Arthur C. Clarke

Sir Arthur Charles Clarke was an English science fiction writer, science writer, futurist, inventor, undersea explorer, and television series host. Born on 16 December 1917 in Minehead, Somerset, he grew up in nearby Bishops Lydeard and lived through the rise of radar, rockets, satellites, and televised spaceflight. He died on 19 March 2008 in Sri Lanka, where he had lived for more than half a century.

Clarke became one of the central figures in science fiction, often grouped with Robert Heinlein and Isaac Asimov as the “Big Three” of the genre. His science fiction brought him Hugo and Nebula awards and a large readership. He also co-wrote the screenplay for the 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey, widely regarded as one of the most influential films of all time. After its release, he was in demand as a commentator on science and technology, and on 20 July 1969 he appeared on CBS News during the Apollo 11 Moon landing broadcast.

Space travel was not just a subject for Clarke; it was a lifelong cause. As a teenager, he joined the British Interplanetary Society, later serving as its chairman from 1946 to 1947 and again from 1951 to 1953. In 1945, he proposed a satellite communication system using geostationary orbits, an idea published that year in Wireless World. The geostationary orbit 36,000 kilometres above the equator is officially recognised by the International Astronomical Union as the Clarke Orbit. His nonfiction books included Interplanetary Flight: An Introduction to Astronautics, The Exploration of Space, and The Promise of Space; The Exploration of Space was used by Wernher von Braun to convince President John F. Kennedy that going to the Moon was possible.

The roots of Clarke’s imagination were clear from childhood. On the farm where he grew up, he enjoyed stargazing, fossil collecting, and reading American science fiction pulp magazines. He later credited his interest in science fiction to the November 1928 issue of Amazing Stories, Olaf Stapledon’s Last and First Men, and David Lasser’s The Conquest of Space. During the Second World War, he served in the Royal Air Force as a radar specialist and worked on ground-controlled approach radar. After the war, he earned a first-class degree in mathematics and physics from King’s College London and worked as assistant editor at Physics Abstracts.

In 1956, Clarke moved to Ceylon, now Sri Lanka, to pursue scuba diving. That same year, he discovered the underwater ruins of the ancient original Koneswaram Temple in Trincomalee, and he later described the area in The Reefs of Taprobane. He lived first in Unawatuna and then in Colombo, diving often at Hikkaduwa, Trincomalee, and Nilaveli. In the 1980s, he reached new audiences as host of television shows including Arthur C. Clarke’s Mysterious World.

Clarke received the Kalinga Prize in 1961 for popularising science, was appointed CBE in 1989 for services to British cultural interests in Sri Lanka, was knighted in 1998, and received Sri Lanka’s highest civil honour, Sri Lankabhimanya, in 2005. His words continue to draw readers because they joined technical knowledge to a clear sense of wonder. He wrote about space, machines, oceans, and the future as things close enough to study, question, and imagine with care.