90th birth day
The special day was last Sunday. In the morning there was a small celebration at Sir Arthur’s place which was attended by his closest friends and family.
Sir Arthur happly cut the cake while everyone else sang "happy birthday"...
In the evening, a government hosted celebration took place with the presence of President of Sri Lanka – Mr. Mahinda Rajapakse, Russian Cosmonaut – Alexi Leonov, NASA scientist – Dr. Michael Zolenesky, NASA-JPL sicnetist – Dr. Sarath Gunapala, Prof.U. R. Rao – Indian Space Research Organization, Dr. Sajid Mirza of Pakistan Space & Upper Atmosphere Research Commission (SUPARCO), Prof. K. K. Y. W. Perera – Chairman of Arthur C Clarke Institute for Modern Technology-Sri Lanka and many other distinguished guests.
90th Birthday Reflections video
90th birthday wish blog
Presidential Birthday Wish
Text of video address (running time: 9 mins 3 secs) Recoded on 5th December 2007
Hello! This is Arthur Clarke, speaking to you from my home in Colombo, Sri Lanka.
As I approach my 90th birthday, my friends are asking how it feels like, to have completed 90 orbits around the Sun.
Well, I actually don't feel a day older than 89!
Of course, some things remind me that I have indeed qualified as a senior citizen. As Bob Hope once said: "You know you're getting old, when the candles cost more than the cake!"
I’m now perfectly happy to step aside and watch how things evolve. But there's also a sad side to living so long: most of my contemporaries and old friends have already departed. However, they have left behind many fond memories, for me to recall.
I now spend a good part of my day dreaming of times past, present and future. As I try to survive on 15 hours’ sleep a day, I have plenty of time to enjoy vivid dreams. Being completely wheel-chaired doesn't stop my mind from roaming the universe – on the contrary!
In my time I’ve been very fortunate to see many of my dreams come true! Growing up in the 1920s and 1930s, I never expected to see so much happen in the span of a few decades. We 'space cadets' of the British Interplanetary Society spent all our spare time discussing space travel – but we didn’t imagine that it lay in our own near future…
I still can't quite believe that we've just marked the 50th anniversary of the Space Age! We’ve accomplished a great deal in that time, but the 'Golden Age of Space' is only just beginning. After half a century of government-sponsored efforts, we are now witnessing the emergence of commercial space flight. Over the next 50 years, thousands of people will travel to Earth orbit – and then, to the Moon and beyond. Space travel – and space tourism – will one day become almost as commonplace as flying to exotic destinations on our own planet.
Things are also changing rapidly in many other areas of science and technology. To give just one example, the world's mobile phone coverage recently passed 50 per cent -- or 3.3 billion subscriptions. This was achieved in just a little over a quarter century since the first cellular network was set up. The mobile phone has revolutionized human communications, and is turning humanity into an endlessly chattering global family!
What does this mean for us as a species?
Communication technologies are necessary, but not sufficient, for us humans to get along with each other. This is why we still have many disputes and conflicts in the world. Technology tools help us to gather and disseminate information, but we also need qualities like tolerance and compassion to achieve greater understanding between peoples and nations.
I have great faith in optimism as a guiding principle, if only because it offers us the opportunity of creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. So I hope we've learnt something from the most barbaric century in history – the 20th. I would like to see us overcome our tribal divisions and begin to think and act as if we were one family. That would be real globalisation…
As I complete 90 orbits, I have no regrets and no more personal ambitions. But if I may be allowed just three wishes, they would be these.
Firstly, I would like to see some evidence of extra-terrestrial life. I have always believed that we are not alone in the universe. But we are still waiting for ETs to call us – or give us some kind of a sign. We have no way of guessing when this might happen – I hope sooner rather than later!
Secondly, I would like to see us kick our current addiction to oil, and adopt clean energy sources. For over a decade, I've been monitoring various new energy experiments, but they have yet to produce commercial scale results. Climate change has now added a new sense of urgency. Our civilisation depends on energy, but we can't allow oil and coal to slowly bake our planet…
The third wish is one closer to home. I’ve been living in Sri Lanka for 50 years – and half that time, I’ve been a sad witness to the bitter conflict that divides my adopted country. I dearly wish to see lasting peace established in Sri Lanka as soon as possible. But I’m aware that peace cannot just be wished -- it requires a great deal of hard work, courage and persistence.
* * * * *
I’m sometimes asked how I would like to be remembered. I’ve had a diverse career as a writer, underwater explorer, space promoter and science populariser. Of all these, I want to be remembered most as a writer – one who entertained readers, and, hopefully, stretched their imagination as well.
I find that another English writer -- who, coincidentally, also spent most of his life in the East -- has expressed it very well. So let me end with these words of Rudyard Kipling:
If I have given you delight
by aught that I have done.
Let me lie quiet in that night
which shall be yours anon;
And for the little, little span
the dead are borne in mind,
seek not to question other than,
the books I leave behind.
This is Arthur Clarke, saying Thank You and Goodbye from Colombo!
90th birthday wish blog
Sixty two years ago Arthur C. Clarke of the British Interplanetary Society sent a letter to the editor titled Peacetime Uses for V2 which was published in the 1945 February issue of the Wireless World magazine suggesting the use of Geostationary Satellites for the instant global communications. Quoting,“I would like to close by mentioning a possibility of the more remote future--perhaps half a century ahead. An ``artificial satellite'' at the correct distance from the earth would make one revolution every 24 hours; i.e., it would remain stationary above the same spot and would be within optical range of nearly half the earth's surface. Three repeater stations, 120 degrees apart in the correct orbit, could give television and microwave coverage to the entire planet.”
Today, the Clarke Orbit has over 330 satellites. Sir Arthur C. Clarke, a science-fiction author, inventor, and futurist, simply a greate mind celebrates his 90th birth anniversary on 16th of December, 2007.
In 1959, he founded the Ceylon Astronomical Association (now known as Sri Lanka Astronomical Association). As the current General Secretary of the Association, I’m honored to run an association founded by him. And as a big fan of his writings and admirer of his work, I have put up a blog where every one could wish him for his 90th birth day.
If you are a friend, colleague, fan or simply an earthling who admires work of Sir Arthur Clarke, please write your greetings and good wishes on the blog.
Please forward this message around and publish it in your website/ magazine/ paper/blog etc… if possible. Let us wish together a healthy and a long life for Sir Arthur.
Post your greetings and wishes at http://SirArthurCClarke90.blogspot.com
President assures Sir Arthur a lasting peace in the country
12/16/2007
The world knows Arthur C Clarke as an author, promoter of space exploration and for his contribution to popularizing science. I recall watching ‘2001 Space Odyssey’ with awe in the early 1960s. At the time this was all fantasy. But 40 years later, much of it has become part of our daily experience. We in Sri Lanka, his adopted land, know him as the most famous non-national to call Sri Lanka his home. He has lived among us for over half a century since 1956, and has made enormous intellectual, cultural and scientific contributions to Sri Lanka’s development through much of its post-independent period.
I understand it was Sir Arthur’s interest in underwater exploration that first brought him to Sri Lanka in 1955, and after his first expedition to the island, he decided to settle down here in 1956. He formed the diving company Underwater Safari in 1959, which pioneered professional diving and underwater tourism in Sri Lanka.
From that beginning, over the past half a century, Sir Arthur has contributed towards the development of education and higher education in Sri Lanka in numerous ways. He served as Chancellor of the University of Moratuwa from 1979 to 2002, when ill health forced him to resign. He was also on the Board of the Institute of Fundamental Studies (IFS) in its formative years, working with the late Professor Cyril Ponnamperuma. He also supported the setting up of the government institute for promoting new technologies in Sri Lanka, which is now named after him as the Arthur C Clarke Institute for Modern Technologies. In 1959 the Ceylon Astronomical Association was inaugurated by Sir Arthur and his colleague late Herschel Gunawardene.
For half a century, Sir Arthur has also written and broadcast extensively promoting Sri Lanka as a tourist destination. He has spent a good deal of time telling the world why he lives in Sri Lanka through good times and bad. “The short answer, of course, is that I had had enough of 30 years of British winters!” he says. As for the long answer, he has written several books giving parts of it, much to the delight of Sri Lanka’s tourism promoters. As he once summed it up: I quote: “Although Sri Lanka’s scenic beauty, natural environment and the climate all made it attractive, these were not the only reasons why I settled down here. There are islands in the Pacific perhaps more lovely and more temperate than this, but they have little culture, and no sense of the past-nothing to engage the intellect”. And he went on to say: “Its twenty-five hundred years of written history, and the abundant ruins and archeological artifacts, are testimony to the great technological and philosophical civilization that once thrived on the island”.
Sir Arthur has written several works of fiction that are based partly or wholly in Sri Lanka, thus immortalizing the country in the world of literature. We know where he derived his inspiration-Sri Lanka. Perhaps the best known is his 1978 science fiction novel, The Fountains of Paradise, in which he popularized the revolutionary concept of the Space Elevator, now being developed as an alternative way to travel to Earth orbit. The story unfolds on the equatorial island of Taprobane- a thinly disguised Sri Lanka-several decades in the future. But the main locations are unmistakable: the Sacred Mountain in Adam’s Peak, and ‘Yakkagala’ is, in fact, Sigiriya.
Sir Arthur has been fascinated by Sigiriya ever since he first visited it in 1955, when he called it “Fortress in the Sky”. In later years, Sir Arthur spent many weeks studying the ruins and historical records of Sigiriya-which he calls the eighth wonder of the world. He has worked with archeologists like the late Dr. Senarath Paranavithana, the late Charles Godakumbura and Professor Senaka Bandaranayake in showcasing Sigiriya as one of the most advanced technological accomplishments of the ancient world.
Sir Arthur has not only helped promote our cultural heritage, he has also continued to advise us on how to conserve our natural heritage. Early on, Sir Arthur foresaw the hazards of unregulated coastal activities including tourism, and worked closely with Sri Lankan government officials to formulate laws and regulations for coastal zone management. Parallel to this, he waged a long-standing personal crusade to save the coral reefs around Sri Lanka, which are under threat from coral mining and unsustainable fishery practices such as dynamiting. Sir Arthur has used his outstanding communications skills and considerable influence in support of a variety of conservation causes in his adopted land. In the 1980s, he persuaded the government to designate Hikkaduwa as the country’s first marine sanctuary. He continues to speak out whenever necessary on matters as diverse as halting dolphin killings, saving elephants, energy conservation and preventing marine pollution. He is a voice of reason and moderation that is respected and heeded.
Sir Arthur has also lent his talents to the Sri Lankan film industry. The highlight was in 1962 when Sir Arthur financed, through Serendip Productions Company, the first ever colour feature film to be made in Sri Lanka, Ran Muthu Duwa. It was directed by Sri Arthur’s diving partner and long-time friend Mike Wilson, and involved talented Sri Lankans like Shesha Palihakkara, Titus Totawatte and Tissa Liyanasuriya in the production team, and the late Gamini Fonseka and Joe Abeywickrema in the cast. It is still considered a landmark in our cinema history. Sir Arthur later also ‘starred’ in a Sinhala film. In 1978, he played the role of Leonard Wolf in Baddegama, which was Dr. Lester James Peiris’s movie adaptation of The Village in the Jungle. Lester persuaded Sir Arthur to say a few words in Sinhala after sentencing Silindu at the Hambantota Magistrate’s court where colonial officer Leonard Wolf once presided.
Sir Arthur’s passion for his adopted home has been displayed in abundance by these various facets of activity in which he has made a lasting impact. To my mind, there is none more telling, than his response in the aftermath of the tsunami which hit Sri Lanka on 26 December 2004, as people the world over expressed concern for his safety and whether he would continue to live here, he assured them that he would and focused international attention on the need for a tsunami warning system.
In a “Letter from Sri Lanka” which appeared in the magazine Wired on the tsunami recovery and the roles of science fiction and technology in predicting future disasters, Sri Arthur was to observe…I quote: “Cameras and other communications media have to do more that just document the devastation and mobilize emergency relief. We need to move beyond body counts and aid appeals to find lasting, meaningful ways of supporting Asia’s recovery. In that sense, the Asian tsunami becomes a test for information and communications technologies (ICTs) in terms of how they can support humanitarian assistance and human development.”
In his remarks today too, Sir Arthur displayed the same love for this country, as he listed among his three wishes, his desire “to see lasting peace in Sri Lanka as soon as possible”. As he has reminded us, Sir Arthur has been fortunate to see many of his dreams come true. I can give no guarantees on your first two wishes, but I assure you Sir Arthur that my administration will do all within its power to seek to make a reality of your third wish “a lasting peace in Sri Lanka”.
I am delighted to be associated with this memorable event and on behalf of the Government and people of Sri Lanka I wish Sir Arthur a very happy birthday and many more happy years in Sri Lanka.
