The author Arthur Charles Clarke Arthur Charles Clarke (1917-2008) was born in Minehead, Somerset, England. He became interested in science at an early age and constructed his first telescope at thirteen. While at school, Clarke started to write fantastic stories and read the magazine Astounding Stories with deep interest. He also read works by such writers as H.G. Wells and Jules Verne and looked at the stars through his homemade telescopes. From 1941 to 1946 he served in the Royal Air Force specializing in radar. In 1948 he graduated from King s College, London, in Physics and Mathematics and became president of the British Interplanetary Society from 1947 to 1950 and again in 1953. In the 1950s, he took an interest in undersea exploration and moved to Sri Lanka, where he lived until his death, writing several fiction and non-fiction books and articles about the Indian Ocean. As a writer and popularizer1 of science, he was a champion of the cause of technological progress. A strong interest in space exploration dates from the 1940s, when he first published plans for hypothetical communications satellites. Most of his novels are based on technological realism. He said he did not want to predict the future in his numerous sciencefiction works; he simply extrapolated2. Among Clarke s early works is the short story Sentinel of Eternity (1951) about man s contact with extraterrestrial intelligence. Childhood s End was written in 1953 and The City and the Stars in 1956. In 1957, with his friend Mike Wilson, he filmed the Great Barrier Reef of Australia, from which his novel The Deep Range derives. In 1962, Clarke became completely paralyzed after an accidental blow to the head. He wrote Dolphin Island as his farewell to the sea. After getting well again, Clarke started his 1. popularizer: someone who makes a topic known to the general public. 2. extrapolated: used facts valid for a specific situation in other stories. 67