Arthur C. Clarke Makes His Last Orbit Around the Sun

My Arthur C. Clarke collection.

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

Clarke's Third Law. Arthur C. Clarke, 1973.

Harken the words of Sir Arthur C. Clarke! What a fascinating man, indeed. The hard science fiction writer, futurist and inventor has been a giant in the scientific community for decades. A beacon of science and technology, Sir Clarke's influence on the scientific community, and humanity in general, is unparalleled. I was fortunate enough to run across Clarke's writings during college. I'd always known and loved 2001: A Space Odyssey because of the film by Stanley Kubrick. Most of all, I enjoyed his writings for their relevance and ofttimes prophetic nature. In 1962, Profiles of the Future was published in book-form. Here's what my Bantam paperback edition published in 1964 says on the back cover:

"'Contact with extra-terrestrials.'
'Artificial breeding of intelligent animals.'
'Machines which can duplicate everything including themselves.'
'Human imortality.'

No! This is not the world of science fiction! This is how we will actually live in the year 2100 A.D. when gravity will be controlled by man, when robots will probe the secrets of earth's interior, when machines will be more intelligent that the most intelligent human beings!

This is the wonder world of the future as seen by Arthur C. Clarke, the distinguished author and scientist. Here is a brilliant, fascinating prediction of the next one hundred fifty years of Man."

In the above mentioned work, Clarke refers to a "global library" to be available to all by 2005. Whether or not Google directly references Clarke in their Google Books Library Project, he's ostensibly in the background, providing inspiration for new paradigm shifts in thinking.

Most importantly, he inspires mankind to strive for something greater. There is nothing impossible! Whether his predictions were off-the-mark, or right-on is not as important as his vast influence on the scientific and literary communities, and humankind in general.

Sir Arthur C. Clarke died in his home in Sri Lanka of breathing complications on 19 March 2008; merely days after he'd reviewed the final manuscript of his latest work, The Last Theorem, co-written with Frederik Pohl.

Bodyworlds.

Meet "Tai Chi Man." He's a real human body, on display at the Bodyworlds exhibit in the Dallas Museum of Nature & Science. He'll be on display until May 28th, along with a great many other real human bodies. Bodyworlds is made possible by its creator, Dr. Gunther Von Hagens, who invented Plastination.

Plastination is a scientific process that extracts all bodily fluids and soluble fat from a body, or body part, and replaces it with plastics, such as resin and elastomers; the polymer material then has to be hardened, or cured, by way of heat, gas, or UV light. This process not only halts natural decomposition, but also preserves even the most microscopic details of the specimen.

The figures are all posed in certain ways, emphasizing physical aspects of the body. This gives the viewer a better understanding of his, or her, own locomotive and nervous systems, clearly showing the interaction between the musculature and the bone structure of the human body. In addition to this, other systems of the body are also shown, in detail, by way of manipulating the bodies in certain ways, or adding dyes to emphasize qualities of the digestive, respiratory and cardiovascular systems.

What really makes the presence of actual bodies important, is the fact that the viewer can see all the specific qualities and unique characteristics, such as cancers and tumors, natural deformations, and/or arthoplasty and other artificial alterations, of a certain bodyform.

Even so, there has been heavy debate as to whether the positive scientific benefits outweigh the potential consequences of displaying the bodies in ways that make them appear alive, manipulating them as if in action. Some fear this exploits the men and women who donated their bodies to the process, making them something like a circus sideshow. Still others argue the manipulation has more artistic qualities than scientific.

However, science, by and large, is continually represented artistically. Drawing the human body in physical poses, for example, is an important way to consider the locomotive principles of the muscles, with relation to the bones and other structures of the body. The fact that it's artistic, and somewhat sensational, plays on the curiosities of people who wouldn't normally be interested in learning about the human body. It certainly got my attention.