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Sri Lanka's best known resident guest Sir Arthur C Clarke passed away yesterday. He celebrated his 90th birthday on December 16, 2007. The following is an interview with Sir Arthur which appeared in the BBC Focus magazine on that occasion.

A: Well, I don't feel a day older than 85. And to quote Bob Hope, "You know you're getting old when the candles cost more than the cake." But the saddest part is that most of my friends and contemporaries are gone.

Q: During your life you've seen some of the most rapid and radical developments in technology that humanity has ever accomplished. Have things unfolded as you anticipated? Has anything surprised you?

A: Growing up in the 1920s and 1930s, I never thought I'd live to see so much happen. It's true that we 'space cadets' of the British Interplanetary Society spent all our spare time discussing space travel, but we never imagined that our dreams would become reality in our lifetime. I still can't believe that we've just marked the 50th anniversary of the Space Age!

Q: Of everything you've done and written, what's the one thing you're most proud of?

A: I have over 100 books and more than 1,000 short pieces to choose from. In terms of impact, I'd say it was 'Extra-terrestrial Relays' (Wireless World, Oct 1945) where I invented the communications satellite, and for which I was paid the princely sum of o15.

A close second is the short story 'The Sentinel', originally written in 1948 for a BBC competition (it wasn't placed!) and later expanded into a certain home movie that I made with Stanley Kubrick...

Q: What are you working on at the moment? Will there be any more novels? Do you ever plan to retire?

A: My plans for retirement always flop so spectacularly that I don't even try now. Frederik Pohl is currently completing my latest novel, The Last Theorem, which has taken a lot longer than I expected. That could well be my last novel...but then, I've said that before!

A: Among my own: Childhood's End (1953) and The Songs of Distant Earth (1986). By others: Last and First Men (1930) by Olaf Stapledon

Q: Does the state of the world today climate change, wars worry you? Do you think humans will prevail? Did you foresee such a gloomy future for us?

A: I have great faith in optimism as a philosophy, if only because it offers us the opportunity of self-fulfilling prophecy. I'd like to think that we've learnt something from the most barbaric century in history that we've just lived through - the 20th.

And climate change has resulted from our addiction to oil and coal. Developing clean energy sources in the coming years can prevent us making the situation worse, but we'll have to live with many adverse consequences of our planetary meddling. But humanity will prevail.

A: Organised religion polluting our minds as it pretends to delivery morality and spiritual salvation. It's spreading the most malevolent mind virus of all. I hope our race can one day outgrow this primitive notion, as I envisaged in 3001: The Final Odyssey.

A: States and governments mixing governance with religion. This is a lethal cocktail that keeps billions in misery. Religion must be a very private affair that should never be a spectator sport.

A: My well-known modesty doesn't allow me to answer this myself...so it should be my current collaborator Stephen Baxter! Then we could churn out even more novels...

A: Dreaming. I now have to survive on 16 hours of sleep a day, but enjoy the vivid dreams I have. I may be wheel-chaired but my mind roams everywhere. Met a lot of friendly dinosaurs last night...

A: I'm trying to decide between a speck of Moondust smuggled out of NASA (don't ask by who!), a paper cup compressed by the enormous pressure at the Titanic wreck, and a copy of my Fountains of Paradise flown on the Space Shuttle...

A: time-viewer with which we can see what happened in the past and might happen in the future, but without us risking the journey ourselves. The Light of Other Days (2001) is based on this idea.

Q: If you could travel anywhere in the universe, at any time period, when and where would it be and why?

A: I would like to be present at the first contact with extra-terrestrials - assuming that they're not as unpleasant as H sap.

Q: In 2003 you claimed that there's vegetation on the surface of Mars. Do you still think that's the case?

A: After studying dozens of images returned by recent Mars surveyor missions, I found some surface features that looked very like Banyan trees. Something is actually moving and changing with the seasons that suggests, at least, vegetation. Of course this needs verification, which I hope will happen soon. If true, this would help human settlements on the Red Planet one day.

A: It isn't quite cold and it's probably not fusion, but something is going on. For a decade or more, I've kept an open mind about these new energy experiments, even though we have yet to see commercial scale results.

I eagerly await the final verdict on this affair - the jury is still out. I would be disappointed if 'cold fusion' turns out to be a mere laboratory curiosity. But that seems unlikely: anything so novel would indicate a major breakthrough.

Of course, if these anomalous excess energy results can be scaled up, that could terminate the era of fossil fuels, end worries about climate change, and alter the geopolitical structure of our planet out of recognition.

Q: Are there any other ideas considered wayward of the mainstream that you support, and why?

A: I've been promoting the Space Elevator for over 30 years, beginning at a time when people could not suppress their laughter. But nobody is laughing now, and it is almost 'mainstream'. I would still keep an open mind on time travel and multiple probabilities universes - where everything that can happen does happen.

Q: What do you think is the single most important advance that humans will make before the 21st century is out?

Q: Would you ever consider having yourself cryogenically frozen? And if so, when would you ask to be revived?

A: I have no wish to be frozen, or to have myself preserved in any other way. My garden in Colombo holds the graves of several beloved pets, and one day - though not I hope for a long time - my own ashes will be deposited alongside them.

A: There are so many talented writers and a new breed of public scientists today that it would be unfair to single out any. They have many more ways of reaching out and engaging their audiences today than we did back in the first half of the 20th century.

Q: What is your message to the young thinkers, scientists and writers of the world today?

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 probably wrong.

2. The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.

The original interview appeared in the December 2007 issue of the UK's Focus magazine.. For further information, visit www.bbcfocusmagazine.com. Focus is the BBC's multi award-winning popular science and technology monthly, published by BBC Magazines Bristol, UK.

This is the transcript of the video by Sir Arthur C Clarke broadcast on YouTube on his 90th birthday last year.

Hello! This is Arthur Clarke, speaking to you from my home in Colombo, Sri Lanka. As I approach my 90th birthday, my friends are asking how it feels like, to have completed 90 orbits around the Sun.

Well, I actually don't feel a day older than 89! I'm now perfectly happy to step aside and watch how things evolve. But there's also a sad side to living so long: most of my contemporaries and old friends have already departed. However, they have left behind many fond memories, for me to recall.

I now spend a good part of my day dreaming of times past, present and future. As I try to survive on 15 hours' sleep a day, I have plenty of time to enjoy vivid dreams. Being completely wheel-chaired doesn't stop my mind from roaming the universe - on the contrary! In my time I've been very fortunate to see many of my dreams come true!

Growing up in the 1920s and 1930s, I never expected to see so much happen in the span of a few decades.

We 'space cadets' of the British Interplanetary Society spent all our spare time discussing space travel - but we didn't imagine that it lay in our own near future...

I still can't quite believe that we've just marked the 50th anniversary of the Space Age! We've accomplished a great deal in that time, but the 'Golden Age of Space' is only just beginning.

After half a century of government-sponsored efforts, we are now witnessing the emergence of commercial space flight. Over the next 50 years, thousands of people will travel to Earth orbit - and then, to the Moon and beyond. Space travel - and space tourism - will one day become almost as commonplace as flying to exotic destinations on our own planet.

Things are also changing rapidly in many other areas of science and technology. To give just one example, the world's mobile phone coverage recently passed 50 per cent - or 3.3 billion subscriptions.

This was achieved in just a little over a quarter century since the first cellular network was set up. The mobile phone has revolutionized human communications, and is turning humanity into an endlessly chattering global family!

What does this mean for us as a species?

Communication technologies are necessary, but not sufficient, for us humans to get along with each other. This is why we still have many disputes and conflicts in the world.

Technology tools help us to gather and disseminate information, but we also need qualities like tolerance and compassion to achieve greater understanding between peoples and nations.

I have great faith in optimism as a guiding principle, if only because it offers us the opportunity of creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. So I hope we've learnt something from the most barbaric century in history - the 20th. I would like to see us overcome our tribal divisions and begin to think and act as if we were one family. That would be real globalisation...

As I complete 90 orbits, I have no regrets and no more personal ambitions. But if I may be allowed just three wishes, they would be these.

Firstly, I would like to see some evidence of extra-terrestrial life. I have always believed that we are not alone in the universe. But we are still waiting for ETs to call us - or give us some kind of a sign.

We have no way of guessing when this might happen - I hope sooner rather than later!

Secondly, I would like to see us kick our current addiction to oil, and adopt clean energy sources. For over a decade, I've been monitoring various new energy experiments, but they have yet to produce commercial scale results. Climate change has now added a new sense of urgency.

Our civilisation depends on energy, but we can't allow oil and coal to slowly bake our planet...

The third wish is one closer to home. I've been living in Sri Lanka for 50 years - and half that time, I've been a sad witness to the bitter conflict that divides my adopted country.

I dearly wish to see lasting peace established in Sri Lanka as soon as possible. But I'm aware that peace cannot just be wished - it requires a great deal of hard work, courage and persistence.

I'm sometimes asked how I would like to be remembered. I've had a diverse career as a writer, underwater explorer, space promoter and science populariser. Of all these, I want to be remembered most as a writer - one who entertained readers, and, hopefully, stretched their imagination as well.

I find that another English writer - who, coincidentally, also spent most of his life in the East - has expressed it very well. So let me end with these words of Rudyard Kipling:

If I have given you delight
by aught that I have done.
Let me lie quiet in that night
which shall be yours anon;

And for the little, little span
the dead are borne in mind,
seek not to question other than,
the books I leave behind.

This is Arthur Clarke, saying Thank You and Goodbye from Colombo! See the video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qLdeEjdbWE

A journey into the future with Sir Arthur C Clarke