60 Fun Facts About Arthur C. Clarke

In 2001: A Space Odyssey, which song does the computer HAL sing as it is being shut down?

Daisy Bell was the song a real computer had been made to sing in a pioneering speech-synthesis demonstration; Clarke had seen it, and gave the tune to the dying HAL.

In Clarke's story 'The Nine Billion Names of God', who rents a computer to finish listing the names?

Tibetan monks believe the universe exists only so that every name of God can be written down; as the machine prints the last of them, the stars quietly begin to go out.

Along with Robert Heinlein and Isaac Asimov, Clarke was one of science fiction's so-called what?

Clarke, Asimov and Heinlein were dubbed the Big Three of science fiction; under the 'Clarke-Asimov Treaty', each would call Clarke the better SF writer and Asimov the better science writer.

Complete Clarke's third law: 'Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from...' what?

Magic rounds off the third law, which joined Clarke's first two in a later edition of his essay; three laws were good enough for Newton, he joked, so he would modestly stop there.

Clarke's 1945 paper proposed satellites in which orbit as ideal telecommunications relays?

Clarke's October 1945 paper argued that three satellites in geostationary orbit, about 36,000 km above the equator, could relay signals worldwide; the orbit is often called the Clarke Orbit.

In which magazine did Clarke's 1945 satellite paper 'Extra-Terrestrial Relays' appear?

Wireless World printed the paper in October 1945; within twenty years Syncom 3, parked in the orbit it described, was relaying the Tokyo Olympics to viewers in the United States.

In which English county was Clarke born, in the seaside town of Minehead?

Somerset is where Clarke grew up on a farm, hunting for fossils and building his own telescopes out of lenses and cardboard tubes.

During the Second World War, Clarke served in the Royal Air Force as a specialist in what?

Radar was Clarke's wartime trade: he ran the trials of the first ground-controlled approach set, built to talk pilots down in bad weather, and turned the experience into Glide Path, his only non-SF novel.

Which organisation, devoted to space travel, did Clarke join as a teenager and later chair twice?

The British Interplanetary Society was where Clarke first tried out his satellite idea, talking it over with fellow members before he put it into print.

Which 1948 short story, rejected by a BBC competition, became the seed of Clarke and Kubrick's 1968 film?

The Sentinel did not even place in the BBC contest, yet it became the seed of the film; Kubrick proposed that he and Clarke write a complete novel first and derive the script from it.

Unlike Kubrick's film, Clarke's novel 2001: A Space Odyssey sends the spaceship Discovery to which planet?

Saturn is the goal in the novel, written alongside a film that stops at Jupiter; when Clarke came to write a sequel, he followed the film rather than his own book.

In the novel 2001: A Space Odyssey, on which moon does Bowman find the second, much larger monolith?

Iapetus is where Bowman spots a black speck that proves to be a giant twin of the lunar monolith; as his pod nears it, the slab opens and swallows him, hurling him across the galaxy.

What does 'TMA-1', the designation of the monolith dug up on the Moon in 2001, stand for?

Tycho Magnetic Anomaly One was found through the magnetic disturbance it caused near the crater Tycho; once dug up, it let out a piercing radio signal at its first touch of sunlight in three million years.

In the novel 2001: A Space Odyssey, what is the man-ape whose tribe first meets the monolith called?

Moon-Watcher is taught by the monolith to use tools, so his starving tribe learns to hunt for meat and its endless hunger becomes a thing of the past.

Which of Clarke's sequels to 2001 was made into a 1984 film directed by Peter Hyams?

2010: Odyssey Two was the first of three sequels from an author who had never meant to write any, and it follows Kubrick's film wherever the film and the first novel differ.

Clarke's 2061: Odyssey Three involves a visit to which celestial object on its next inner Solar System pass?

Halley's Comet gets its first human landing in the novel, before the ship is diverted to Europa, the one world the monoliths had declared off limits to humans.

In 3001: The Final Odyssey, which astronaut's frozen body is found adrift in space and revived?

Frank Poole, the astronaut killed by HAL in 2001, is found frozen a thousand years on and brought back to life to explore a world he no longer recognises.

Clarke and Kubrick both denied that HAL's name in 2001: A Space Odyssey was a coded dig at which company?

IBM sits one letter along the alphabet from H-A-L, but the pair insisted the name simply came from the words heuristic and algorithmic.

What do the explorers of Rama name the frozen band of water dividing the alien ship's interior?

The Cylindrical Sea, a frozen band ringing Rama's interior that thaws as the ship nears the Sun, holds a central island the explorers dub New York for its skyscraper-like structures.

In Rendezvous with Rama, what do the explorers call the creatures they find at work inside the alien ship?

Biots, short for biological robots, got the name after Surgeon-Commander Laura Ernst dissected a wrecked one and found it part living tissue and part machine.

As Rama nears the Sun, which planet's government fires a nuclear missile at the alien ship?

Mercury's colonists, the Hermians, judge Rama too dangerous and fire a nuclear missile at it; crewman Boris Rodrigo flies out to meet the bomb and disarms it with a pair of wire cutters.

In Childhood's End, what are the aliens whose ships appear above Earth's major cities called?

The Overlords rule Earth benevolently from their ships for decades before revealing themselves, and they look like the traditional Christian image of demons: horns, leathery wings and barbed tails.

In Childhood's End, who is the alien Supervisor for Earth who meets the UN Secretary-General?

Karellen, the alien Supervisor for Earth, deals only with Secretary-General Rikki Stormgren at first; his race serves the Overmind, a cosmic intelligence into which humanity's children finally merge.

Which 1950 short story did Clarke expand into the first part of Childhood's End?

Guardian Angel became the novel's opening part, in which the aliens' unseen spokesman promises that his kind will show themselves only after fifty years.

What kind of megastructure is built in Clarke's novel The Fountains of Paradise?

A space elevator has to rise from the equator, so Clarke set the novel on a fictional twin of Sri Lanka that he slid south until it sat on the line.

Sri Kanda in Clarke's The Fountains of Paradise is a thinly veiled version of which real Sri Lankan mountain?

Sri Kanda stands in for Adam's Peak (Sri Pada), the island's conical sacred mountain with a footprint-shaped hollow at its summit revered by several faiths, which Clarke moved south toward the equator for the story.

What did Clarke and Mike Wilson find underwater off Trincomalee in 1956?

The ruins of the original Koneswaram Temple lay strewn across the seabed below Swami Rock, where the Hindu shrine had stood until Portuguese soldiers looted and destroyed it in the 1620s.

What did Clarke's diving partner Mike Wilson find scattered around a wreck on Great Basses Reef in 1961?

Silver coins, rupees struck in 1702 for the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb, had fused into solid lumps of about a thousand, still shaped like the sacks that once held them.

Which 1951 Clarke book on spaceflight became a Book-of-the-Month Club selection?

The Exploration of Space earned Clarke a sizable sum from the book club and sold well on both sides of the Atlantic, a success that let him turn to writing full time.

For which US network did Clarke commentate on the Apollo 11 Moon landing on 20 July 1969?

CBS sat Clarke beside anchor Walter Cronkite as Apollo 11 touched down, then called him back to comment on the Apollo 12 and 15 missions.

Which title completes the name of Clarke's 1980 TV series on unexplained phenomena?

Mysterious World was sold to broadcasters around the globe and led to two more series under Clarke's name, World of Strange Powers and Mysterious Universe.

UNESCO gave Clarke which award for popularising science?

The Kalinga Prize honoured the factual books and essays in which Clarke first floated ideas that he went on to build his stories around.

Clarke's 90th-birthday message wished for evidence of what?

Extraterrestrial life was one of three wishes; he also hoped the world would kick its addiction to oil and that Sri Lanka would find lasting peace, and he died three months later, aged 90.

With which fellow SF veteran did Clarke co-write his final novel, The Last Theorem?

Frederik Pohl took over Clarke's notes and unfinished draft when Clarke found he could not complete the book, and Clarke read the final manuscript only days before he died.

What record-setting cosmic event was observed within hours of Clarke's death in March 2008?

A gamma-ray burst flared in a galaxy billions of light-years away yet was briefly bright enough to see with the naked eye, the most distant object ever visible that way.

Which illness left Clarke needing a wheelchair for much of his later life?

Polio's after-effects put Clarke in a wheelchair in later life, yet he carried on scuba diving for years afterwards.

How did Clarke in Sri Lanka and director Peter Hyams in Los Angeles swap daily notes on their 1984 film?

By e-mail over a modem, still a novelty in the early 1980s; the pair later published their exchanges as a book, The Odyssey File.

When Clarke joined the RAF, he insisted his dog tags be marked with which belief instead of Church of England?

Clarke had 'pantheist' stamped on his RAF dog tags rather than the default Church of England; later he described himself as an atheist and a 'crypto-Buddhist', and banned religious rites at his funeral.

In which magazine did Clarke make his first professional fiction sales, 'Loophole' and 'Rescue Party', in 1946?

Astounding Science Fiction bought 'Rescue Party' first but printed 'Loophole' a month ahead of it, so the first story Clarke sold was not his first in print.

Clarke's The City and the Stars is a complete rewrite of which earlier work of his?

Against the Fall of Night first ran in a pulp magazine in 1948; Clarke later rewrote it from scratch, yet the original refused to disappear and the two have long been sold side by side.

Which Olaf Stapledon chronicle of humanity's next two billion years did Clarke say influenced his life most?

Last and First Men follows eighteen human species across that span, and its theme of humanity evolving into something greater is echoed in Clarke's own Childhood's End.

The prize money for the Arthur C. Clarke Award for best SF novel is set to match what?

The calendar year sets the sum: a flat £1,000 until 2001, the prize became £2,001 that year in a nod to Clarke's most famous title and has risen by a pound every year since.

What kind of dinosaur was the Australian species named for Clarke in 2003 first described as?

A ceratopsian, or horned dinosaur, was the describers' verdict on the single arm bone behind Serendipaceratops arthurcclarkei; later studies have argued it looks more like an ankylosaur's.

How long did Arthur C. Clarke and Marilyn Mayfield live together after their 1953 marriage before separating?

Six months was all the marriage lasted, yet the couple stayed legally married for another decade, until the divorce finally came through in 1964.

Clarke's 1984 congressional testimony against which programme caused a rift with Robert Heinlein?

Clarke's testimony against the Strategic Defense Initiative, Reagan's 'Star Wars' missile shield, led Heinlein to confront him at Larry Niven's house; the two stayed distant until Heinlein's death in 1988.

What was Clarke's playful reply when journalists asked whether he was gay?

Asked if he was gay, Clarke answered 'No, merely mildly cheerful'; his friend Kerry O'Quinn wrote after his death that Clarke was gay but never publicised it, though honest if asked privately.

What destroyed Clarke's diving school at Hikkaduwa on the Sri Lankan coast?

The Indian Ocean tsunami of December 2004 swept away the school's boats and diving gear, though Clarke and his home in Colombo came through unharmed.

Which honour did Clarke receive in 1989 'for services to British cultural interests in Sri Lanka'?

CBE came first, in 1989; the knighthood announced in 1998 was not conferred until 2000, and then at a ceremony held in Colombo.

Which actor spent years trying to get a Rendezvous with Rama film financed?

Morgan Freeman's production company Revelations Entertainment held the film rights to Clarke's Rama novel for years, with David Fincher once attached to direct, and in 2021 Denis Villeneuve signed on to direct a new attempt.

NASA named a 2001 orbiter in honour of Clarke's most famous work and sent it to which planet?

Mars Odyssey took its name from 2001: A Space Odyssey with Clarke's enthusiastic blessing, then found vast stores of water ice just under the planet's surface.

After the war, Clarke took a first-class degree in mathematics and physics at which institution?

King's College London took Clarke after his RAF service; before the war he could not afford university and had gone to work as a civil-service auditor instead.

For which short story did Clarke win a Hugo Award in 1956?

The Star follows a Jesuit astrophysicist who learns that the Star of Bethlehem was a supernova, one that destroyed an entire civilisation to shine over the Nativity.

Which 1962 Clarke book set out a timetable of possible inventions running to the year 2100?

Profiles of the Future is a book of forecasts that also warns how badly experts forecast: its first law says an elderly scientist who calls something impossible is very probably wrong.

What is Clarke doing in his cameo in Peter Hyams's 1984 sequel?

Feeding birds on a park bench in Washington is Clarke's uncredited part in a film he had helped its director plan from the other side of the world.

With which British author did Clarke co-write the 2000 novel The Light of Other Days?

Stephen Baxter wrote the novel from a synopsis by Clarke: wormhole cameras let anyone watch anyone, anywhere and even in the past, and privacy comes to an end.

Clarke served from 1989 to 2004 as the first chancellor of which institution?

The International Space University, founded in 1987 and based in Strasbourg, made Clarke its first chancellor, a post he held from 1989 to 2004; he was also chancellor of the University of Moratuwa.

Asteroid 2001 could not be named for Clarke because it had already been assigned to whom?

Asteroid 2001 had been named Einstein for Albert Einstein, so Clarke instead got 4923 Clarke, whose number was assigned independently of the name.

Which award for innovation in communications did Clarke win in 1982?

Marconi Prize: it honoured the communications satellites Clarke had proposed in 1945, well before any satellite had flown, and Prince Claus of the Netherlands presented it.

Which Clarke novella about a balloon expedition into Jupiter's atmosphere won a Nebula Award?

A Meeting with Medusa won the Nebula for best novella of 1972; its pilot, rebuilt as a cyborg after an airship crash, meets giant jellyfish-like creatures in Jupiter's clouds.

Which musician based a 1994 album on Clarke's novel The Songs of Distant Earth?

Mike Oldfield, of Tubular Bells fame, travelled to meet Clarke before making the album, and Clarke wrote a foreword for it.