Arthur C Clarke
Mar. 19th, 2008 09:04 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lauradi7dwAs a tribute, I'm planning to go back to the chapter in the Physics book that explained geosynchronous orbits, and really work through the problems (instead of just taking their word for it that the formulae work, my common fault).
We read "Childhood's End" in 11th grade English class, while we were studying Transcendentalism and the idea of the oversoul. My favorite story, though, was "The Nine Billion Names of God," and not just because Neil Gaiman says the same thing. Several of my close friends and I stayed in Girl Scouting all the way through high school, and met every Monday night. I remember one warm evening when we were all on the swings at the playground of the Methodist church that hosted our meetings, discussing the ending of the story and getting shivers thinking about the implications. What a long time ago. Clarke would have seemed old to us then (more or less our age now) but now 90 seems barely old enough for him to have gone.
text here. Find your own swing set and good friends.
http://lucis.net/stuff/clarke/9billion_clarke.html
We read "Childhood's End" in 11th grade English class, while we were studying Transcendentalism and the idea of the oversoul. My favorite story, though, was "The Nine Billion Names of God," and not just because Neil Gaiman says the same thing. Several of my close friends and I stayed in Girl Scouting all the way through high school, and met every Monday night. I remember one warm evening when we were all on the swings at the playground of the Methodist church that hosted our meetings, discussing the ending of the story and getting shivers thinking about the implications. What a long time ago. Clarke would have seemed old to us then (more or less our age now) but now 90 seems barely old enough for him to have gone.
text here. Find your own swing set and good friends.
http://lucis.net/stuff/clarke/9billion_clarke.html
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Date: 2008-03-19 04:04 pm (UTC)And what a great man.