Biography - Sir Arthur C. Clarke
Sir Arthur C. ClarkeThe 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.
Links,
* Wikipedia
* Official web Site
Friday, March 21, 2008
Biography - Sir Arthur C. Clarke
Saturday, October 27, 2007
The month to remember The Mahatma
A life as it was
October - the month to remember The Mahatma
Menika - The Friday's News
Loads have been written about Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, mostly in deep reverence of this saint. He himself wrote his autobiography: Gandhi: an autobiography: the story of my experiments with truth. October, as I said, sends our minds anew to remember him since he was born on October 2, 1869.
Latterly writers have written about his quirks, which certainly he had. He has been elevated to sainthood, and justifiably. He is by all counts the greatest man of the 20th century, beating by lengths the other person voted to this position by the western world, namely Winston Churchill.
We could also justifiably say he is the second or third greatest Indian of all time, coming third to Siddhartha Gotama, the Buddha, and Emperor Asoka the Great.
But idiosyncrasies the Mahatma did have.
I’ve been reading Alex von Tunzelmann’s Indian Summer: the secret history of the end of empire. The word ‘secret’ immediately connotes expectations of hidden facts, OK gossip, mostly human idiosyncrasies being revealed, and they are, like the very close relationship enjoyed by Nehru and Edwina Mountbatten. And so are revealed some of the quirks of the Great Mahatma himself, which to me definitely do not diminish his stature, but enhance it by showing he was a human being with human foibles who reached beyond and above them in his attempt to take himself and others closer to God (the Hindu god in this case, but Gandhi did revere all religions) and to almost kill himself through starving to attain peace between warring Hindus and Moslems and to gain independence for India from British rule.
Idiosyncrasy one
Gandhi swore to the vow of celibacy in 1906, where brahmacharya meant control not only of the sexual urge but of the senses in thought, word and deed. Now I personally have to quarrel with his making others take the vow. He almost forced it on Kasturba, his wife, but that was not too difficult for her since she was his faithful wife and followed him in everyway in true Indian style. But he promoted, even enforced brahmacharya in his ashram in Gujerat where he: “broke up several marriages by persuading woman to renounce sex.”
He was getting more and more distant from his sons. I quote from Tunzelmann’s book. “By the middle of the 1920s, his relationship with them had become extremely difficult. When 18-year-old Manilal was caught in an embrace with a young, married Indian woman, Mohandas coerced her into shaving her head and extracted from Manilal a vow of lifelong chastity. In 1926, still languishing under his vow, Manilal fell in love with a Muslim woman called Fatima. Mohandas was outraged. “Your desire is against your religion” he wrote to Manilal. The son did not marry Fatima. Even when the youngest son Devadas fell in love with Chakravarty Rajagopalachari’s daughter, the couples were asked to delay marriage for five years, which they did and then wed.
Gandhi considered birth control a sin since it “allowed a person to indulge his animal passion and escape the consequences of his act.” Nehru was totally opposed to this idea, and Gandhi’s advocating total abstinence from sex.
Idiosyncrasy two
Gandhi’s aversion to medicine, especially western medicine, was another idea that we do not subscribe to now, in that he could follow it but it was not justified in forcing the idea on others.
While Gandhi was in prison, in December 1943, Kasturba fell ill with bronchitis which soon deteriorated to pneumonia. Doctors advised Gandhi to stay away from his wife, but he believed not in germ theory so took it upon himself to nurse the ailing woman. Penicillin was prescribed but Gandhi did not administer it to her, rather did he want her to pray for her recovery. Son Devadas had penicillin flown in from Calcutta but though he fought with his father to have the medicine injected, the father remained adamant. Instead he surrounded the dying woman with his followers who sang devotional songs. Kasturbai pleaded for castor oil to relieve her; he refused it.
“A patient should never try to be his or her own doctor. I would like you to give up medicine now.”
Harilal, another son, arrived drunk and so was not allowed to see his mother, though she “sobbed and beat her forehead with her hands.” She died the next day and Mohandas was devastated. Sushila Nayyar visited the sorrowing man that night. “How God has tested my faith,” he said. “If I had allowed you to give her penicillin, it could not have saved her. But it would have meant bankruptcy of faith on my part... And she passed away in my lap. Could it be better? I am happy beyond measure.” After his sons disposed of the ashes, Gandhi cried.
Idiosyncrasy three
Much is written now about Gandhi’s later habit of sleeping with a nude or half nude young girl in his room, testing his strength to keep his vow of chastity and his emotions free of desire. An example is Gandhi’s grandniece, Abha, sleeping next to him when she was sixteen and he 74.
There were many other quirks which people still do not understand.
Churchill’s condemnations
We are familiar with the truly abominable comment Churchill made on seeing a picture of Gandhi visiting the Viceroy in Delhi. His comment to Irvin: “a seditious Middle Temple lawyer, now posing as a fakir of a type well-known in the East, is striding half -naked up the steps of the Viceregal Palace.” Irvin ignored him and later when asked whether Gandhi had been very tiresome, Irwin replied: “Some people found Our Lord very tiresome.”
On Gandhi’s fasts Churchill commented: “I do not think Gandhi has the slightest intention of dying. And I imagine he has been eating better meals than I have for the past week.” As the author of Indian Summer comments: “This was an overstatement. Even outside his fasts, Gandhi was not known to open a bottle of wine at breakfast.” (!). Churchill even had the audacity to think that Gandhi was taking glucose while on his fasts unto death and wanted this covertly investigated. Churchill also wrote to Viceroy Linlithgow: “I have long known Gandhi as the world’s most successful humbug. I am suggesting slyly to certain American correspondents here that it has not been so much a matter of having their heartstrings plucked as of their legs being pulled. What fools we should have been to bend before all his bluff and sob-stuff.”
But in spite of the controversy that surrounded the Mahatma and surrounds his memory even now, he was absolutely charismatic and he charmed people with his sincerity and humour. Nehru was closest to him and like a son; Kamala Nehru adored him as did Edwina Mountbatten, proof of which was the picture of Gandhi entering the viceregal palace during the first week of the Mountbatten couple’s arrival in India, with his arm on Edwina’s shoulder for support and companionship.
Feedback : editor.friday@lakehouse.lk
