Sir Arthur C. Clarke, Science Fiction Author and Visionary, Dies at 90

Sir Arthur C. Clarke, science fiction colossus and visionary, who first espoused the idea of geosynchronous satellites for telecommunications, died today in Colombo, Sri Lanka. He had turned 90 on December 16, 2007.

When I visited him in January, he was in the hospital with severe back pain. Since then, he has been in and out of the hospital. The end came around 1:30 a.m. Wednesday Sri Lanka time (about 4:00 p.m. Eastern today) and was because of breathing difficulties, the Associated Press is reporting. He had been suffering from post-polio syndrome, which left him wheelchair bound; he had a bout of polio in the late 1950s.

I found Sir Arthur - he was knighted in 2000 - to be a warm, funny and magnanimous man. Even though he was in severe pain and confined to a hospital bed, he said he would meet me since I had made the long trip.

He had been interviewed by Spectrum on occasion of the 50th anniversary of the launch of Sputnik 1. Here's the link to the piece:

http://spectrum.ieee.org/oct07/5584

Sir Arthur had a restless intelligence, and a mischievous sense of humor. Though confined to a wheelchair because of his condition in recent years, he kept up his spirits, saying this left him with more time to think and roam the universe with his mind.

He told me that he thinks his most important contribution is his 1945 paper in Wireless World that talked about geostationary satellites and telecommunications. He also added that a future generation may think it is the space elevator - if the space elevator is ever built. He was one of the space elevator's early champions.

He wrote a hundred works of fiction and non-fiction. He was also an accomplished underwater explorer.

The New York Times has posted a good obituary of him:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/18/books/18cnd-clarke.html?pagewanted=1&hp

The world will miss him.