Born December 17, 1917 in Minehead, Somerset, England
Died March 18, 2008 in Colombo, Sri Lanka

Earned a bachelor's degree with first-class honors in physics and mathematics from the University of London

Served as a radar instructor with the Royal Air Force during World War II
In 1945 in a non-fiction article he predicted the geosynchronous communications satellite
Served as the chairman of the British Interplanetary Society from 1946-7 and again from 1950-53

Clarke, a telecommunications and satellite expert, moved to Sri Lanka in 1956.

During the 1960s most of his creative energy went into nonfiction science writing. He also became known throughout the world when he appeared as a science commentator for CBS during three of the Apollo missions to the moon, including the first moon landing in 1969.

Clarke's work is informed by Three Laws he presented in The Lost Worlds of 2001:

• First Law: When a distinguished but elderly scientist says that something is possible he is almost certainly right. When he says it is impossible, he is very probably wrong.
• Second Law: The only way of finding the limits of the possbile is by going beyond them to the impossible.
• Third Law: Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguisable from magic.

Clarke's early novels are very scientifically-oriented stories in which human problems are worked out against a background of scientific discovery. These include:

• Prelude to Space (1951)
• The Sands of Mars (1951)
• Islands in the Sky (1952)

With the appearance of "The Sentinel" (the story that formed the basis of the film 2001: A Space Odyssey) came the first clear indication of the the paradox inherent in Clarke's fiction: this man so closely identified with technological hard science fiction is attracted to the metaphysical and the mystical.

Ironically he is best remembered for stories in which humans are perceived as children as compared with alien races. These works include:

• Against the Fall of Night (1953, expanded and revised in 1956 as The City and the Stars)
• Childhood's End (1953)

Another significant work in this vein is the short story "The Star" in which it is revealed that the Star of Bethlehem was actually a supernova that destroyed an advanced civilization.

Author of lyrical science fiction with a philosophical and religious bent, Clarke is best known as the author of 2001: a Space Odyssey (1968), a novel based on a screenplay by Clarke and Stanley M. Kubrick which was itself inspired by Clarke's short story "The Sentinel."

After the film came out, Clarke became perhaps the best-known science fiction writer in the world.

Clarke wrote three sequels: 2010: Odyssey Two (1982, film in 1984), 2061: Odyssey Three (1989), and 3001: The Final Odyssey (1998)

Other key works include:

• Childhood's End (1953)
  Rendezvous With Rama (1973), winner of the Hugo and the Nebula
• Imperial Earth (1976)
• The Fountains of Paradise (1978), winner of Hugo and Nebula; in this novel Clarke advances the notion of a space elevator, a metal cable connecting a point on Earth with a terminus in space.
• "A Meeting with Medusa," winner of a Hugo for best novella

• Biographies of Arthur C. Clarke

• The Arthur C. Clarke Foundation
• Arthur C. Clarke--Grand Master of Science Fiction