Science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke dies aged 90

The visionary author of over 100 books, who predicted the existence of satellites, was most famous for his short story "The Sentinel," which was expanded into the novel on which Stanley Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey" was based.

He was also credited with inventing the concept of communications satellites in 1945, decades before they became a reality.

Clarke was the last surviving member of what was sometimes known as the "Big Three" of science fiction alongside Robert A. Heinlein and Isaac Asimov. - Times Online

During the Second World War, he served in the Royal Air Force as a radar specialist and was involved in the early warning radar defence system which contributed to the RAF's success during the Battle of Britain. Clarke actually spent most of his service time working on Ground Controlled Approach (GCA) radar, as documented in his semi-autobiographical novel Glide Path. Although GCA did not see much practical use in the war, after several more years of development it was vital to the Berlin Airlift of 1948-1949. He was demobilised with the rank of Flight Lieutenant. After the war, he earned a first-class degree in mathematics and physics at King's College London.

In the postwar years, Clarke became involved with the British Interplanetary Society and served for a time as its chairman. Although he was not the originator of the concept of geostationary satellites and communicating with them, one of his most important contributions may have been propagating the idea and recognizing that they would be ideal telecommunications relays. He advanced this idea in a paper privately circulated among the core technical members of the BIS in 1945. The concept later was published in Wireless World in October of that year.[3][4][5] Clarke also wrote a number of non-fiction books describing the technical details and societal implications of rocketry and space flight. The most notable of these may be The Exploration of Space (1951) and The Promise of Space (1968). In recognition of these contributions, a geostationary orbit is officially recognized by the International Astronomical Union as a "Clarke orbit". - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_C._Clarke

This hurts.

One of my favorite quotes:

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" - Arthur C. Clarke

Another telling quote from Clarke:

"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 very probably wrong.”