Stars dim for Arthur C. Clarke
In an essay published today in the New York Times, science writer Dennis Overbye reflects on a life - his life - guided in part by the visionary science fiction of the late Arthur C. Clarke.
I’ve lived in Clarke’s universe ever since I was in eighth grade and a classmate slipped me a paperback edition of Clarke’s 'Reach for Tomorrow,' a collection of short stories. Until that point my biggest ambition was to play second base for the New York Yankees.
But here is the heart of the essay:
In his short story 'The Nine Billion Names of God,' published in 1953, Clarke wrote of a pair of computer programmers sent to a remote monastery in Tibet to help the monks there use a computer to compile a list of all the names of God. Once the list was complete, the monks believed, human and cosmic destiny would be fulfilled and the world would end.
The programmers are fleeing the mountain, hoping to escape the monks’ wrath when the program finishes and the world is still there, when one of them looks up.
'Overhead, without any fuss, the stars were going out.'
That was a typical Clarke ending, and it seemed only natural upon his death that nature might want to reciprocate.
And as Overbye points out, it did. Having traveled a colossal distance, on the morning of his death the remnants a gamma-ray burst lit up an area of the night sky in the region of the constellation Boötes before dimming again. Fitting.
Wayne
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