Posted
on December 16, 2013
He
was a true prophet.
A
prophet sees what will happen in the future. Most people who are said
to be prophets are either fakes who tell people what they want to
hear, for money—you know, you will be rich, you will be famous, you
will travel far and live long and yadda yadda yadda—or they are
religious folks who say great truths such as we should all be kind to
one another. But some prophets are just terribly good at thinking
about what technologies might be invented someday, and how such
technologies will change the world. And when they write those things
down, and 50 years later those things actually happen, everyone says,
“He's a prophet!” or “She's a prophet!”
Arthur
C. Clarke wrote science fiction and science fact books and stories
and articles. He predicted personal computers and the internet.
He thought up an iconic computer (AI) character, HAL, who malfunctions
and then takes drastic steps to continue to carry out its programmed
directive. He thought up geo-synchronous communication satellites,
which orbit the earth at exactly the right height and speed to remain
stationary relative to the earth. (That's how we have cell phones and
satellite TV and so forth!)
Clarke
wrote about space travel and space mining and a space elevator and a
global library and a few things that have happened
and a lot of things that haven't happened, yet, but still might.
Here
is a video of Clarke making some predictions way back in 1964. Which
parts of his predictions are correct, and which might happen someday
but haven't yet?
- Check out Clarke's three laws:
1. 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.
2. The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.
3. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
Clarke
emigrated to Sri Lanka and did a great deal of undersea diving. He
loved the ocean! He even did some underwater archeology, uncovering
a sunken Koneswaram temple!
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