Has Arthur C. Clarke gone woo woo?

ceptimus

puzzler
C
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May 20, 2003
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Arthur C. Clarke on Mars life and Cold Fusion

Looks like a reputable source
I'm now quite convinced that Mars is infested with life. Mars orbiter photographs show huge areas of vegetation. I don't think there's any doubt anymore on that. And where there's vegetation, they'll be something nibbling on it.
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It's not cold. It's not fusion. It may be tepid fission or something. Don't laugh…but there's something going on there. A number of reputable groups have succeeded in generating small amounts of energy that, apparently, are not easy to account for. So I think there's something there.
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It's always amazed me when people people cite Clarke as some kind of credible scientific authority.
 
Over at the Free Enterprise Mission (an Art Bell fan site), they cited Clarke as supporting the theory that certain geological formations were actually alien-made tunnels of some kind. It was a long time ago, or I would give you a link.

I was kind of surprised by it at the time. Disappointed.
 
The cold fusion quote is not so surprising. I admit, I've ignored the whole cold fusion thing after the original hubbub, but as I recall, the cold fusion people did have a exothermic reaction of some sort going on. I don't recall anyone saying that nothing was happening, only that it wasn't fusion. If you take Clarke's reference to "tepid fission" as a joke, all he's saying is that there is an unexplained reaction occurring. Of course, as long as the only people observing that reaction are looking for fusion, they'll never figure out what's going on.

As for the Mars bit, I think he's just nuts.
 
In the late 70s or early 80s, Arthur C Clarke hosted a show called "Mysterious Universe" (or some re-packaged title like that). He was fairly skeptical, rejecting the idea of ghosts, bigfoot, lochness monster... he was more open about UFOs and things he felt could potentially be true, even with very little evidence for them.
 
American said:
In the late 70s or early 80s, Arthur C Clarke hosted a show called "Mysterious Universe" (or some re-packaged title like that). He was fairly skeptical, rejecting the idea of ghosts, bigfoot, lochness monster... he was more open about UFOs and things he felt could potentially be true, even with very little evidence for them.
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i saw the Loch Ness Monster episode in a hotel room in Philedephia. pretty good show, for what it was. i think it is natural that he be less skeptical about UFO's, given what he has a tendency to write.
 
More Clarke news from the New York Times (reg. req'd):
With advances toward ultrastrong fibers, the concept of building an elevator 60,000 miles high to carry cargo into space is moving from the realm of science fiction to the fringes of reality.

This month, the Los Alamos National Laboratory was a sponsor of a conference to ponder the concept. Yet, the keynote address was by a titan of science fiction, Arthur C. Clarke, speaking via satellite from his home in Sri Lanka. "I'm happy that people are taking it more and more seriously," said Mr. Clarke, whose novel "The Fountains of Paradise" (1978) revolved around such a space elevator.
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If I'm not mistaken, a space elevator also played a prominent role in "3001," in which Clarke brought Frank Poole back to life.

If the damned thing gets built, you can just bet that people will want to call it the "Stairway to Heaven."
 
If I remember right, Clarke was the originator of the concept of a communications satellite, also.
 
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