h a l f b a k e r yAssume a hemispherical cow.
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I was thinking of suggesting the (re)naming of the space station, but this is wonderful+ |
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A black slab on Mars or the moon would be better, Yes? |
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Yes, on the moon. Someplace visible from Earth. Bonus points if it casts a large shadow. |
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(+) <sigh> The world just got a little poorer. |
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Just noted - the date of the idea posting is the day before the obit date. Time zones, obviously, but the speed of communicating the news is largely due to satellite transmission and mass telecoms - both legacies of Mr. Clarke. |
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[normzone], hooting and clutching a large bone, enthusiastically smacks it against other bones and throws it into the air. |
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Have a look at Sir Arthur's original paper [link] about the possibility of using geostationary satellites for communications. |
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I like to think he sometimes visited the 'Bakery. |
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Thankfully, that hack Graham Hancock will have much more difficulty claiming that Arthur C. Clark has told him about any new life on Mars theories. |
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Would someone care to do some calculations of how much it would cost to achieve? I believe the dimensional ratio is 1:4:9. Graphite (mass = 2.09 to 2.23 g/cc) might be a good material to use (I think that given the properties of different forms of carbon, it is reasonable to imagine that the original monoliths could have been entirely carbon). There may even be a form of carbon that would make the monolith useful, such as reflective glassy carbon so we can look at Earth, or perhaps even something that we can beam a signal at and use as a SETI transmitter (sending out 2001 might be the wrong message). |
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My rough guestimates assuming mass=2.15 and cost to GSO=$20/g:
90cm => 77.4 kg = $1,548,000
9m => 77.4 tonnes $1,548,000,000
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You might be able to do it for quite a bit less. "Zagadka", TMA-2, was measured to have a "density only slightly higher than air", and was presumed to have been hollow. |
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Yes. Brilliant idea. I knew there'd be something on here about him as soon as i heard. |
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[marklar] - I don't think the monolith should be solid. It should be hollow and, somehow, full of stars. |
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Fittingly, now he's inside a box he is no longer thinking.... |
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My favorite Clarke quote: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from Magic." Very appropriate for the 'bakery. + |
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I had the pleasure of speaking with him on a satellite connection to Sri Lanka in 1979, for a panel discussion at CalTech. (setting up the connection, not actually conversing!) |
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This would orbit Jupiter, right? |
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Or Saturn. Depends if you go by the book
or the film. |
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If the walls were 1cm thick, the new guestimates are:
90cm => 20 kg = $400,000
9m => 1,042 kg = $20,840,000
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They don't seem right but I can't see where I went wrong. |
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If the walls of an evacuated 9m monolith were 1mm thick it would have about the same mass as the same volume of air at 1atm. (37ish kg) |
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<Dave>Open the Pearly Gates, HAL</Dave> |
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<HAL's voice>I'm sorry, Dave, I can't do that.</HV> |
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He was wrong about the hovercraft though, sadly, wasn't he? |
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Shirley the place to erect the monolith would be just outside the European Parliament building, so that all the monkeys can dance round it, grunting and scratching ? |
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Damn shame he never made it to orbit in person. |
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Presumably he'll be cremated and his ashes sent into orbit. I'll be surprised if that doesn't happen. |
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I'd read that he had arrangements made for a DNA sample (hair) to be put into orbit. (Much more practical if you ever want anyone to do anything with it, right?) |
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"Oh my god! It's full of socks!"
UnaBubba, Mar 19 2008 |
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<spills wine, breaks glass, reconsiders knowledge> |
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//I'd read that he had arrangements made for a DNA sample (hair) to be put into orbit. //
Hmmm, probably weighs less than 20 grammes...hmmm. |
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The ratios for the monolith were 1x3x9. Of course, they appear to have come in different sizes, so his hair could be put in a box of a gramme or two in mass made to those dimensions. |
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What if his body was cremated, then the carbon was used to make the monument? One of my wife's exes may have been made into a diamond. His hair could then be placed inside it, maybe after being knitted into socks. |
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There had to be one Bonehead here to trample on his memorial, it figures. |
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Don't feed the troll - just feel sorry for
anyone who's only achievement in life is
to leave a digital fishbone on someone
else's idea for a memorial to a fine
person. |
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There is a commentary in The Times today by Darren Nash, editorial director of Britain's largest sci-fi publisher:
"If you had asked me as a teenager what reading Arthur C Clarke felt like, I would have said: "Having my brain pried open and the Universe poured in". |
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"Oh my god! It's full of socks!" [marked-for-tagline] |
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Of the best science-fiction writers of my youth--Asimov, Bradbury, Heinlein and Clarke-- Arthur C. Clarke wrote with the most humanity. He showed how people and the universe fit together. |
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I remember my outrage when a movie changed his book to make enemies out of the scientists of two nations, then brought in a powerful alien to force peace upon humans. People may not all be as good as Clarke wrote them, but many are, and I have always tried to be. |
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I found Clarke the most plausible of the people you mention, and although i feel his stories often lack much of a plot, the technology he depicts has an uncanny knack of coming to pass. I also like the strong Stapledon influence. |
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However, i'm afraid i don't like 2001. It's not Clarke's fault, but Kubrick seems to have taken over completely and turned it into something which is deeply shallow. Left to himself, i don't think he'd have been that vague. |
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'Profiles Of The Future' introduced me to the idea of hovercraft as a mainstream mode of transport, which makes him "one of us" i think. |
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Why, oh, why, when those great names are listed (Asimov, Bradbury, Heinlein and Clarke), why is the name of Ellison left off? I shall never understand this. Great as they are, Harlan Ellison outdid them all. |
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Don't forget Philip K Dick and William
Gibson. |
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I don't know Gibson very well, but though I very much like Dick, he gets slotted just beneath all of them for me. |
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And let's hear it for HG Wells. But only
after Arthur has had a chance to cool. |
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Well, I never read Ellison 'till later, nor Niven. I was just referring to those of my impressionable youth in a small-town library. |
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As for the movie version of 2001; I never see any Kubrick movie if I can avoid it. |
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//But only after Arthur has had a chance to cool// |
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Point well taken. Apologies. |
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RIP Arthur C. Clarke, Space Odyssie 2010 was a sweet book that had a truly enlightening tail of Space Travel to it. |
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What would Jupiter think??? My answer is that Jupiter has what seems like an eternity to think about how lucky it was that it didn't gain enough mass to become a small star. Now it can possibly harbor life on its moons if it just keeps on tugging with those strong tidal forces. Um, just don't go startin' any fusion ignitions on the Jovians or Jupiter, the fallen star, will be converted into Luciferous the second sun! |
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+ what a bummer. I didn't know this. I have almost all of his books. I heard he was having complications from childhood polio, but I didn't expect to see this. |
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Will the Monolith transmit music? |
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[a single movement] I like your attribution of personal goals to the planets. |
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Uranus is just a lazy ass, ha |
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//Will the Monolith transmit music?// hmmm... a featureless 1:4:9 black iPod case? I'd be tempted, and I don't even have an iPod! |
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I miss the works he may have created, am thankful for the ones he shared, and think this is a fine idea. |
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How did I miss this? [+] [+] [+]! |
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Perhaps you were busy building Cheesehenge. |
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On my list of things to do. |
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