiction writing, Arthur C. Clarke was a true scientific visionary who is widely credited with establishing the principles of modern satellite communications, in particular satellites in geostationary orbit. Today, the geostationary orbit at 36,000 kilometers above the equator is named The Clarke Orbit by the International Astronomical Union.
Interestingly, Clarke first studied mathematics and physics at King's College London (where yours truly went to grad school) and he subsequently came up with the idea of using satellites for weather forecasting.
Later of course Clarke went on to becoming a prolific science fiction writer, which led him to a collaboration with Stanley Kubrick on "2001: A Space Odyssey" for which he shared an Oscar with Kubrick. Clarke also covered the Apollo 12 and 15 missions on CBS with Walter Cronkite and Wally Schirra.
Arthur C. Clarke had first visited Colombo, the capital of Sri Lanka in 1954 and decided to move permanently to Sri Lanka shortly thereafter, in 1956, to pursue an interest in underwater exploration and the Great Barrier Reef in particular.
Often people have asked me why I wanted to study mathematics and physics noting that I would have no other future but to become an academic professor later on-well there!
To conclude I would invite everyone to check out the website of The Arthur C. Clarke Foundation. The site of course provides a much more detailed biography and a whole lot of very interesting stuff.
1 comment:
typical british un-conventional scientist but more accepted that alan TURING... i suppose he was not gay as opposed to alan TURING ?
Post a Comment