Larry Bergan90 Times Around The Sun
I hope that we have learned something from the most barbaric century in history — the twentieth. I would like to see us overcome our tribal factions, and begin to think and act as if we were one family. That would be real globalization.
Arthur C. Clarke
March 21st, 2008 at 7:41 am
Arthur C. Clarke had a big influence on my world view, not only from his sci-fi but his non-fiction books too. He envisioned technological breakthroughs, such as geosynchronous satellites, that happened in his own lifetime. Today I work as a remote sensing analyst, a job that was still in the realm of science fiction when I was reading Clarke in high school.
March 21st, 2008 at 1:14 pm
Clarke was one of those scientists that had such a passion for his craft that it just rubbed off on you. He said he wanted to be remembered most for his books, but I have to admit, I haven’t read any of them. Do you have any recommendations?
Ever since I first saw them in a Scientific American, I have been fascinated with the beauty and mystery of fractal geometry. PBS had a show about them with Clarke narrating. I went away from the show feeling the same way I did when I walked out of the Villa Theater after seeing “2001, a Space Odyssey”, literally buzzing with excitement and wonder. Clarke seemed to me to be the kind of guy who would have been doing what he did, no matter what he got paid.
The current administration hates scientists and professors. Everything is so upside down. Exploration of Jupiter and the universe seemed so possible in 1968. What happened?
March 21st, 2008 at 2:41 pm
Clarke wrote lots of terrific short stories, you can find collections of them. He wrote at least 26 novels. My favorites (in no particular order):
Childhood’s End (1953)
The City and the Stars (1956)
Rendezvous With Rama (1973)
The Fountains of Paradise (1979)
I haven’t read any of his more recent novels. Here’s the full list. Except for “2001: A Space Odyssey” (which was a screenplay before it was a book), I don’t think any were made into movies. Too cerebral, perhaps.
March 21st, 2008 at 4:42 pm
His quote reminds of Ghandi when asked what he thought of western civilisation, he simply said “That would be nice”, or maybe this simplicity,
“If you will not have peace, then you will have war”.
Clark knew these sentiments to be sure. He was sometimes my favorite.
Larry, what on earth are you going to do when bush is gone? We haven’t done much “scientific discovery” in decades, most of what we see is the application of long established theory, and it hardly the imbeciles fault that we are not further along.
No doubt we need the extra money to keep our youth reaching for the stars in 30th @#$%^&* place in international competency testing.
March 22nd, 2008 at 2:13 am
Thanks Richard!
Glenn:
At least Obama isn’t going to allow cronies to go through scientific studies on things like the climate crisis and change the wording to please the corporate money grubbers in the oil business. There will be hundreds of cronies replaced with people who will actually do their jobs.
It’s Reagan, Bush, and Bush II that have been promoting this Nascar/Cowboy mentality. I’m sorry if today’s Cowboys and Nascar drivers are offended by that comment, but just a couple of them have stood up against this administration and K-Bull radio refuses to play Dixie Chicks records even after they won the Grammys.
A REAL cowboy wouldn’t be such a coward as to let the Dixie Chick’s families be threatened and say nothing, but it’s been years now. MMMoooooo!