Day12: Arthur C. Clarke

The reason: He wrote 2001 space odyssey which still is readable in 21th century.

If I were asked “What is the best science fiction you’ve ever read?” My answer is “2001 space odyssey” Maybe, this book is just classics, the story is too easy to figure out though, the book is full of scientific interests the author could think of at that time. I still enjoy reading this elaborate science fiction. And I just admire him. How could just a man think of sophisticated story which is still readable after 50 years past?

• Why human survived

Maybe, I don’t know anything about the history of species though, when I read this, I have gotten fresh idea about the development of human society. On this story, firstly, apes were going to extinct because apes are not that strong to survive in the wild, not that smart enough to find out how to live. Apparently, the early stage of human being has to have some sort of revolutionary event to get smarter or stronger to survive. On this story, that is given from Monolith, which teaches apes how to use tool. Because of the tool they could start fighting against brutal animals. They don’t need to break bone when they eat, so that their thin became small enough to make fine sounds. Because of this, eventually people were going to speak. Because of tools, they didn’t starve anymore. So then, they finally started to have time to think.

• Super computer HAL

This is well known fact the name HAL was taken from IBM (H -> I, A ->B, L ->M, IBM). In the story, HAL is the third generation of computer revolution. The big different from the computers we have, HAL is alone. It is alone and works just one super smart computer. Since we have different revolution which is the invention of World Wide Web, the computer we know is working together. On this story, this super smart computer had conflict ideas that confused him because it was give secret order. It went crazy because it cannot tolerate.

• Is there any extravagant in our space?

On this story, human beings found there was the proof on extravagant on the moon. When they built the space base, they found strong source of magnetic field on the moon. When they found that, it sent a signal to Saturn or Jupiter (there is difference on Movie and Novel.) Because it is buried on the surface on the moon, estimated 3 million years ago, it should be buried by some intelligent life that should not be human because 3 million years ago is just the time human came out. So, human being decided to send people to Jupiter or Saturn to look up. How exciting is this story?

• Science have been not so advanced it was supposed to be on the book

Arthur C. Clark wrote that the human being found everything out about material science 1970’s. That is of course wrong otherwise I don’t have job in this world. Human being has been still innovating materials even more than 100 years contribution of many of brilliant scientists.

• What is life?

He also wrote interesting idea about the life. Think about human brain. Basically our thinking is just exchanging the electric signals. That should be very complex though, we might not need to have body to live. Because we think, so we are living, not because we have body.

Actually, 2001 was not advanced like he wrote on the book. The U.S.A sent men in late 1960’s however, human being has not advanced enough to go further. China is going to send people to the moon in 2020. Maybe, human being is going to challenge to space again soon.   We don’t know yet about the extravagant. This book is very fun to read, gives me a lot of imagination just meditating for imaginary space travel. Human being is catching up with his idea 50 years later.