Arthur C. Clarke was born in the seaside town of Minehead, Somerset, England on December 16, 1917. He became interested in science in early age, and constructed his first telescope at thirteen. While in school Clarke started to write 'fantastic' stories and read eagerly the magazine Astounding Stories. He also read works from such writers as H.G. Wells and Jules Verne and looked at the stars through his homemade telescopes.

Lacking sufficient money for higher education, in 1936 he moved to London where he worked as a government auditor from 1936 to 1941 and joined the British Interplanetary Society. There he started to experiment with astronautic material in the BIS, write the BIS Bulletin and science fiction.

From 1941 to 1946 Clarke served in the Royal Air Force, becoming a radar instructor and technician. During this time he was in charge of the first radar talk-down equipment, the Ground Controlled Approach, during its experimental trials. His only non-science-fiction novel, Glide Path, is based on this work.

While in the service he published his first science-fiction stories (Rescue Party, 1945) and in 1945 wrote for Wireless World an article entitled Extra-Terrestrial Relays, predicting in detail a communications satellite system in geostationary orbits that would relay radio and television signals all over the world. His invention has brought him numerous honors, such as the 1982 Marconi International Fellowship, a gold medal of the Franklin Institute, the Vikram Sarabhai Professorship of the Physical Research Laboratory, Ahmedabad, the Lindbergh Award and a Fellowship of King's College, London. Today, the geostationary orbit at 42,000 kilometers is named The Clarke Orbit by the International Astronomical Union.

After the war, he returned to London and to the BIS, which he presided in 46-47 and 50-53, and obtained a degree from King's College, London (B.Sc., 1948), with honours in physics and mathematics, and then became a prolific science-fiction writer, known especially for such novels as Childhood's end(1953), a story about the beginning of the age of Humankind after Overlods have eliminated ignorance, disease and poverty.

In 1954 Clarke started to give up space for the sea. About the reasons, he said: "I now realise that it was my interest in astronautics that led me to the ocean. Both involve exploration, of course - but that's not the only reason. When the first skin-diving equipment started to appear in the late 1940s, I suddenly realized that here was a cheap and simple way of imitating one of the most magical aspects of spaceflight - weightessness." He moved to Colombo, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), where he embarked on a second career combining skin diving and photography; he reported his various underwater ventures in a succession of books, the first of which was The Coast of Coral(1956).

In the book Profiles of the Future (1962) he looks at the probable shape of tomorrow's world. In this book he states his three Laws.

Second Law:
"The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible."

Third Law:
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

In the 1960s Clarke collaborated with motion-picture director Stanley Kubrick in making the innovative and highly praised science-fiction film 2001: A Space Odyssey(1968), based on Clarke's short story The Sentinel(1951) and subsequently developed into a novel (1968). In the story a mysterious monolith is found buried beneath the surface of the moon. It send's a signal towards Jupiter. To solve the mystery astronauts are sent to Jupiter with the help of the super-computer HAL 9000. With the amazing computer Clarke presents one of the basic philosophical questions: can there be intelligence without consciousness? After series of accident's and HAL's operations, one of the astronauts, David Bowman, is left alone as the ship reaches the planet. He embarks on the final step in humankind's next developmental stage.

In the 1980s Clarke was a presenter of the television series Arthur C. Clarke's Mysterious World (1980) and World of Strange Powers (1985), that have now been screened in many countries. He made part of other TV series about the space, as Walter Cronkite's Universe series in 1981.

In 1985, He published a sequel to 2001: 2010: Odyssey Two that was released as a film in 1984. He worked with Peter Hyams in the movie version of 2010. Their work was done using a Kaypro computer and a modem, for Arthur was in Sri Lanka and Peter Hyams in Los Angeles. Their communications turned into the book The Odyssey File - The Making of 2010.
Later novels in the series include 2061: Odyssey Three(1987) and 3001: The Final Odyssey(1997).

Among Clarke's central themes in his fiction is the spiritual rebirth and the search for man's place in the universe. However, his technological details are flawless, and often he has guessed right new advances in science.

In 1989, Queen Elizabeth II awarded him a Commander of the Order of the British Empire for his "services to British cultural interests in Sri Lanka."

In 1994 he was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for his 1945 insights that led to the development of orbiting communication satellites.

On 26 May, 2000, Arthur was presented the "Award of Knight Bachelor" at a ceremony in Colombo, two years after the title was conferred on him.

Sir Arthur has lived in Colombo, Sri Lanka since 1956 and has been doing underwater exploration along that coast and the Great Barrier Reef. He is now completely wheelchaired due to a post polio syndrome (except when playing table tennis) but can stand for a few seconds.

Awards Hugo Best Short story winner (1956) : The Star Hugo Best Novel nominee (1963) : A Fall of Moondust Hugo Best Novella nominee (1972) : A Meeting with Medusa Nebula Best Novella winner (1972) : A Meeting with Medusa Nebula Best Novel winner (1973) : Rendezvous with Rama Hugo Best Novel winner (1974) : Rendezvous with Rama Nebula Best Novel winner (1979) : The Fountains of Paradise Hugo Best Novel winner (1980) : The Fountains of Paradise Hugo Best Novel nominee (1983) : 2010: Odyssey Two Collections Tales from the White Hart (1940) Expedition to Earth (1953) Reach for Tomorrow (1956) The Other Side of the Sky (1958) Across the Sea of Stars (1959) From the Ocean, From the Stars (1962) Tales of Ten Worlds (1962) Prelude to Mars (1965) The Nine Billion Names of God (1967) An Arthur C. Clarke second omnibus (1968) The Lion of Comarre: And Other Stories (1968) Earthlight And Other Stories (1971) Of Time and Stars (1972) The Wind from the Sun (1972) The Best of Arthur C Clarke 1937-1955 (1973) The best of Arthur C. Clarke (1973) Best of Arthur C. Clarke: 1956-1972 (1977) Four Great SF Novels (1978) Possessed: And Other Stories (1978) Arthur C. Clarke: 2001, A Space Odyssey; The City and the Stars; The Deep Range, A Fall of Moondust; Rendezvous With Rama (1980) The Sentinel (1982) Lion of Comarre and Against the Fall of Night (1983) The Songs of Distant Earth: And Other Stories (1986) The Best Short Stories of Arthur C. Clarke (1988) Tales from Planet Earth (1989) A Meeting with Medusa: And Other Stories (1991) The Arthur C. Clarke Collection: 2001 a Space Odyssey/Transit of Earth/Fountains of Paradise/Childhood's End [ABRIDGED] (1995) The City and the Stars / The Sands of Mars (2001) The Collected Stories of Arthur C. Clarke (2001) The Ghost from the Grand Banks and the Deep Range (2001) The Shining Ones: And Other Stories (2001) Space Trilogy (2001) Non Fiction Interplanetary Flight (1950) The Exploration of Space (1951) The Exploration of the Moon (1954) The Young Traveller in Space (1954) The Making of a Moon (1957) Boy Beneath the Sea (1958) The Challenge of the Spaceship (1958) Voice Across the Sea (1958) The Challenge of the Sea (1960) The First Five Fathoms (1960) Indian Ocean Adventure (1961) Profiles of the Future (1962) Indian Ocean Treasure (1964) (with Mike Wilson) The Treasure of the Great Reef (1964) Voices from the Sky (1965) The Coming of the Space Age (1967) Man and Space: Life Science Library (1967) 2001: Filming the Future (1968) (with Piers Bizony) The Promise of Space (1968) First on the Moon (1970) Into Space (1971) (with Robert Silverberg) Beyond Jupiter (1972) (with Chesley Bonestell) The Lost Worlds of 2001 (1972) Report on Planet Three: And Other Speculations (1972) 2001 and Beyond (1975) Technology and the Frontiers of Knowledge (1975) Mysterious Worlds (1980) Arthur C. Clarke's Mysterious World (1981) (with John Fairley and Simon Welfare) Arthur C. Clarke's World of Strange Powers (1981) (with John Fairley) 1984 Spring: A Choice of Futures (1984) Frontline of Discovery: Science on the Brink of Tomorrow (1985) More Than One Universe (1985) The Odyssey File (1985) (with Peter Hyams) Arthur C. Clarke's July 20, 2019: Life in the 21st Century (1986) Astounding Days: A Science Fictional Autobiography (1988) How the World Was One: Beyond the Global Village (1988) The Worlds of Galileo (1988) Arthur C. Clarke's chronicles of the strange and mysterious (1989) (with John Fairley) An Encyclopedia of Claims, Frauds, and Hoaxes of the Occult and Supernatural: James Randi's Decidedly Skeptical Definitions of Alternate Realities (1992) The Fantastic Muse (1992) By Space Possessed (1993) The Apollo 11 Moon Landing (1994) Arthur C. Clarke's A-Z of Mysteries (1994) The Colours of Infinity (1994) The Snows of Olympus: A Garden on Mars (1994) The Supernatural A-Z (1995) (with James Randi) Macroshift: Navigating the Transformation to a Sustainable World (1997) Arthur C. Clarke and Lord Dunsany: A Correspondence (1998) (with Lord Dunsany) Arthur C. Clarke's Mysteries (1998) (with John Fairley) Greetings, Carbon-Based Bipeds! (1999) Welcome to the Wired World: The New Networked Economy (1999) Sri Lanka: The Emerald Island (2000) Arthur C. Clarke and C. S. Lewis: A Correspondence (2001) (with C S Lewis) Moonwatcher's Memoir: A Diary of 2001, a Space Odyssey (2002) (with Dan Richter) Novels Prelude to Space (1951) Sands of Mars (1951) Islands in the Sky (1952) Against the Fall of the Night (1953) Childhood's End (1953) The Deep Range (1954) Earthlight (1955) The City and the Stars (1956) Reefs of Taprobane (1957) A Fall of Moondust (1961) Master of Space (1961) Dolphin Island: A Story of the People of the Sea (1963) Glide Path (1963) The Space Dreamers (1969) Imperial Earth (1975) The View from Serendip (1977) The Fountains of Paradise (1978) Cradle (1987) (with Gentry Lee) Beyond the Fall of Night (1990) (with Gregory Benford) The Ghost from the Grand Banks (1990) The Hammer of God (1993) Breaking Strain: The Adventures of Yellow Dog (1995) Richter 10 (1996) (with Mike McQuay) The Trigger (1999) (with Michael P Kube-McDowell) The Light of Other Days (2000) (with Stephen M Baxter) The Last Theorem (2004) Series 2001 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) 2010: Odyssey Two (1982) 2061: Odyssey Three (1988) 3001: The Final Odyssey (1996) Rama Rendezvous with Rama (1972) Rama II (1989) (with Gentry Lee) The Garden of Rama (1991) (with Gentry Lee) Rama Revealed (1993) (with Gentry Lee) Time Odyssey (with Stephen M. Baxter) Time's Eye (2003) Short Stories Travel By Wire! (1937) Retreat from Earth (1938) The Awakening (1942) Whacky (1942) Loophole (1946) Rescue Party (1946) Technical Error (1946) Castaway (1947) The Curse (1947) The Fires Within (1947) Inheritance (1948) Breaking Strain (1949) The Forgotten Enemy (1949) Hide and Seek (1949) History Lesson (1949) Transcience (1949) The Wall of Darkness (1949) Guardian Angel (1950) Nemesis (1950) The Road to the Sea (1950) Silence, Please! (1950) Time's Arrow (1950) A Walk in the Dark (1950) Captain Wyxtpthll's Flying Saucer (1951) 'If I Forget Thee, Oh Earth...' (1951) Second Dawn (1951) The Sentinel (1951) Sentinel of Eternity (1951) Superiority (1951) Trouble with the Natives (1951) All the Time in the World (1952) The Possessed (1952) Encounter at Dawn (1953) Encounter in the Dawn (1953) Expedition to Earth (1953) Jupiter V (1953) The Nine Billion Names of God (1953) The Parasite (1953) Armaments Race (1954) Big Game Hunt (1954) No Morning After (1954) Patent Pending (1954) Refugee (1955) The Star (1955) Hugo This Earth of Majesty (1955) What Goes Up (1955) All That Glitters (1956) Green Fingers (1956) The Next Tenants (1956) The Pacifist (1956) Publicity Campaign (1956) A Question of Residence (1956) The Reluctant Orchid (1956) Robin Hood, FRS (1956) The Starting Line (1956) The Ultimate Melody (1956) Venture to the Moon (1956) Watch This Space (1956) The Call of the Stars (1957) Cold War (1957) Critical Mass (1957) The Defestration of Ermintrude Inch (1957) Feathered Friend (1957) Freedom of Space (1957) Let There Be Light (1957) The Man Who Ploughed the Sea (1957) Moving Spirit (1957) The Other Side of the Sky (1957) Passer-By (1957) Security Check (1957) Sleeping Beauty (1957) The Songs of Distant Earth (1957) Special Delivery (1957) Take a Deep Breath (1957) Cosmic Casanova (1958) The Haunted Spacesuit (1958) Out of the Sun (1958) A Slight Case of Sunstroke (1958) Who's There? (1958) Out of the Cradle, Endlessly Orbiting... (1959) Crime on Mars (1960) I Remember Babylon (1960) Into the Comet (1960) Summertime on Icarus (1960) Trouble with Time (1960) Before Eden (1961) Death and the Senator (1961) Hate (1961) Saturn Rising (1961) An Ape About the Hoose (1962) Dog Star (1962) The Secret (1963) Sunjammer (1964) The Wind from the Sun (1964) Dial "F" for Frankenstein (1965) The Longest Science-Fiction Story Ever Told (1966) A Meeting with Medusa (1971) Reunion (1971) Transit of Earth (1971) Rendezvous with Rama (excerpt) (1973) The Steam-Powered Word Processor (1986) The Wire Continuum (1998) (with Stephen M Baxter) Hibernaculum 46 (2000) (with Stephen M Baxter)