Frasi di Arthur C. Clarke
Arthur C. Clarke
Data di nascita: 16. Dicembre 1917
Data di morte: 19. Marzo 2008
Altri nomi: Arthur Charles Clarke
Sir Arthur Charles Clarke è stato un autore di fantascienza e inventore britannico.
È noto ai più per il suo romanzo 2001: Odissea nello spazio del 1968, cresciuto assieme alla sceneggiatura del film omonimo realizzato con il regista Stanley Kubrick ed ispirato al racconto breve La sentinella dello stesso Clarke. Lo scrittore ha però al suo attivo una produzione letteraria assai estesa, tra cui la celebre serie di Rama. È considerato un autore di fantascienza hard o "classica", dato che una caratteristica saliente dei suoi romanzi è l'attenzione per la verosimiglianza scientifica.
In suo onore l'orbita geostazionaria della Terra è stata chiamata "Fascia di Clarke". Egli infatti fu il primo ad ipotizzare, in un articolo pubblicato nel 1945, l'utilizzo dell'orbita geostazionaria per i satelliti dedicati alle telecomunicazioni. Wikipedia
Lavori
3001: Odissea finale
Arthur C. Clarke
2001: Odissea nello spazio
Arthur C. Clarke
2010: Odissea due
Arthur C. ClarkeFrasi Arthur C. Clarke
„Il sistema solare comprende il Sole, Giove e detriti vari.“
da 2061: Odissea tre
„Ogni tecnologia sufficientemente avanzata è indistinguibile dalla magia.“
da Profiles of the Future, Harper & Row, 1958
Origine: Citato anche in 3001: Odissea finale e in R. Kelly, The Box.
„Inoltre, avevano fatto il primo passo verso un'amicizia genuina. Si erano scambiati vulnerabilità.“
„Dietro ogni uomo oggi vivente stanno trenta spettri, poiché questo è il rapporto con il quale i morti superano il numero dei vivi. Dagli albori del tempo, grosso modo cento miliardi di uomini hanno camminato sul pianeta Terra. Orbene, è questo un numero interessante, in quanto, per una coincidenza bizzarra, esistono approssimativamente cento miliardi di stelle nel nostro universo locale, la Via Lattea. Così, per ogni uomo che abbia vissuto, in questo universo splende una stella.“
— Arthur C. Clarke, libro 2001: Odissea nello spazio
premessa
2001: Odissea nello spazio
„I'm sure the universe is full of intelligent life. It's just been too intelligent to come here.“
IRC discussion at Scifi.com (1 November 1996) http://web.archive.org/web/20021201214228/http://www.scifi.com/transcripts/aclarke.txt with Clarke and Gentry Lee
1990s
„In my time I’ve been very fortunate to see many of my dreams come true!“
90th Birthday Reflections (2007)
Contesto: In my time I’ve been very fortunate to see many of my dreams come true! Growing up in the 1920s and 1930s, I never expected to see so much happen in the span of a few decades. We "space cadets" of the British Interplanetary Society spent all our spare time discussing space travel — but we didn’t imagine that it lay in our own near future… I still can't quite believe that we've just marked the 50th anniversary of the Space Age! We’ve accomplished a great deal in that time, but the "Golden Age of Space" is only just beginning. Over the next 50 years, thousands of people will travel to Earth orbit — and then, to the Moon and beyond. Space travel — and space tourism — will one day become almost as commonplace as flying to exotic destinations on our own planet.
„Two possibilities exist: Either we are alone in the Universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying.“
As quoted in Visions : How Science Will Revolutionize the Twenty-First Century (1999) by Michio Kaku, p. 295
2000s and attributed from posthumous publications
„Clarke's Second Law: The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.“
"Hazards of Prophecy: The Failure of Imagination" in Profiles of the Future (1962)
„Clarke's Third Law: Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.“
Profiles of the Future (revised edition, 1973)
Origine: Profiles of the Future: An Inquiry Into the Limits of the Possible
„We have abolished space here on the little Earth; we can never abolish the space that yawns between the stars.“
We'll Never Conquer Space (1960)
Contesto: We have abolished space here on the little Earth; we can never abolish the space that yawns between the stars. Once again, as in the days when Homer sang, we are face-to-face with immensity and must accept its grandeur and terror, its inspiring possibilities and its dreadful restraints.
„We stand now at the turning point between two eras. Behind us is a past to which we can never return …“
Exploration of Space (1952)
1950s
Contesto: We stand now at the turning point between two eras. Behind us is a past to which we can never return … The coming of the rocket brought to an end a million years of isolation … the childhood of our race was over and history as we know it began.
„There is the possibility that humankind can outgrow its infantile tendencies, as I suggested in Childhood's End. But it is amazing how childishly gullible humans are.“
"God, Science, and Delusion: A Chat With Arthur C. Clarke" Free Inquiry magazine, Volume 19, Number 2 (Spring 1999) http://www.secularhumanism.org/index.php?section=library&page=clarke_19_2
2000s and attributed from posthumous publications
Contesto: There is the possibility that humankind can outgrow its infantile tendencies, as I suggested in Childhood's End. But it is amazing how childishly gullible humans are. There are, for example, so many different religions — each of them claiming to have the truth, each saying that their truths are clearly superior to the truths of others — how can someone possibly take any of them seriously? I mean, that's insane.... Though I sometimes call myself a crypto-Buddhist, Buddhism is not a religion. Of those around at the moment, Islam is the only one that has any appeal to me. But, of course, Islam has been tainted by other influences. The Muslims are behaving like Christians, I'm afraid.
