Dead, Not Forgotten

Famed author and thinker Arthur C. Clarke died March 19, 2008, at his home in Colombo, Sri Lanka after experiencing breathing problems. He was 90 years old. He had suffered from post-polio syndrome since 1988.

Clarke’s impact on science, literature and popular culture cannot be underestimated. He always seemed to go places no one had gone before and it is easy to see how he would get there if you consider his well known three laws.

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.”

Arthur C. Clarke was born December 16, 1917 in Minehead, Somerset, United Kingdom and earned a first-class degree in mathematics and physics at King’s College London. Though he is best known for his works of fiction, he also impacted real science with more than just his thinking. During WWII he served in the Royal Air Force as a radar specialist and was involved in the early warning radar defense system which contributed to the RAF’s success during the Battle of Britain. After the war he served as the Chairman of the British Interplanetary Society. He is credited as the first person to promote the idea that geostationary satellites would be ideal for communication purposes.

Clarke’s most famous work of literature is “A Space Odyssey.” It is based upon his 1948 work, “The Sentinel,” which he wrote for a BBC competition. The work was not accepted for the competition but the stage was set for a primary theme of Clarke’s work, an advanced but clueless mankind is shocked into growth by its interaction with a superior alien intelligence. Of course, the book was made into the famous science fiction move, “2001: A Space Odyssey” directed by Stanley Kubrick.

Arthur C. Clarke moved to Sri Lanka (then Ceylon) in 1956. In Sri Lanka is was able to persu one of his greatest loves, scuba diving. Sri Lanka also inspired the locale for his novel The Fountains of Paradise, in which he first described a space elevator. This, he believes, will be his ultimate legacy, more so than geostationary satellites, once space elevators make space shuttles obsolete.

A space elevator is described as “… a tether, usually in the form of a cable or ribbon, spanning from the surface near the equator to a point beyond geosynchronous orbit. As the planet rotates, the inertia at the end of the tether counteracts gravity, and also keeps the cable taut. Vehicles can then climb the tether and reach orbit without the use of rocket propulsion. Such a structure could hypothetically permit delivery of cargo and people to orbit at a fraction of the cost of launching payloads by rocket.”

I think of Clarke when I hear people talk about the possibility of life other than on earth. He summed it up well when he said, “Sometimes I think we’re alone in the universe, and sometimes I think we’re not. In either case the idea is quite staggering.”

We are a little more alone in the universe today having lost Arthur C. Clarke.

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Dead, Not Forgotten is usually about the great accomplishments of little known people, but sometimes we have to honor the people who lived life with a spirit that made every day an adventure. Sylvia Marjorie Tuft, late of Denver Colorado, is such a person.

Sylvia Tuft developed a love for sailing as a child in New Jersey where she sailed with her father, a local fireman who helped authorities confiscate the boat from rum runners.

She met her husband-to-be, Harold Tuft, a physician, where she worked as a nurse after graduating from nursing school. When WWII broke out Sylvia cared for soldiers wounded in the war as Harold fought on the front lines in Europe.

At the war’s end Harold setup an Allergy practice and Sylvia worked alongside him. Eventually they moved the practice to Colorado where so many allergy patients went for the clear air. There they raised their family. From there Harold and Sylvia traveled extensively including a trip to Russia prior to the fall of the Iron Curtain and the traversing of the Panama Canal. Sylvia Tuft later traveled across Canada by train.

In her late 70’s, still filled with the spirit of adventure, Tuft started a trip around the world - by freighter! As she slow-boated herself around the seas she saw not only the backside of cities across the globe as she watched the coming and going of freight, but she also saw other sides of the sea such as when she used her nursing skills to care for a boat load of Vietnamese refugees plucked from the ocean.

Sylvia Tuft died August 8, 2007 at Brookdale Senior Living in Lakewood, CO. She was 95. True to her spirit her family will memorialize her atop of Vail Mountain and scatter her ashes from a sailboat in the Atlantic ocean.

Good luck on your next voyage, Sylvia!

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