„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.
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.
da Profiles of the Future, Harper & Row, 1958
Origine: Citato anche in 3001: Odissea finale e in R. Kelly, The Box.
da 2061: Odissea tre
— Arthur C. Clarke, libro 2001: Odissea nello spazio
premessa
2001: Odissea nello spazio
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
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.
As quoted in Visions : How Science Will Revolutionize the Twenty-First Century (1999) by Michio Kaku, p. 295
2000s and attributed from posthumous publications
"Hazards of Prophecy: The Failure of Imagination" in Profiles of the Future (1962)
Profiles of the Future (revised edition, 1973)
Origine: Profiles of the Future: An Inquiry Into the Limits of the Possible
90th Birthday Reflections (2007)
Contesto: I'm sometimes asked how I would like to be remembered. I've had a diverse career as a writer, underwater explorer, space promoter and science populariser. Of all these, I want to be remembered most as a writer — one who entertained readers, and, hopefully, stretched their imagination as well.
2010: Odyssey Two (1982), Ch. 43: Thought Experiment
1980s
Contesto: Plans for the final assault on Big Brother had already been worked out and agreed upon with Mission Control. Leonov would move in slowly, probing at all frequencies, and with steadily increasing power — constantly reporting back to Earth at every moment. When final contact was made, they would try to secure samples by drilling or laser spectroscopy; no one really expected these endeavours to succeed, as even after a decade of study TMA-1 resisted all attempts to analyse its material. The best efforts of human scientists in this direction seemed comparable to those of Stone Age men trying to break through the armour of a bank vault with flint axes.
"The Sentinel" (1948), originally titled "Sentinel of Eternity" this is the short story which later provided the fundamental ideas for 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) written by Clarke and Stanley Kubrick.
1940s
Contesto: I can never look now at the Milky Way without wondering from which of those banked clouds of stars the emissaries are coming. If you will pardon so commonplace a simile, we have set off the fire alarm and have nothing to do but to wait.
I do not think we will have to wait for long