In article <nebusj.1205959754@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>, Joseph Nebus says...
>
>Joe Curwen <jcurwen@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> writes:
>
>>In article <Xns9A65D05BE276Bkensuhotmailcom@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>, Chris
Schumacher
>>says...
>>>
>>>Arthur C. Clarke, the last, and greatest of the four titans, and hence
the
>>>greatest SF writer of the 20th century.
>>>I always admired his boyish curiousity, love for ideas and gadgetry,
>
>>The news reports have mentioned that he came up with the idea for
>>telecommunications satellites, but didn't he also come up with the idea
for
>>space elevators? Even if he didn't, I found his writing on the idea
completely
>>fascinating - probably the best part of the novel 2010.
>
> He didn't, in fact, invent the idea of space elevators: as
>usual for this sort of thing, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky did [1]. But what
>Clarke*did* do was present the idea, in such a neatly compelling fashion,
>that it became respectable science fiction [2], and into slightly less
>respectable but still discussable science speculation, both by his
>novel _The Fountains of Paradise_ and in technical and semi-technical
>explanations of the science behind the idea. Think of him as serving
>the role Jules Verne did for submarines or spacecraft: the ideas were
>around before him, but after him, people knew what they were.
Thanks for that, it allowed me to spend some quality time with Google. I
was
surprised that the idea goes all the way back to the 1890's! I found the
text of
a speech given by Clarke that boosts the idea in a compelling way and
provides a
good history of the evolution of the idea.
--
Joe
<<SNIP REST>>
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