Clarke

Clarke, Arthur C. (Sir Arthur Charles Clarke), 1917-2008, British science fiction writer. During World War II he served as a radar instructor and aviator in the Royal Air Force. After the war he obtained a degree in physics and mathematics from King's College, London (1948) and in 1956 he settled permanently in Sri Lanka. His popular, technologically realistic books and stories are based not solely on imagination but also on scientific fact and theory. His works blend dread and wonder as they examine the search for meaning in the universe and as they champion the idea that humanity's future lies far beyond Earth. Among his nearly 100 books are Childhood's End (1953), The Nine Billion Names of God (1967), Rendezvous with Rama (1973), and The Songs of Distant Earth (1983); he alwo wrote more than 1,000 short stories and essays. In 1968 he collaborated with filmmaker Stanley Kubrick on 2001: A Space Odyssey, a novel that became an extremely successful motion picture with a screenplay also co-written by Kubrick and Clarke. Three novelistic sequels by Clarke followed, the last in 1997. Clarke's Collected Stories were published in 2001. Many of his ideas proved to be prophetic. In 1945, for instance, Clarke proposed the concept of positioning an artificial satellite in an orbit in which it circles the earth every 24 hours, thus appearing stationary to the locale below. Today, dozens of such communications satellites orbit the earth in a geosynchronous circuit known as the Clarke orbit. He was knighted in 1998.

Clarke, Charles Cowden, 1787-1877, English lecturer and author. He was a close friend of Keats, who was a pupil of Clarke's father. Clarke's lectures on Shakespeare were published as Shakespeare Characters (1863). He and his wife, Mary Victoria (Novello) Cowden Clarke, 1809-98, wrote Recollections of Writers (1878), and she compiled The Complete Concordance to Shakespeare (1844-45).

Clarke, James Freeman, 1810-88, American Unitarian clergyman and author, b. Hanover, N.H. While in charge of the Unitarian church in Louisville, Ky. (1833-40), he was for three years editor of the Western Messenger. He helped found the Church of the Disciples in Boston in 1841 and was its pastor until 1888, except in the years from 1850 to 1854. He was (1867-71) a nonresident professor in the Harvard Divinity School. The Transcendental Club, with such members as Bronson Alcott and Emerson, included Clarke, and he was active in the antislavery, woman-suffrage, and other reform movements. Among his books, influential in their day, were Ten Great Religions (2 vol., 1871-83), Orthodoxy: Its Truths and Errors (1866), and Essentials and Non-Essentials in Religion (1878).

Clarke, John, 1609-76, one of the founders of Rhode Island, b. Westhorpe, Suffolk, England. He emigrated to Boston in 1637 and shortly thereafter joined Anne Hutchinson (with whom he had sided in the antinomian controversy) and William Coddington in founding (1638) Portsmouth on Aquidneck (Rhode Island). The next year, he and Coddington withdrew to found Newport, where he was both physician and Baptist pastor. Clarke favored the 1647 union of the Aquidneck settlements with Providence and Warwick and in 1651 went with Roger Williams to England to defend the union against Coddington's attacks. They were successful, and Williams soon returned. Clarke remained in England and was influential in securing the liberal charter of 1663. On his return to Rhode Island he served (1664-69) in the general assembly and was thrice elected deputy governor. His Ill Newes from New England (1652) was an arraignment of Massachusetts authorities for their hostility to religious liberty.

Clarke, Mary Victoria (Novello) Cowden: see under Clarke, Charles Cowden.

Clarke, Samuel, 1675-1729, English philosopher and divine. His chief interest was rational theology, and, although a critic of the deists, he was in sympathy with some of their ideas. He supported the theories of Newton and argued with Leibniz in defense of the existence of absolute space. Clarke maintained that ethical law is as constant as mathematical law. His published works include many translations, lectures, sermons, and commentaries. The Leibniz correspondence was published in 1717.

Clarke, Walter, c.1638-1714, colonial governor of Rhode Island, b. Newport, R.I. He was deputy governor (1679-86, 1700-1714) and was three times governor (1676-77, 1686, 1696-98) of Rhode Island. He is chiefly remembered for his refusal to surrender the Rhode Island charter upon the demand of Sir Edmund Andros.

(born July 31, 1837, Canal Dover, Ohio, U.S.—died June 6, 1865, Louisville, Ky.) U.S. outlaw and Confederate guerrilla. After working as an itinerant schoolteacher, he moved to Kansas, where he failed at farming. By 1860 he was a horse thief and murderer. In the American Civil War he joined the Confederate army and later gathered a gang of guerrillas to raid and rob Union towns and farms. Quantrill's Raiders were made an official troop by the Confederates in 1862. In 1863 Quantrill and his group of about 450 men sacked the free-state town of Lawrence, Kan., killing 150 people. They later defeated a Union detachment, killing 90 soldiers. Quantrill was mortally wounded in a raid into Kentucky.

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(born July 31, 1837, Canal Dover, Ohio, U.S.—died June 6, 1865, Louisville, Ky.) U.S. outlaw and Confederate guerrilla. After working as an itinerant schoolteacher, he moved to Kansas, where he failed at farming. By 1860 he was a horse thief and murderer. In the American Civil War he joined the Confederate army and later gathered a gang of guerrillas to raid and rob Union towns and farms. Quantrill's Raiders were made an official troop by the Confederates in 1862. In 1863 Quantrill and his group of about 450 men sacked the free-state town of Lawrence, Kan., killing 150 people. They later defeated a Union detachment, killing 90 soldiers. Quantrill was mortally wounded in a raid into Kentucky.

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(born July 15, 1779, New York, N.Y., U.S.—died July 10, 1863, Newport, R.I.) U.S. scholar remembered for the ballad that begins “'Twas the night before Christmas.” Moore cofounded General Theological Seminary and taught Oriental and Greek literature there (1821–50). He is said to have composed “A Visit to St. Nicholas” to amuse his children on Christmas 1822, and it was published anonymously in the Troy (N.Y.) Sentinel, on Dec. 23, 1823. In 2000 it was determined that the poem was probably the work of Henry Livingston, Jr. (1748–1828).

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(born Oct. 4, 1626—died July 12, 1712, Cheshunt, Hertfordshire, Eng.) Lord protector of England (September 1658–May 1659). He was the eldest surviving son of Oliver Cromwell, who groomed him for high office. He served in the Parliamentary army and was a member of Parliament and the council of state. After his father's death he was proclaimed lord protector, but he soon encountered serious difficulties and was forced to abdicate. Having amassed large debts, he fled to Paris in 1660 to escape his creditors; in 1680 he returned and lived in seclusion.

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(born July 15, 1779, New York, N.Y., U.S.—died July 10, 1863, Newport, R.I.) U.S. scholar remembered for the ballad that begins “'Twas the night before Christmas.” Moore cofounded General Theological Seminary and taught Oriental and Greek literature there (1821–50). He is said to have composed “A Visit to St. Nicholas” to amuse his children on Christmas 1822, and it was published anonymously in the Troy (N.Y.) Sentinel, on Dec. 23, 1823. In 2000 it was determined that the poem was probably the work of Henry Livingston, Jr. (1748–1828).

Learn more about Moore, Clement Clarke with a free trial on Britannica.com.

Arthur C. Clarke formulated the following three "laws" of prediction:

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.

Origins

The first of the three laws, previously termed Clarke's Law, was proposed by Arthur C. Clarke in the essay "Hazards of Prophecy: The Failure of Imagination", in Profiles of the Future (1962).

The second law is offered as a simple observation in the same essay; its status as Clarke's Second Law was conferred on it by others.

In a 1973 revision of his compendium of essays, Profiles of the Future, Clarke acknowledged the Second Law and proposed the Third in order to round out the number, adding "As three laws were good enough for Newton, I have modestly decided to stop there." Of the three, the Third Law is the best known and most widely cited.

Clarke's Third Law codifies perhaps the most significant of Clarke's unique contributions to speculative fiction. A model to other writers of hard science fiction, Clarke postulates advanced technologies without resorting to flawed engineering concepts (as Jules Verne sometimes did) or explanations grounded in incorrect science or engineering (a hallmark of "bad" science fiction), or taking clues from trends in research and engineering (which dates some of Larry Niven's novels). Accordingly, the powers of any future superintelligence or hyperintelligence which Clarke often described would seem astonishing.

But in novels such as The City and the Stars and the story "The Sentinel" (upon which 2001: A Space Odyssey was based) Clarke goes further; he presents us with ultra-advanced technologies developed by hyperintelligences limited only by fundamental science. In Against the Fall of Night the human race has mysteriously regressed after a full billion years of civilization. Humanity is faced with the remnants of its past glories: for example, a network of roads and sidewalks that flow like rivers. Although physically possible, it is inexplicable from their perspective. Clarke's Third Law explains the source of our amazement as our limitation, rather than the impossibility of the technology.

In his 1999 revision of Profiles of the Future, published in London by Indigo, Clarke added his Fourth Law: "For every expert there is an equal and opposite expert."

References in other works

Clarke's laws, especially the third, have been referenced or alluded to numerous times in literature. Sometimes they provide corollaries to one or more of the laws. Often, these are parodies solely for humor value, but sometimes they offer interesting applications or perspectives.

• Isaac Asimov wrote a corollary to Clarke's First Law, stating
• : "When, however, the lay public rallies round an idea that is denounced by distinguished but elderly scientists and supports that idea with great fervor and emotion -- the distinguished but elderly scientists are then, after all, probably right."
• Larry Niven, in discussing fantasy, wrote that "any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology." This is sometimes known as "Niven's Law" although it is not to be confused with the list of "Niven's laws". Mercedes Lackey has been quoted with the same law.
• Terry Pratchett refers to Niven's inversion of the third law in his Discworld books by having wizard Ponder Stibbons state that "Any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology." Pratchett also alludes to the second law in another Discworld work, The Last Hero: Leonard of Quirm is working on the Discworld's first (non-magical) flying machine, and states that he has no use for artisans who have "learned the limits of the possible."
• In the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Where No One Has Gone Before", an engineer comments on an advanced alien's technology, saying "You're asking us to believe in magic." The alien (known only as "Traveler") replies, "Yes, I guess from your perspective it does seem like magic."
• In the first non-Asimov Foundation novel, Foundation's Fear, the emperor declares, "If technology is distinguishable from magic, it is insufficiently advanced." This is a paraphrase of Gehm's Corollary to Clarke's Third Law, "Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced."
• In Superman Returns, Lex Luthor is twice heard saying, in reference to Kryptonian technology, that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. "Clarke's Third Law" is cited in the end credits.
• In the online webcomic Freefall, a third corollary is introduced by one of the main characters, Florence Ambrose: "Any technology, no matter how primitive, is magic to those who do not understand it."
• In The Simpsons episode Future-Drama, Marge Simpson states "We can do anything now that science has invented Magic," providing an ironic resolution to the issue of what's what.
• In Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle, Jack Shaftoe remarks to Enoch Root "They cannot see the string at this distance, and suppose you are doing some sort of magick", who responds "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a yo-yo."

See also

• Isaac Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics
• Sturgeon's Revelation
• Grey's Law
• Adages named after people
• First contact (anthropology)
• SETI
• Futures studies
• Shermer's Last Law
• Clark's Law

External links

• The origins of the Three Laws
• "What's Your Law?" (lists some of the corollaries)
• "A Gadget Too Far" at Infinity Plus
• Corollary in "Free Fall"