Arthur C. Clarke, 16 December 1917 – 19 March 2008.-- baconbrain, Mar 19 2008 Original paper about geostationary satellites http://lakdiva.org/clarke/1945ww/ [ConsulFlaminicus, Mar 19 2008] I always think of this http://www.thewho.n...e=discography&id=18 [angel, Mar 19 2008] Daily Mail http://www.dailymai...891&in_page_id=1770 [Amos Kito, Mar 19 2008] Monolith - 1:4:9 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Monolithfor [ye_river_xiv] [neutrinos_shadow, Mar 19 2008] Manhole Cover in Space http://www.abovetop...forum/thread4434/pg1st manmade object to reach final frontier? [thumbwax, Mar 20 2008] (?) Banana in Space http://www.geostati...ertexas.com/en.htmlI thought this was most excellent - had to share [xenzag, Mar 20 2008] 2010: Space Odyssey 2 http://www.answers....ic/2010-odyssey-twoThis was a great book. [quantum_flux, Mar 21 2008] On my list of things to do. https://www.google....al&client=firefox-a [doctorremulac3, Dec 14 2022] Bravo!-- MisterQED, Mar 19 2008 I was thinking of suggesting the (re)naming of the space station, but this is wonderful+-- theircompetitor, Mar 19 2008 [+]-- imaginality, Mar 19 2008 A black slab on Mars or the moon would be better, Yes?-- jhomrighaus, Mar 19 2008 Yes, on the moon. Someplace visible from Earth. Bonus points if it casts a large shadow.-- phoenix, Mar 19 2008 (+) <sigh> The world just got a little poorer.-- ConsulFlaminicus, Mar 19 2008 Just noted - the date of the idea posting is the day before the obit date. Time zones, obviously, but the speed of communicating the news is largely due to satellite transmission and mass telecoms - both legacies of Mr. Clarke.-- lurch, Mar 19 2008 [normzone], hooting and clutching a large bone, enthusiastically smacks it against other bones and throws it into the air.-- normzone, Mar 19 2008 Have a look at Sir Arthur's original paper [link] about the possibility of using geostationary satellites for communications.
I like to think he sometimes visited the 'Bakery.-- ConsulFlaminicus, Mar 19 2008 +-- hippo, Mar 19 2008 Thankfully, that hack Graham Hancock will have much more difficulty claiming that Arthur C. Clark has told him about any new life on Mars theories.-- ye_river_xiv, Mar 19 2008 Would someone care to do some calculations of how much it would cost to achieve? I believe the dimensional ratio is 1:4:9. Graphite (mass = 2.09 to 2.23 g/cc) might be a good material to use (I think that given the properties of different forms of carbon, it is reasonable to imagine that the original monoliths could have been entirely carbon). There may even be a form of carbon that would make the monolith useful, such as reflective glassy carbon so we can look at Earth, or perhaps even something that we can beam a signal at and use as a SETI transmitter (sending out 2001 might be the wrong message).
My rough guestimates assuming mass=2.15 and cost to GSO=$20/g: 90cm => 77.4 kg = $1,548,000 9m => 77.4 tonnes $1,548,000,000-- marklar, Mar 19 2008 You might be able to do it for quite a bit less. "Zagadka", TMA-2, was measured to have a "density only slightly higher than air", and was presumed to have been hollow.-- lurch, Mar 19 2008 Yes. Brilliant idea. I knew there'd be something on here about him as soon as i heard.-- nineteenthly, Mar 19 2008 + cool!-- xandram, Mar 19 2008 [marklar] - I don't think the monolith should be solid. It should be hollow and, somehow, full of stars.-- hippo, Mar 19 2008 R.I.P.
Fittingly, now he's inside a box he is no longer thinking....-- wagster, Mar 19 2008 Farewell, Arthur.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Mar 19 2008 My favorite Clarke quote: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from Magic." Very appropriate for the 'bakery. +
I had the pleasure of speaking with him on a satellite connection to Sri Lanka in 1979, for a panel discussion at CalTech. (setting up the connection, not actually conversing!)-- csea, Mar 19 2008 This would orbit Jupiter, right?-- ldischler, Mar 19 2008 Or Saturn. Depends if you go by the book or the film.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Mar 19 2008 Prior Art. RIP.-- lostdog, Mar 19 2008 If the walls were 1cm thick, the new guestimates are: 90cm => 20 kg = $400,000 9m => 1,042 kg = $20,840,000
They don't seem right but I can't see where I went wrong.
If the walls of an evacuated 9m monolith were 1mm thick it would have about the same mass as the same volume of air at 1atm. (37ish kg)-- marklar, Mar 19 2008 <Dave>Open the Pearly Gates, HAL</Dave>
<HAL's voice>I'm sorry, Dave, I can't do that.</HV>
Is it full of stars? .-- Dub, Mar 19 2008 .-- david_scothern, Mar 19 2008 He was wrong about the hovercraft though, sadly, wasn't he?-- nineteenthly, Mar 19 2008 Shirley the place to erect the monolith would be just outside the European Parliament building, so that all the monkeys can dance round it, grunting and scratching ?
Damn shame he never made it to orbit in person.-- 8th of 7, Mar 19 2008 Presumably he'll be cremated and his ashes sent into orbit. I'll be surprised if that doesn't happen.-- nineteenthly, Mar 19 2008 I'd read that he had arrangements made for a DNA sample (hair) to be put into orbit. (Much more practical if you ever want anyone to do anything with it, right?)-- lurch, Mar 19 2008 YES.
[+]-- qt75rx1, Mar 19 2008 "Oh my god! It's full of socks!" UnaBubba, Mar 19 2008
:D-- FlyingToaster, Mar 19 2008 <spills wine, breaks glass, reconsiders knowledge>-- daseva, Mar 19 2008 //I'd read that he had arrangements made for a DNA sample (hair) to be put into orbit. //Hmmm, probably weighs less than 20 grammes...hmmm.-- AbsintheWithoutLeave, Mar 19 2008 The ratios for the monolith were 1x3x9. Of course, they appear to have come in different sizes, so his hair could be put in a box of a gramme or two in mass made to those dimensions.-- ye_river_xiv, Mar 19 2008 What if his body was cremated, then the carbon was used to make the monument? One of my wife's exes may have been made into a diamond. His hair could then be placed inside it, maybe after being knitted into socks.
Wasn't he bald though?-- nineteenthly, Mar 19 2008 Only externally.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Mar 19 2008 There had to be one Bonehead here to trample on his memorial, it figures.-- jhomrighaus, Mar 20 2008 Don't feed the troll - just feel sorry for anyone who's only achievement in life is to leave a digital fishbone on someone else's idea for a memorial to a fine person.-- xenzag, Mar 20 2008 There is a commentary in The Times today by Darren Nash, editorial director of Britain's largest sci-fi publisher:"If you had asked me as a teenager what reading Arthur C Clarke felt like, I would have said: "Having my brain pried open and the Universe poured in".-- AbsintheWithoutLeave, Mar 20 2008 "Oh my god! It's full of socks!" [marked-for-tagline]-- RayfordSteele, Mar 20 2008 Of the best science-fiction writers of my youth--Asimov, Bradbury, Heinlein and Clarke-- Arthur C. Clarke wrote with the most humanity. He showed how people and the universe fit together.
I remember my outrage when a movie changed his book to make enemies out of the scientists of two nations, then brought in a powerful alien to force peace upon humans. People may not all be as good as Clarke wrote them, but many are, and I have always tried to be.-- baconbrain, Mar 20 2008 I found Clarke the most plausible of the people you mention, and although i feel his stories often lack much of a plot, the technology he depicts has an uncanny knack of coming to pass. I also like the strong Stapledon influence.
However, i'm afraid i don't like 2001. It's not Clarke's fault, but Kubrick seems to have taken over completely and turned it into something which is deeply shallow. Left to himself, i don't think he'd have been that vague.
'Profiles Of The Future' introduced me to the idea of hovercraft as a mainstream mode of transport, which makes him "one of us" i think.-- nineteenthly, Mar 20 2008 Why, oh, why, when those great names are listed (Asimov, Bradbury, Heinlein and Clarke), why is the name of Ellison left off? I shall never understand this. Great as they are, Harlan Ellison outdid them all.-- globaltourniquet, Mar 20 2008 Don't forget Philip K Dick and William Gibson.-- xenzag, Mar 20 2008 I don't know Gibson very well, but though I very much like Dick, he gets slotted just beneath all of them for me.-- globaltourniquet, Mar 20 2008 And let's hear it for HG Wells. But only after Arthur has had a chance to cool.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Mar 20 2008 Well, I never read Ellison 'till later, nor Niven. I was just referring to those of my impressionable youth in a small-town library.
As for the movie version of 2001; I never see any Kubrick movie if I can avoid it.-- baconbrain, Mar 20 2008 //But only after Arthur has had a chance to cool//
Point well taken. Apologies.
RIP, Arthur.-- globaltourniquet, Mar 20 2008 RIP Arthur C. Clarke, Space Odyssie 2010 was a sweet book that had a truly enlightening tail of Space Travel to it.
What would Jupiter think??? My answer is that Jupiter has what seems like an eternity to think about how lucky it was that it didn't gain enough mass to become a small star. Now it can possibly harbor life on its moons if it just keeps on tugging with those strong tidal forces. Um, just don't go startin' any fusion ignitions on the Jovians or Jupiter, the fallen star, will be converted into Luciferous the second sun!-- quantum_flux, Mar 21 2008 + what a bummer. I didn't know this. I have almost all of his books. I heard he was having complications from childhood polio, but I didn't expect to see this.
Will the Monolith transmit music?-- Zimmy, Mar 21 2008 [a single movement] I like your attribution of personal goals to the planets.
Uranus is just a lazy ass, ha-- daseva, Mar 21 2008 //Will the Monolith transmit music?// hmmm... a featureless 1:4:9 black iPod case? I'd be tempted, and I don't even have an iPod!-- lurch, Mar 21 2008 I miss the works he may have created, am thankful for the ones he shared, and think this is a fine idea.-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Mar 22 2008 How did I miss this? [+] [+] [+]!-- doctorremulac3, Dec 14 2022 Perhaps you were busy building Cheesehenge.-- whatrock, Dec 14 2022 On my list of things to do.-- doctorremulac3, Dec 14 2022 random, halfbakery