This is know as Clarke’s Third Law and is one of his most quoted statements, at least by me. (Right up there with HAL’s line “I’m sorry Dave, I’m afraid I can’t do that.”)
It comes from Arthur C. Clarke, the noted science fiction writer who passed away yesterday. There are numerous tributes and remembrances of him in the news and in the blogosphere so I am not going to attempt another one. But personally, I have always admired his writing for the scientific accuracy and depth and the timeless themes. Reading science fiction as I was growing up had a major impact on me and Mr. Clarke was a part of that.
This line, however, touches me in the day-to-day of my life when I am dealing with computer users in my department and family. After “fixing” a problem with a click or keystroke and they ask “how did you do that?” I have to decide if I have time and they have patience for me to fully explain it, of just leave it as magic. The perils of being a professional geek.
For the record, the other two of Clarke’s Three Laws are:
- 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. - The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.