One of the great technology authors and visionaries, and someone who has had a huge impact on shaping technology fantasy and reality, has died.  We mourn the loss at 90 years old of the great Arthur C. Clarke, perhaps best known as the author of ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’, but also associated with many other developments in science and science fiction.

From the CNN Obituary:

As a Royal Air Force officer during World War II, Clarke took part in the early development of radar. In a paper written for the radio journal “Wireless World” in 1945, he suggested that artificial satellites hovering in a fixed spot above Earth could be used to relay telecommunications signals across the globe.

He is widely credited with introducing the idea of the communications satellite, the first of which were launched in the early 1960s. But he never patented the idea, prompting a 1965 essay that he subtitled, “How I Lost a Billion Dollars in My Spare Time.”

His best-known works, such as “2001” or the 1953 novel “Childhood’s End,” combined the hard science he learned studying physics and mathematics with insights into how future discoveries would change humanity. David Eicher, editor of Astronomy magazine, told CNN that Clarke’s writings were influential in shaping public interest in space exploration during the 1950s and ’60s.

“He was very interested in technology and also in humanity’s history and what lay out in the cosmos,” Eicher said. His works combined those “big-picture” themes with “compelling stories that were more interesting and more complex than other science fiction writers were doing,” he said.

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