Arthur C Clarke's 90th birthday wish list

Arthur C Clarke's 90th birthday wish list
David Smith
Sunday December 16, 2007
The Observer

Arthur C Clarke, author of science fiction including 2001: A Space Odyssey, celebrates his 90th birthday today and continues to embrace new technology: he has marked it by releasing a video on the website YouTube.

In the nine-minute message, recorded at his home in Sri Lanka, Clarke makes three wishes. First, he would like evidence of extraterrestrial life. 'I have always believed that we are not alone in the universe,' he says. 'But we are still waiting for ETs to call us - or give us some kind of a sign.'

Watch it:



Evaluate him:



fyi
from Brittanica:
Arthur C. Clarke
born December 16, 1917, Minehead, Somerset, England


in full Arthur Charles Clarke English writer who is notable for both his science fiction and his nonfiction.

Clarke was interested in science from childhood, but he lacked the means for higher education. He worked as a government auditor from 1936 to 1941 andjoined a small, advanced group that called itself the British Interplanetary Society. From 1941 to 1946 Clarke served in the Royal Air Force, becoming a radar instructor and technician. While in the service he published his first science-fictionstories and in 1945 wrote an article entitled “Extra-Terrestrial Relays” for Wireless World. The article envisioned a communications satellite system that would relay radio and television signals throughout the world; this system was in operation two decades later.

In 1948 Clarke secured a bachelor of science degree from King's College in London. He went on to write more than 20 novels and 30 nonfiction books and is especially known for such novels as Against the Fall of Night (1953), Childhood's End (1953), The City and the Stars (1956), Rendezvous with Rama (1973; winner of Nebula and Hugo awards),The Fountains of Paradise (1979; winner of Nebula and Hugo awards), and The Songs of Distant Earth (1986). Collections of Clarke's essays and lectures include Voices from the Sky (1965), The View from Serendip (1977), Ascent to Orbit: A Scientific Autobiography (1984), Astounding Days: A Science Fictional Autobiography (1989), and By Space Possessed (1993).

In the 1950s Clarke developed an interest in undersea exploration and moved to Sri Lanka, where he embarked on a second career combining skin diving and photography; he produced a succession of books, the first of which was The Coast of Coral (1956).

Stanley Kubrick's hugely successful film 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) was based on Clarke's short story "The Sentinel" (1951), which Clarke and Kubrick subsequently developed into a novel (1968), published under the same name asthe movie. A sequel novel, 2010: Odyssey Two (1982), by Clarke alone, was releasedas a film in 1984. He was knighted in 2000.