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The Only Way To Discover The Limits Of The Possible...

By sheril on March 18, 2008.

i-79fa1e4970c8a2658f5a4b9a1ea53dec-2001_Space_Odyssey.jpg
..is to go beyond them into the impossible.

Arthur C. Clarke

1917-2008

Arthur C. Clarke, writer and futurist, predicted many of our technological breakthroughs with uncanny accuracy while maintaining humility and a sense of humor.

'I've never predicted the future, or hardly ever. I extrapolate. Look, I've written six stories about the end of the Earth; they can't all be true!'

As the NYTimes describes, he was a writer of 'scientific expertise and poetic imagination'.

In an interview with The Associated Press, he expressed no regret at not having traveled in space, adding he arranged to have DNA from strands of his hair sent into orbit.

'One day, some super civilization may encounter this relic from the vanished species and I may exist in another time.'

Arthur C. Clarke was an 'Intersection Personality' and man after my own heart...

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Man.

I quoted Clarke in Storm World, relying rather heavily on his first law of prediction: "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."

Seeing "2001: a space odyssey" was an almost spiritual event in my young life. The next year I watched live television as Apollo 11 landed men on the moon.

Seems we haven't done much since. Maybe we need more visionaries like Arthur C Clarke to inspire us.