Sir Arthur C Clarke

Sitting in your living room in Colombo while watching a cricket match being played in Sydney 'live' is something that we take for granted. Think for a moment about the complexity of it all.

The two countries are thousands of kilometers apart, yet the pictures and sounds are so clear that the event could well be happening on the ground next door. It is almost magical.

Furthermore, if you so desire, you can just pick up the phone and dial the mobile of a friend who is actually at the ground. And there is one man we have to thank for making this happen: Sir Arthur C Clarke, who famously declared that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

When Sir Arthur presented this idea way back in 1945, many laughed at him. Being a true visionary, Arthur was confident that his theory was based on well-established facts.

It really was and he was proved right with the launch of Early Bird, the first communications satellite in the 1960s. There still are many who scoff at some of his seemingly far-fetched ideas such as the Space Elevator. "It will be invented 50 years after everyone stops laughing," he once said.

It is very difficult to imagine how mankind will fare 50 years into the future. Yet, Sir Arthur, who breathed his last yesterday, saw far, far ahead into the future. His limitless imagination led him to expound the possibility of mankind leaving Planet Earth and exploring deep space for habitable planets.

In his best seller Childhood's End, he even considered the possibility of mankind ceasing to be human to continue the journey of life. Such was the power of his imagination and literary skill.

Fifty years into the past, Sir Arthur made a decision that would literally change his life. He decided to settle in Ceylon, now known as Sri Lanka, having fallen in love primarily with its coast and underwater wonders.

It is no secret that in those pre-Internet, pre-satellite television and pre-blitz marketing days, Sri Lanka received wide publicity through Sir Arthur's works many of which were based on or inspired by his adopted home. He even had a hand in developing the script for Ranmuthuduwa, Sri Lanka's first Sinhala colour film. In fact, seeing peace in Sri Lanka was one of his ardent wishes.

Sir Arthur was a giant in the international literary scene. The very satellites that he predicted would come into being helped him to stay in touch with publishers and literary agents. He was fully wired to and in sync with, the outside world.

Along with Robert A. Heinlein, Ray Bradbury and Isaac Asimov, he nurtured the genre of science fiction. While 2001: A Space Odyssey remains an all-time favourite for its film interpretation and the futuristic computer HAL (fast becoming a reality), his other books have dealt with subjects as diverse as the terraformation of Mars and space elevators.

From Prelude to Space (1951) to Firstborn (2007/With Stephen Baxter) all his books give us a glimpse of the future. We hope that his last book The Last Theorem will be equally good. Some of his predictions have indeed come true while some others have not. They could be several decades or even centuries away.

Clarke once 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." But Clarke was hopeful that aliens will call us or at least, we will pick up one of their signals.

The discovery of life or better still, intelligent life outside our Earth and the Solar System will be a fitting tribute to a visionary who has given life to new worlds and new worlds to our lives.

While advocating that Man should explore new worlds, Sir Arthur made it clear that we should protect our planet for the time being. After all, intergalactic space travel could be thousands of years away.

This is why he always urged fellow earthlings to give up the addiction to oil and move on to renewable energy sources. Along with peace in Sri Lanka and evidence of extraterrestrial life, this was one of the three 90th birthday wishes of Sir Arthur. Sir Arthur's demise is a huge loss to Sri Lanka and to the literary world.

He was one of the last great founding fathers of the modern science fiction genre and it is unlikely that any upcoming contemporary writer could match his prolific output and the scope of work.

He leaves a lasting legacy to modern literature. But Sir Arthur C Clarke will be remembered most for awakening our collective imaginations to the possibilities of the future, a future in which mankind will prosper in peace in the vastness of space.