He is one of the three largest science fiction writers in the west, as well as isaac asimov and robert heinlein. He was born in the ordinary year of 19 17, but he created a legend in 1964 47 years later. This year, the sci-fi film "200 1: A Space Odyssey" co-produced with the famous director stanley kubrick was launched. The halo on his head is not only related to science fiction, but also to satellite communications and prophets. He is the most dedicated and accurate of the three science fiction writers.
On March 9th, 2008, Clark died of respiratory failure at his home in Colombo, Sri Lanka, at the age of 90. The tombstone is engraved with the epitaph he wrote for himself: "He never grew up, but he never stopped growing." He grew up, but he never stopped growing. )
Indeed, he never stopped growing. 20 13 years, 45 years have passed since Clark wrote "200 1: A Space Odyssey" (1968), and the four-part "A Space Odyssey" was rated as "the classic of the world's science fiction hall", and it was put on the market again in China with more rigorous revision and more exquisite binding design. Even today, half a century later, the tetralogy is still out of date, not only because Clark made many amazing predictions, but also because, in the words of Kubrick, the director, "Clark has given us a new vision, allowing us to see that human beings are extending their hands from the cradle of the earth to their future among the stars".
It is because of arthur clarke's "A Space Odyssey" that the meaning of looking up at the starry sky is different.
"Create new things that have never been seen before."
Kublik
"They should make a mark where we are sitting as a souvenir," Clark later recalled his meeting with Kubrick at the Weishang restaurant in new york.
It was April of 1964, when Kubrick was still immersed in the success of the last film "Dr. Strange Love", arthur clarke was looking for a more grand theme-exploring the position of human beings in the universe. "This plan is enough to paralyze the directors of all conservative film companies, even in Hollywood today." Clark lamented Kubrick. At that time, Clark had moved to Sri Lanka from the United States, and published a series of bestsellers such as The End of Childhood (1953), which won the Hugo Award.
Clark gave Kubrick a list of his short stories, and one of them, Poet Fairy, attracted Kubrick. "This is an atmosphere-shaping novel, which tells the story that something similar to an anti-theft device made by alien creatures was found on the moon. When humans arrive, a brief introduction to arthur clarke will begin, "Clark said.
However, 200 1: A Space Odyssey (hereinafter referred to as 200 1) is not completely adapted from Sentinel. "It takes a lot of material to make a novel into a movie. 200 1 and sentry are more like acorns and oaks. " These "materials" include five short stories, such as Clark's Meeting at Dawn, but more of them are brand-new. "After months of brainstorming with Kubrick, I was alone (yes, very lonely) in the famous Chelsea Hotel/room KLOC-0/008 at 222 West 23rd Street."
In the final stage, I began to write novels and plays at the same time, stirring each other. "Sometimes I will rewrite some paragraphs of the novel after watching the porn. As far as literary creation is concerned, this is a very expensive method that few authors can enjoy, "Clark said. This is why many readers think Kubrick is the unsigned author of the novel 200 1.
When the film was released in the spring of 1968, neither Clark nor Kubrick expected that this novel created at the same time with the film would become the pinnacle of science fiction movies, and people flocked to the cinema to experience a drug-like intoxication in the image. "The 1970s was the best era, and 200 1 was the godfather of all such films." Lucas, the father of Star Wars, once commented on the film 200 1. Even today, this film is still considered as an insurmountable classic.
1in March, 1999, just over two weeks after Clark wrote the preface to the Millennium Edition of 200 1, he received an unexpected shocking news: stanley kubrick died at the age of 70. "One of my biggest regrets now is that we can't meet the arrival of 200 1 together." He changed the preface of that year into a mourning for Kubrick.
"Arthur, what you said is true."
History and novels are intertwined.
Apollo astronauts all watched the movie 200 1 before going to the moon. 1968 Christmas, the first crew members in apollo 8 who saw the other side of the moon told Clark that they wanted to send the radio back and said that they had found a huge black slate (the plot in the movie). "Well, caution still prevailed," Clark joked.
But the mission of Apollo 13 is really related to 200 1. In the movie, when the computer Hal reported that the AE-35 component was "out of order", he said, "I'm sorry to interrupt your celebration, but we have a problem." In the command module of Apollo 13 called "Roaming", the astronauts had just finished a TV broadcast (the soundtrack was the popular theme in the movie "200 1"), when the oxygen tank exploded, the first sentence they sent back to Earth was: "Houston, we are in trouble."
Later, the astronauts of Apollo 13 skillfully adapted to the situation and used the lunar module as a "lifeboat" to return to Earth safely during the "roaming". Afterwards, Tom Paine, director of NASA, gave Clark a record report of the whole accident. On the cover of the report, he also wrote the following sentence: "Arthur, what you said is true."
Clark is quite right. In the novel, he also wrote that "Discovery continues to fly to Saturn with the acceleration of Jupiter's gravity field". 1 1 years later, this "perturbation operation" (the technology of accelerating the spacecraft by using the planetary gravity field) was really put into use by the Voyager spacecraft.
Something similar happened in 1984. In the early draft of the novel "200 1", the protagonist Bowman had to take the separation module on Discovery for extra-vehicular activities to catch up with the lost communication system antenna of the spacecraft. Later, he caught up with it, but he couldn't stop it from spinning slowly or bring it back to Discovery. 1February, 984, the communication satellites "WestarVI" and "PalapaB2" entered useless orbits due to rocket launch errors. Astronaut JoeAllen left the space shuttle Discovery and used a mobile device to rendezvous with Palm Canopy's communication satellite. Unlike Bowman in the novel, Allen in reality stopped the rotation of the antenna with the help of the nitrogen jet propeller in his backpack, and the palm shed satellite was brought back to the cargo hold of Discovery. Two days later, the western satellite communication satellite was also rescued. Later, both satellites returned to Earth safely and were re-launched after renovation, which was considered as one of the most successful missions in space history.
Later, Allen wrote this experience into Into Space: An Astronaut's Sourdis Plug. He attached a letter to Clark's book, "Dear Arthur, when I was a little boy, I was infected by your writing bug and space bug, but you didn't tell me that it was difficult to be a bug."
Almost all astronauts have read Clark, and some have become astronauts because they have read Clark. Clark is very proud of this. "If it weren't for herbert george wells and jules verne, I would proudly prove that the astronauts I know became astronauts because they read my book."
200 1 has a far-reaching impact. In the eyes of China science fiction writer Liu, 200 1 is the pinnacle of science fiction literature. "All my works are poor imitations of 200 1. Science fiction literature has reached a peak here, and no one can surpass it, even Clark himself. "
In the 30 years after the film "200 1: A Space Odyssey" was completed, Clark and Kubrick only met several times, but they kept friendly contact. When Clark was interviewed by BBC TV, Kubrick specially sent a congratulatory message: "You have given us a new vision and let us see that human beings are extending their hands from the cradle of the earth to the future of Xinghai; In that vast starry sea, alien wisdom may play the role of a god-like father and even treat us like a' godfather'. "
The movie "200 1: A Space Odyssey" tells a story: About three or four million years ago, apes living in the African wasteland began to know how to use tools and hunt under the inspiration of a black cuboid stone falling from the sky. Many years later, man went into space and found a black stone in Tycho crater on the moon. This black stone inspired the United States to launch a spaceship "Discovery" to Jupiter in 200 1 year. Only one passenger of Discovery survived, David Bowman, who entered a bigger black stone and was transformed into an immortal star child by the creation left by God's wisdom. The film received five Oscar nominations, including the nomination for best director. Although it didn't win the Oscar in the end, the importance of this film in the field of science fiction movies is irreplaceable by any other film, which brings us deep thinking about the whole human civilization.
"The truth must be unexpected."
1more than ten years after the publication of the novel "200 1" in July 1968, Clark has always flatly refused to write a sequel and denied that he has the slightest idea. However, the success of the "pilot" mission changed his mind. "These distant planets, unknown when Kubrick and I started to cooperate, suddenly became a dazzling surface environment. At that time, who would have imagined that the surface of the satellite would be covered with ice floes, or that there would be a volcano spewing sulfur 100 km high into space? " The discovery of these scientific facts makes science fiction more convincing, so after 14 years, 1982, Clark published the second part of the four-part "A Space Odyssey", 20 10: A Space Odyssey.
In this book, Clark continues his amazing imagination and predictions, among which the most surprising thing for China readers is his prediction of China Space Station: "In 20 10, when the protagonist Freud left the earth again in a spaceship, he saw the latest space station in China." He wrote this in the book. In fact, Tiangong-1 (China's first target aircraft and space laboratory) was launched in September 20 1 1, only one year away from Clark's prediction 30 years ago. "Solid cylindrical structure ..." He even predicted the shape.
In the book, he also foresaw the Internet age, the fragmentation of our reading in this era, and the frequent comments in Weibo, such as accidents, criminal incidents, natural and man-made disasters, threats of conflicts, and reporting good news without reporting bad news. "Scanning the headlines of these small electronic newspapers often reminds me of an idea. The bigger the communication tool, the more trivial, vulgar or frustrating its content seems to be. Accidents, crimes, natural and man-made disasters, threats of conflict, comments that report good news but not bad news-these are still the themes of people's attention in hundreds of millions of words spread into space, "he wrote in the book. "
The third part of the trilogy, 20061:A Space Odyssey, was published in 1988, six years after the second part. This time, Clark invited the richest man in Hong Kong (if he is more far-sighted, he should invite a real mainland tycoon), and he also mentioned the Harmony: "Harmony is the first ship of the Bell Fleet, a passenger and cargo ship specially designed for the Earth-Moon-Mars route. Through complicated negotiations with more than a dozen governments and institutions, the ship is equipped with a meson driver and is still in the experimental stage, so Harmony is also a test ship. It was built in the' Yuhai' shipyard on the moon, and the propulsion force can just leave the moon with zero payload. Since then, I have only traveled between orbits and never landed on any planet. According to Sir Lawrence's always flamboyant style, he deliberately set the maiden voyage date of Harmony at 65438+205710.4, which is the centenary of Putnik's launch. " -I wonder if this is also a prophecy?
The last film, 300 1: A Space Odyssey, was released on 1997. In this work, Clark set the time at 1000 years later and began to imagine the ultimate fate of mankind.
In non-science fiction works, Clark's predictions are equally amazing. 1945, in a letter to Wireless World, he mentioned the idea of "satellite communication". Later, he used "Extraterrestrial relay-can the rocket space station provide global communication?" "Published in this magazine. Today, the geostationary orbit of a satellite is named after Clark-"Clark orbit" or "Clark belt". Clark admitted in an interview that he did make an original contribution to this idea, but when asked why he didn't apply for this patent, he always replied: "A patent should actually be a license to be sued. "Legend has it that before his death, the relevant departments issued him a symbolic one-yuan patent every year.
When interviewed by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation on 1974, Clark also accurately predicted the future online banking, online shopping, and even how to book concert tickets online and how to get information about daily life. "All these are as convenient as using the telephone." In the short science fiction novel Sailing in the Sun, it is also predicted that drivers will use the solar wind. ...
Just when people were shocked by his accurate prediction, Clark said, "The truth must be unexpected."
Clark's basic law
Law 1 If an outstanding scientist says something is possible, he may be right; But if he says something is impossible, he may be all wet;
The second law is that the only way to find out whether something is possible is to cross this line and never encounter the possibility.
Law 3 Any very advanced technology is no different from magic at first glance.
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