İngiliz bilim-kurgu yazarı Sir Arthur C. Clarke'ı (90) uğurlarken, onu daha çok keşfetmemizi ve okumamızı diliyorum... Hayatı boyunca yaptığı tüm çalışmalara
rağmen sadece bir "yazar" olarak hatırlanmak istemesi** karşısında yapılacak
en güzel şey, hala okumayanlarımız varsa kitaplarını okumamızdır.****
Huzur içinde yat Sir Arthur C. Clarke...
Aylin
90. Doğum günü videosu:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qLdeEjdbWE
**Video metni: http://www.tveap.org/news/0712art_transcript_01.html
Arthur C Clarke Vakfı sayfası:
Biografisi***: http://www.clarkefoundation.org/acc/biography.php
http://www.clarkefoundation.org/acc/vita.php
Kitaplarının listesi****: http://www.clarkefoundation.org/acc/vita.php
**
Hello! This is Arthur Clarke, speaking to you from my home in Colombo, Sri Lanka.
As I approach my 90th birthday, my friends are asking how it feels like, to have completed 90 orbits around the Sun.
Well, I actually don't feel a day older than 89!
Of course, some things remind me that I have indeed qualified as a senior citizen. As Bob Hope once said: "You know you're getting old, when the candles cost more than the cake!"
I’m now perfectly happy to step aside and watch how things evolve. But there's also a sad side to living so long: most of my contemporaries and old friends have already departed. However, they have left behind many fond memories, for me to recall.
I now spend a good part of my day dreaming of times past, present and future. As I try to survive on 15 hours’ sleep a day, I have plenty of time to enjoy vivid dreams. Being completely wheel-chaired doesn't stop my mind from roaming the universe – on the contrary!
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. After half a century of government-sponsored efforts, we are now witnessing the emergence of commercial space flight.
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.
Things are also changing rapidly in many other areas of science and technology. To give just one example, the world's mobile phone coverage recently passed 50 per cent -- or 3.3 billion subscriptions. This was achieved in just a little over a quarter century since the first cellular network was set up. The mobile phone has revolutionized human communications, and is turning humanity into an endlessly chattering global family!
What does this mean for us as a species?
Communication technologies are necessary, but not sufficient, for us humans to get along with each other. This is why we still have many disputes and conflicts in the world. Technology tools help us to gather and disseminate information, but we also need qualities like tolerance and compassion to achieve greater understanding between peoples and nations.
I have great faith in optimism as a guiding principle, if only because it offers us the opportunity of creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. So I hope we've learnt something from the most barbaric century in history – the 20th. I would like to see us overcome our tribal divisions and begin to think and act as if we were one family. That would be real globalisation…
As I complete 90 orbits, I have no regrets and no more personal ambitions. But if I may be allowed just three wishes, they would be these.
Firstly, I would like to see some evidence of extra-terrestrial life. I have always believed that we are not alone in the universe. But we are still waiting for ETs to call us – or give us some kind of a sign. We have no way of guessing when this might happen – I hope sooner rather than later!
Secondly, I would like to see us kick our current addiction to oil, and adopt clean energy sources. For over a decade, I've been monitoring various new energy experiments, but they have yet to produce commercial scale results. Climate change has now added a new sense of urgency. Our civilisation depends on energy, but we can't allow oil and coal to slowly bake our planet…
The third wish is one closer to home. I’ve been living in Sri Lanka for 50 years – and half that time, I’ve been a sad witness to the bitter conflict that divides my adopted country.
I dearly wish to see lasting peace established in Sri Lanka as soon as possible. But I’m aware that peace cannot just be wished -- it requires a great deal of hard work, courage and persistence.
* * * * *
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.
I find that another English writer -- who, coincidentally, also spent most of his life in the East -- has expressed it very well. So let me end with these words of Rudyard Kipling:
If I have given you delight
by aught that I have done.
Let me lie quiet in that night
which shall be yours anon;
And for the little, little span
the dead are borne in mind,
seek not to question other than,
the books I leave behind.
This is Arthur Clarke, saying Thank You and Goodbye from Colombo!
The video was produced by Colombo-based production company Video Image (Private) Limited, in collaboration with the non-profit educational media foundation TVE Asia Pacific, both of which donated their services to this effort.
***
Biography
The achievements of Arthur C. Clarke, unique among his peers, bridge the arts and sciences. His works and his authorship have ranged from scientific discovery to science fiction, from technical application to entertainment, and have made a global impact on the lives of present and future generations.
Arthur C. Clarke is the son of an English farming family, born in the seaside town of Minehead, Somerset, England on December 16, 1917. In 1998, his lifetime work was recognized by H.M. The Queen when he was honored with a Knighthood – formally conferred by Prince Charles in Sri Lanka two years later.
After attending schools in his home county, Arthur Clarke moved to London in 1936 and pursued his early interest in space sciences by joining the British Interplanetary Society. He started to contribute to the BIS Bulletin and began to write science fiction.
As with so many young men at the time, World War II interrupted in 1939 and he joined the RAF, eventually becoming an officer in charge of the first radar talk-down equipment, the Ground Controlled Approach, during its experimental trials. Later, his only non-science-fiction novel, Glide Path, was based on this work. After the war, he returned to London and to the BIS, becoming its president in 1947-50 and again in 1953.
In 1945, a UK periodical magazine “Wireless World” published his landmark technical paper "Extra-terrestrial Relays" in which he first set out the principles of satellite communication with satellites in geostationary orbits - a speculation realized 25 years later. During the evolution of his discovery, he worked with scientists and engineers in the USA in the development of spacecraft and launch systems, and addressed the United Nations during their deliberations on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space.
Clarke's work, which led to the global satellite systems in use today, brought him numerous honors including the 1982 Marconi International Fellowship, a gold medal of the Franklin Institute, the Vikram Sarabhai Professorship of the Physical Research Laboratory, Ahmedabad, the Lindbergh Award and a Fellowship of King's College, London. Today, the geostationary orbit at 36,000 kilometers above the equator is named The Clarke Orbit by the International Astronomical Union.
After leaving the RAF in 1946, he resumed his formal studies and was awarded a Fellowship at King's College, London where he obtained first class honors in Physics and Mathematics in 1948.
In 1954, Clarke wrote to Dr. Harry Wexler, then chief of the Scientific Services Division, U.S. Weather Bureau, about satellite applications for weather forecasting. From these communications, a new branch of meteorology was born, and Dr. Wexler became the driving force in using rockets and satellites for meteorological research and operations.
At the same time, Clarke has been the author of many books, articles and papers. The first story he sold professionally was "Rescue Party", written in March 1945 and appearing in Astounding Science in May 1946. He went on to become a prolific writer of science fiction, renowned worldwide and with more than 70 titles to his name. Among his many non-fiction works, “Profiles of the Future” (1962) looked at the probable shape of tomorrow's world and stated his “Three Laws”.
In 1964, he started to work with the noted film producer Stanley Kubrick on a science fiction movie script. Four years later, he shared an Oscar nomination with Kubrick at the Hollywood Academy Awards for the film version of “2001: A Space Odyssey”. Then, in 1985, he published a sequel, “2010: Odyssey Two” and worked with Peter Hyams on the movie version. Their work was done using a Kaypro computer and a modem, linking Arthur in Sri Lanka and Peter Hyams in Los Angeles, leading to a book “The Odyssey File - The Making of 2010.”
In television, Clarke worked alongside Walter Cronkite and Wally Schirra for the CBS coverage of the Apollo 12 and 15 space missions. His thirteen-part TV series Arthur C. Clarke's Mysterious World in 1981 and Arthur C. Clarke's World of strange Powers in 1984 has been screened in many countries and he has contributed to other TV series about space, such as Walter Cronkite's Universe series in 1981.
Clarke first visited Colombo, Sri Lanka (then called Ceylon) in December 1954 and has lived there since 1956 pursuing an enthusiasm for underwater exploration along that coast and on the Great Barrier Reef. In recent years, he has been largely confined to a wheelchair due to post-polio syndrome, but his output as a writer has continued undiminished.
NOTE: the authorized biography by Neil McAleer - Arthur C. Clarke - The Authorized Biography - was published by Contemporary Books, Chicago, in 1992.
****
ARTHUR C. CLARKE: A life of writing in the sciences and arts
KEY NON FICTION WORKS
Extraterrestrial Relays in Wireless World
Space Stations for Global Communications in Wireless World
Ascent to Orbit: A Scientific Autobiography
Astounding days: A Science Fictional Autobiography
Boy Beneath the Sea
The Challenge of the Sea
The Challenge of the Spaceship
The Coast of Coral
The Coming of the Space Age (edited)
The Exploration of the Moon
The Exploration of Space
The First Five Fathoms
Going into Space
How the World Was One
Indian Ocean Adventure
Indian Ocean Treasure
Interplanetary Flight
The Making of a Moon
1984: Spring
Profiles of the Future
The Promise of Space
The Reefs of Taprobane
Report on Planet Three
Science Fiction Hall of fame, III (edited)
Three for Tomorrow (edited)
Time Probe (edited)
Treasure of the Great Reef
The View from Serendip
Voice Across the Sea
Voices from the Sky
Collaborative Works
With Simon Welfare and John Fairley
Arthur C. Clarke's Mysterious World
Arthur C. Clarke's World of Strange Powers
With the Astronauts
First on the Moon
With Robert Silverberg
Into Space
With Chesley Bonestell
Beyond Jupiter
With the Editors of Life
Man and Space
With Peter Hyams
The Odyssey File
KEY WORKS OF FICTION
Across the Seas of Stars
Against the Fall of Night
Childhood's End
City and the Stars
The Deep Range
Dolphin Island
Earthlight
Expedition to Earth
A Fall of Moondust
The Fountains of Paradise
From the Oceans, from the Stars
Ghosts from the Grand Banks
Glide Path
The Hammer of God
Imperial Earth
Islands in the Sky
The Lion of Comarre
The Lost Worlds of 2001
The Nine Billion Names of God
The Other Side of the Sky
Prelude to Mars
Prelude to Space
Reach for Tomorrow
Rendezvous with Rama
The Sands of Mars
The Sentinel
The Songs of Distant Earth
The Sentinel
Tales from the “White Hart”
Tales of Ten Worlds
2001: A Space Odyssey (With Stanley Kubrick)
2010: Odyssey Two
2061: Odyssey Three
3001: The Final Odyssey
The Wind from the Sun
Books with Gentry Lee
Cradle
Rama 11
