Sir Arthur C. Clarke (1917 - 2008)

Sir Arthur C. Clarke: 90th birthday reflections (December 2007)

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
- Sir Arthur C. Clarke

British science fiction writer Sir Arthur C. Clarke has passed away. Clarke (16 December 1917 - 19 March 2008) was best known for 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), the basis of which was in his 1948 short story 'The Sentinel', speculating on an alien intelligence being involved in early human evolution. Clarke also worked in close collaboration with Stanley Kubrick on the novel's film version of the same year: the book and the film created, in fact, in tandem. Other well-known novels by Clarke were among all Childhood's End (1953) and Rendezvous with Rama (1972). Clarke liked to quote the first Indian Prime Minister, Pandit Nehru: "Politics and religion are obsolete; the time has come for science and spirituality. I regard that as my guiding light," he said.