{"id":844,"date":"2008-03-19T15:05:00","date_gmt":"2008-03-19T22:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.gajunkie.com\/?p=844"},"modified":"2008-03-19T15:05:00","modified_gmt":"2008-03-19T22:05:00","slug":"arthur-c-clarke-1917-2008","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.gajunkie.com\/?p=844","title":{"rendered":"Arthur C. Clarke: 1917 – 2008"},"content":{"rendered":"

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.<\/span><\/center><\/p>\n

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.”)<\/p>\n

It comes from Arthur C. Clarke<\/a>, 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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

For the record, the other two of Clarke’s Three Laws are:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something
    \nis impossible, he is very probably wrong.<\/li>\n
  2. The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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