Arthur C. Clarke died today...

[tcar]

"2001, A Space Odyssey" - and about 99 other books. "Childhood's End", etc.

One of my heros.

Think he first postulated the Space Elevator.

[artplumber]

Wow, everyone seems to be going up the space elevator

[Joeaksa]

Sorry to hear that. He was a wise man...

[TheMentat]

Awesome author... One of my favorites when I was younger.

[Joe Bob]

Bummer, I spent many hours reading his stuff when I was a kid.....

[Jim Richards]

That's sad to hear. His life's accomplishments were important.

[rdrr]

That is a bummer. I met him about 10 years ago at his home in Sri Lanka. Lovely guy.

[Jared at Pelican Parts]

Clarke was one of my favorites growing up. RIP

Originally Posted by rdrr

That is a bummer. I met him about 10 years ago at his home in Sri Lanka. Lovely guy.

What was your meeting with him like?

[ikarcuaso]

Had a Sci Fi lit class in high school. This guy was da sh|t! RIP

[Hawktel]

A great author.

[rdrr]

At the time I was in the Hearing Aid business and he had one of our hearing aids. I went to his home and after I had reprogrammed his hearing aid he offered me a cup of tea and showed me a video game that was soon to be released (I can't remember what it was) in which he appeared in some video clips. His favourite clip was one which came up after some sort of spiderlike robot or creature had killed you and he explained how to beat it.

He was in a wheelchair back then and was around 80, but he was full of life. One of those people who's mind is constantly on the move. While talking to him, you could sense that part of him was thinking of all sorts of other things.

All in all I only spent about 45 minutes with him, but it's one of those meetings you don't forget.

[WolfeMacleod]

I'll be attending a Sci-Fi convention this weekend.

I'm sure they'll have a memorial service for him. As well as Gary Gygax, creator of D&D who passed recently.

[artplumber]

The news report said "the co-writer" of 2001: A Space Oddyssey" then I saw the "movie". Sad, isn't it that millions of people never read his books, but happened to "watch the movie" and have so little understanding of his work.

[89911]

Jeez, what a shock, he was only NINETY! We should all be so lucky!

[Joeaksa]

Originally Posted by 89911

Jeez, what a shock, he was only NINETY! We should all be so lucky!

Its not so much how old a person is, but how much they did in their lives and how they effected others. He was a great man.

[tcar]

He wrote the 2001 screenplay at night while writing a Time/Life Book on Space during the day. After finishing the T/L book he went full time on the screenplay and started the novel while finishing the screenplay.

He said he wrote 2010 as a book w/out worrying about a movie, said 'to he11 with them, if anyone wants to make a movie of this, let them'.

He'd had polio, and used a wheelchair part time as he got older.

Not just a great author, a GREAT THINKER. Many prophetic ideas.

[kach22i]

http://www.popsci.com/scitech/article/2004-08/childhoods-end

The Manifold Futures of Arthur C. Clarke

1953
Childhood’s End: An alien invasion ends war, hunger and poverty, but humanity enters a state of creative torpor, watching—get this!—three hours of TV a day.

1968
2001: A Space Odyssey: The computer on board the Discovery embodies the perils of human-level artificial intelligence. Hal 9000 runs the ship but, inconveniently, is also prone to murder.

1972
Rendezvous with Rama: Spurred by an asteroid strike in Italy, humanity launches a search for future doomsday rocks. The strangest find proves to be a mysterious cylindrical ship.

1979
The Fountains of Paradise: An engineer attempts to build a 24,000-mile-high space elevator to ferry materials into orbit. Humanity is in an era of technological prowess; a bridge over the Strait of Gibraltar is mentioned incidentally.