[ExI] Arthur C. Clarke dies

John K Clark jonkc at att.net
Sat Mar 29 22:48:48 UTC 2008


John Grigg wrote:

> my beloved "Profiles of the Future,"

Boy oh boy can I ever relate to that! I must have read that book when
I was 9 or 10, and it created a singularity in my subjective life; an
enormous asteroid just crashed into Chiksulub! In the unlikely event I
survive the Singularity I will remember Arthur C. Clarke forever!

And no, as much as I'd like to claim to be Arthur C. Clarke's illegitimate
son as far as I know we are unrelated, although there were times I
considered adding an "e" to my name.

It's sort of interesting and I'm sure that Arthur would be amused at the
coincidence that on the very day he died for the first time in human
history a Gamma Ray burst occurred that was so bright that a human
being could detect it with his naked eye, something that occurred
halfway across the universe 8 billion years ago. It is by far the
most distant object a human being could see with his naked eye.
Nobody, absolutely nobody, could have stage managed
Arthur C. Clarke's death more skillfully. I am impressed.

It reminds me of his short story "The Star" where the Star of Bethlehem
turned out to be a Supernova that incinerated a very advanced and noble
civilization. I like that, I like that a lot, and I like to  think Arthur 
would
have been equally amused.

I still haven't figured out exactly how Arthur persuaded that thing,
whatever it was, to explode 8 billion years ago, but there is no reason I
should have; Arthur was a man who was much smarter than me.

 John K Clark (unfortunately no "e")










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