When the classical music piece, Also Sprach Zarathustra plays, people remember many things.  To a wrestling fan, it heralds the arrival of pro wrestler Ric Flair; to a Elvis fan, it was the last thing played before the entrance of the King of Rock and Roll.  To anyone who has attended one of the outdoor screenings of movies sponsored by Alamo Drafthouse Cinema Rolling Roadshow, it means the inflatable screen is rising up and the movie is about to start.  However each of these groups of people also remember that it is the theme to the most famous science fiction film of all time, 2001: A Space Odyssey, the incredible movie co-written by Stanley Kubrick and Sir Arthur C. Clarke.

Sir Arthur C. Clarke's life was an incredible one as a scientist, explorer, author, and visionary.  His writings forecast inventions of the future, one of which was the communications satellite and the orbit they are placed into, the geosynchronous orbit which is also know as the Clarke Orbit.  His explorations of the Great Barrier Reef and Indian Ocean earned him great respect.  While his greatest fame came from 2001, he was not limited to science fiction.  He was the author of numerous volumes on both the exploration of space and of this earth.  

Sir Arthur was no stranger to television.  When Apollo 11 flew to the moon, he appeared during the coverage of it's flight on CBS with Walter Cronkite.  He also appeared during their coverage of Apollo 12 and 15.  He also hosted Arthur C. Clarke's Mysterious World, World of Strange Powers, and Mysterious Universe.  In his adopted home of Sri Lanka, he had an undersea diving business called Undersea Safaris.  His was a very diverse life.

The honors he has received would take more space that this column allows.  They range from Academy Award nominations (along with Kubrick for 2001) to nomination for a Nobel Peace Prize for his role in the development of communication satellites to the naming of the Apollo 13 Command Module “Odyssey” in his honor..  He was the seventh recipient of what is now known as the Damon Knight Memorial Science Fiction Grand Master Award, which is awarded by the Science Fiction and Fantasy writers of America.  He was also knighted by Queen Elizabeth II as a Commander of the British Empire.  

On his 90th birthday, Sir Arthur said, “Sometimes I am asked how I would like to be remembered.  I have had a diverse career as a writer, underwater explorer, and space promoter.  Of all of these, I would like to be remembered as a writer.”  Indeed he will.  Along with the classic 2001, there are the three sequels, 2010, 2061, and 3001 The Final Odyssey.  There are also Childhood's End, The Fountains of Paradise, Rendezvous with Rama.  One final novel, which he had reviewed the final transcript for before his death, The Last Theorem (co-written with Frederik Pohl) is schedule for release later this year.

His impact on science fiction as a whole is far too vast to completely account.  Over the years, he created what are called Clarke's Three Laws of prediction.  (He commented in 1973 that if three laws were good enough for Newton, then he had modestly decided to stop there.)  Those three laws are:

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.

Evidence and references to these three laws can be found in numerous examples of science fiction from Babylon 5's Technomages to Doctor Who's reference to it in the episode “Battlefield”, from Stargate SG1's Goa'ulds and Ori  to Star Trek the Next Generation's Where No One Has Gone Before and Who Watches the Watchers.  The writers of Superman Returns have Lex Luthor refer to the third law twice in that film.

Sadly, his odyssey with us on the Earth ended Wednesday at the age of 90.  To say his absence will be keenly felt would truly be an understatement of galactic proportions.  This weekend, he will be laid to rest in his beloved Sri Lanka, but the effects of his work will be felt by generations to come.

Hugh Robert Orr once wrote, “They are not dead who live in lives they leave behind; In those whom they have blessed, they live a life again, And shall live, through the years, Eternal life, and grow each day more beautiful As time declares their good, Forget the rest, and prove”  In my opinion, and the opinion of other science fiction fans who wrote me yesterday, Sir Arthur C. Clarke's earthy life is at an end, but his legacy will live on for the ages.