1964: ARTHUR C CLARKE predicts the FUTURE | Horizon | Past Predictions | BBC Archive
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 8 ม.ค. 2025
- "The only thing we can be sure of about the future, is that it will be absolutely fantastic. So, if what I say now seems to you to be very reasonable, then I will have failed completely" - Arthur C Clarke.
The science-fiction writer and futurist Arthur C Clarke undertakes that most impossible and unrewarding of tasks - attempting to accurately predict the future. What will the world of tomorrow look like? Will the inhabitants of the future have monkey butlers? Yes, according to Mr Clarke, but only until they unionise...
Clip taken from Horizon: The Knowledge Explosion, originally broadcast on BBC Two, Monday 21 September 1964.
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Arthur C Clarke lived to 2008 so he lived long enough to see his communication prediction come true. What a genius!
but where are my monkey servants?
@@chrismurphy8383 In Thailand.
What prediction in particular? I thought the only one that came close was that some of us can now work from home. Also he needs to get his theology sorted out. On the ond hand he talks about the evolution of man above primates, and then refers to the curse of Adam. Make your mind up Arthur!
He pretty much invented the coms satellite by the way.
Wireless communication and computer communication was already predicted in the late 19th century, people foresaw methods of sending written messages and viewing them on screens, storing memories, real time video, VoP and much more.
Because, when one understands rudimentary computer science, all of this becomes logical, in fact, even now its logical to suggest that computers will keep growing smaller and smaller, and soon integrate into our own brains.
He was also a kind person. He actually answered a letter I wrote him describing an invention of mine. I still have that letter in my safety deposit box.
That's very sweet. Thanks for that memory :) also get you!
Nice to meet you pal.
Fascinating! What was your invention, and what year was it when you wrote to him?
@@EIRE55 - It was a protection system using two laser beams that, unfortunately, was finally proven to not work due to the "peculiarities" of quantum mechanics. I think this was some 20-30 years ago.
@@fredrichenning1367
Thank you for your response to my questions.
Quantum mechanics? Well, nothing can be created without a bit of trial and error, so well done for trying!
Stay safe and well, wherever you are.😊
What strikes me most in this isn't his actual predictions, some have come true, some have not, but his awareness of where they were back then compared to the distant pass and how that relates to his future. He also seems very aware that people from his future will be able to watch this video, which is quite striking too.
The great thing about sci-fi writers is thinking outside the box.
Excellent observation, enlightening
someone should mention Arthur C. Clarkewas an excllent sientist who invented the geo-syncronous satalite.
@@billrsv4244 Indeed. I think you might have just mentioned it. No one seems to be mentioning the scuba diving either.
Almost none of his predictions came true, many were completely out of touch with reality and the two that could be considered having come true were so broadly worded as to have been true when he said them and impossible to not be true in the future.
Understanding the past in relation to present is no more remarkable then, than it is now. Given this video was a recording, of course he was aware it would be viewable in the future.
This is quite a silly comment
He was the chief guest at my college sports meet in late 80s in Sri Lanka.
I feel fortunate to have met him.
My grandfather was first gen counsel of NASA and later become chief international negotiator and then CEO for COMSAT. He always gave credit to Clarke for conceiving comm sats and often explained to me, a child in the 80s, how the internet, etc would work, and said credit should go to Clarke. He had a whole shelf of books by Clarke and told me to read them but I did not. The ironic thing was my grandfather refused to get cable tv, use a cellphone, etc, saying the devices were being misused.
Your Gramps is possibly directly, or indirectly one of the founders of the modern internet. The internet as we know it has its roots in the 1970s and 1980s before it became the world wide web around 1992/93.
You should read some of his SF novels. They are a treat.
Absolute legend, if you ask me!
Yes, Arthur C. Clark is widely credited with coming up with the concept of geosynchronous orbit, which is what communications satellites use. It's one of the most famous examples of science fiction correctly forecasting technology.
The devices are being misused indeed…
The “replicator” he describes became a reality as 3-D printing. Impressive!
I think he was thinking along the lines of a Star Trek replicator (probably an idea “stolen” from him) that would be able to copy the molecular structure of any given object.
or virtual reality
Sounds like Drexlerian Nanotechnology. Eric Drexler even calls his nanotechnology - "Replicator."
More like a first iteration or protozype of duplicator
I own every single one of his books and short stories. He is one of the best writers I have ever read. This man is a genius and had a talent for writing that to this day feels futuristic and keeps me hooked.
If you have never read his work and enjoy science and/or science fiction please read his books. You will love them.
Some of his best: The City and the Stars, A Fall of Moondust, Beyond the Fall of Night, The Songs of Distant Earth, the Rama series, the A Time Odyssey trilogy, the 2001 A Space Odyssey books, The Deep Range, Dolphin Island, Childhood’s End and Islands in the Sky
Rama series is amazing.
Anyone else think about "Rama" when, Oumuamua visited the solar system in 2017 ?
With due respect to Mr.Clarke, his imagination didn't reach beyond the material aspects of human existence. He didn't dare to predict what the humans would evolutionize to in a moral sense. Looking on how the things are today regarding the moral values' degradation it's even more apalling to think what the society as well as its individuals will be in the next 20-30 years from now.
You missed my favorite Clarke book, "Tales From The White Hart"
@@oldcougar65 I will take note of that. Thank you.
I have all of Fred who who was Arthur's brothers books which document the local history of our family in Somerset. I must admit despite him being my great uncle I've never read anything by Arthur. I'm more interested in the family history documented by other members of the family.
The two big problems ACC missed out on were the extreme strength of social inertia putting serious brakes on developments they don't like; and the desire for individual power by people wanting to take over the world causing huge delays in advances by wasting all sorts of resources in the push for their own personal greed an aggrandizement.
Good comment here. He seriously underestimated the power of the bankers.
@thelyniezian I'm sure ACC was familiar with the abuse of power by individuals at the top level, but from what I've read of his life I very much doubt he'd be familiar with the abuse of power at the state and local level or by the bureaucrats involved.
Social inertia can sometimes be good, that's true, but more often it's damaging to the society by continuing things well past their viable use.
The sequels to 2001 do touch on some of those problems, I think Rendezvous with Rama is the one that includes a splinter group of Earth inhabitants being included on the spaceship, and they try to take over the entire ship because the advanced technology is "wrong", though it benefits them.
I still think the sequels would make a wonderful TV series.
@@sallymoen7932 I was referring to what was said in the news article. ACC did cover a lot of interesting stuff in his stories.
people want the future but live in the past. Just look at America and UK. They still build housing that's the same as in the 50s, instead of building houses that look like homes of the future. Future for them is retrofitting old style homes with tech. But the architecture lags behind quite severely.
He forgot to predict that human stupidity would increase with all this technology
It hurts my heart that most young people don't know who this brilliant man is.
Unfortunately,many young people don't seem to know much about anything!
This how we repeat the same mistake because a wise man advise us what to be cautious without telling us what to do when there is a good chance that we wouldn't listen to those ideas that are too foreign for us to understand at that time.
@@nearlyretired7005 true
@@nearlyretired7005 Ah, the sweet sweet generation cycle. It never ends. Despite literally everything changing, the fact that the people of yesterday still view the youngest generations as absolutely moronic never changes.
@@nearlyretired7005 If you are thinking that then you probably have lost touch with the worlds developments. Don’t you remember being young yourself?
It's a shame we don't have politicians with equally forward thinking ideas and commitment.
Politicians are obsolete. The problem is, most people can’t see how destructive politicians really are.
We do. Look at the Netherlands, at least at the city level right now. When your metros start getting enough cycleways and transit (will probably take 150 years at your rate), the cultural momentum will change.
@@C0deH0wler Am I the only one who doesn’t get this walkable city fad as the ideal vision of the future. I’m more excited by the rejuvenation of small town main streets, mom & pop shops making a return and the ability for people to start moving back out again into quiet, low-populated areas thanks to satellite internet and the expansion of broadband. I don’t want to take a train OR drive everywhere, ideally I won’t have to travel everyday.
but they are forward thinking and commited but for their cause whatever that might be
Politicians don't need his commitment, they need his humbleness. That is, if we asume politicians have good intentions in the first place.
I read all of his books back in the 60s and 70s, and recently bought a book that contains all 200+ of his short stories and read it. He was a visionary unmatched in the literary world.
Did you invest your money based on his predictions?
H G Wells , Jules Verne?
Stanisław Lem > Clarke. SAD BUT TRUE, IGNORANT.
This guy would make a great science fiction writer with an imagination like that.
He did and published may SF books.
@@johnmartin6178 Clearly you missed the joke...
@Meh. That's putting it mildly ! There's always one. 🙄🤣🤣
That was his twin brother, Arthur C Clarke who nicked all the ideas from this futurist guy, Arthur Clarke.
Haha and I would read them all🥴🤔🤪
man you really scared me. How true your every single word was.
Salute from Afghanistan.
Please pray for us to get rid of barbarian talibans.
He taught my class one afternoon in 1952. His predictions took 20 years to arrive, but they did come.
how can you still remember this?
@@nickrodriguez3850 You must be quite young. You'll see someday.
That was truly mental. Thank you BBC for uploading this historical video!
Yes indeed!
He nails the principle of working remotely and contacting people anywhere in the world where ever they maybe. Other subjects he talks about, for now at least, exist only in movie franchises like Star Trek, The Terminator and Planet Of The Apes.
3D printers are the fore-runners of replicators and 'transporters' :-)
I wonder, was this actually the "invention" of the replicator in Star Trek? It first aired 2 years after this broadcast 🤔
That's what Skynet wants you to think
Robotic surgery or long distant surgery has also existed for roughly a decade or so. Especially in parts of the world where long distances to medical hubs is a hindrance such as Australia and Canada.
Some may also suggest we have learned to train dolphins to our advantage, specifically the military. Albeit for nefarious purposes.
He was such an insightful man, a true visionary. I loved watching his mysterious world/universe series when I was a kid. I could just listen to him for hours; really wish he was still among us.
RIP Sir Arthur.
1:35 When he said that it really brought something home to me. When I was 10, in 1974, we had a school assignment to write an essay entitled "Life In Th Year 2000". It seemed so far in the future, so distant and so futuristic. How I imagined and how I dreamed.
TIME WARPED 2012 _ 2032 we have only one chance to get this right![incoming LOVE re-EVOLUTION coming soon]❤
@@Smoothflavour445 I hope you're right
Lets do our best and have hope..Theres a saying by Rumi "If everything around seems dark, look again, you might be the light."
In my day it was 1984!
The 4 things I remember him for are;
1, he had a part in inventing radar
2, communication satellite
3, 2001 A Space Odyssey
4, His TV show, Mysterious World
Every now and then through history, certain people just seem to arrive, Newton, Galileo, Da Vinci, Hawking...... could he be added to the list
and the whole child pedo thing.
"Open the fridge doors Hal" ...
'I'm afraid I can't do that Arthur.'
🤣
I need an AI controlled refrigerator!
We need a law-abiding A.I. Government
Heck, here i am typing in Finland 21:11 at night, and someone in, lets say, Chile, could be reading thi very massage. What a world we live in.
I see see your post in Statesville, North Carolina USA
Reading your comment here in UK, so many take it for granted 😉
Terve! Viron poika on siin. Hello! A Estonian boy is here. :)
Hello from Portugal 🙋♂️
I’m going to leave a rude pointless comment in my reply from London U.K. That’s the only part Clarke didn’t take into consideration. The troll.
I remeber watching Arthur C Clarke's mysterious universe series on the discovery channel, back in the day it was still good.
His vision is absolutely massive. What a legend. Love from Sri Lanka 🇱🇰
amazing how many of his predictions are spot on.
I loved Arthur C Clark’s books. And it’s really interesting 20+ years after the 2000 yr prediction his predictions are so accurate!
@1:32 He totally got the part about communication and remote work so accurately correct.
He was actually the man who described the techniques of satellite communications before the first satellites were built.
The technology for remote working has been available for some time but only culturally accepted during lockdown when it became a necessity.
As long as the work consists of sitting at a desk or table inputting data in some form. Difficult to roof a house or do plumbing remotely.
True to a certain extent. Many companies hate remote work because of outdated management methods. They want butts in seats so that supervisors can ask for TPS reports. Unfortunately, the trend is back to the office. Corporations seem to miss the fact that allowing remote work helps with climate change and is like giving a pay raise without actually doing so. While tech evolves, we don’t.
He missed the Tik Tok Hype House, but honestly can't be blamed for that!!!!
Very good with world communications, and working from home, not so much with the Monkey butlers.
Yeah, but he predicted the communications and working from home in around 50 years. He didn't really put a time on the monkey butlers. . . .
The monkey bit reminded me of the Planet of the Apes
I honestly think he's taking the piss when he mentions the "monkey butlers"
I think his smirking in between hints to whether he's just amusing himself a bit by playing with the audience. 😅
Alan Partridge had a better idea with monkey tennis.
He was so close with his prediction of home working and no more commuting, in fact it actually happened during the pandemic
Not only work, socialising too. We go to the pub less and less nowdays, not only because the beer got expensive. There just isn't any need. We chat with both our friends and complete strangers online.
In his 1951 book 'The Exploration of Space' Arthor C. Clarke predicted many of the details of the Apollo moon missions, 18 years before they happened!
He has foreseen too, the 3-D printer as an all in one duplicator, great writer, great visionair.
Not exactly what he had in mind, since he thought the duplicates would cost nothing.
@@creech54 Agreed, going with the idea that they wouldn't use any resources is just daft even by 1964 standards.
@@solidshadow01 th-cam.com/video/RzgVWpa4fzU/w-d-xo.html
The 3D printer is far from a duplicator. A duplicator would have to recreate an object at the atomic level, complete with all the original elements. It would therefore need the ability to create matter.
very limited in what it can duplicate. hes talking about more like what you see in star trek tng a true energy to baryonic matter reorganizer.
The replicators are coming! Love him and his writings. We're not even to his 100 years in the future, and things are already technologically amazing compared to 1964 (at which time I was a young lad.) Human belief systems are still lagging well behind technological progress though.
A hundred years from now, he will read our comments and say "RIP My friends"
I'm watching this with a shiver up my spine (truthfully) as I have a 'duplicator' sat next to me by way of a 3d printer. My goodness, I am forth hence, speechless.
Mr. Clarke has been one of my favorite authors for six decades. "Across The Sea of Stars" is an anthology of some of his greatest works. I love that book! I also love the fact that he worked on the first satellite system. A true visionary.
Arthur C Clarke & Isaac Asimov shaped my childhood.
I liked Isaac Asimov as a very young person until I studied science on my own and realized he was full of crap. Mainstream fundamental science is swimming in suppression, corruption and dogmatism.
Me too!!
I like how this guy predicts work from home in 1964. What he didn't predict is that people would be so ignorant and so addicted to the world of cars, offices and the power structures built around them, that they wouldn't be able to let go and continue advancement. Which is why we're comparatively in the dark ages compared to the 1960s, at least in attitude.
Very true.
It’s too bad more people aren’t as thoughtful and insightful as you. The world would be a much better place.😂
I like my car.
Alot of my friends work from home lol
@@Monkofthecaribbean Why is, ' A lot of my friends work from home lol' funny?
I tried to tell my wife that a monkey butler wasn't a stupid idea. It did rip her face off, God rest her soul, but there's always bugs to iron out when adopting a new technology.
MONKEY HATE CLEAN
What was it's name? Leroi?
@@rogerdodger8415 I had to look up what you meant. That's racist dude. And you didn't even spell his name correctly.
It's name was bubbles. I got it cheap from Michael Jackson's deceased estate.
@@fedzalicious Was Michael Jackson a racist? He named his monkey bubbles, but Leroi is racist? Why is that? Isn't Leroi a white name? In fact Le Roi means "the king"
@@rogerdodger8415 I could only assume you were talking about LeRoy Butler, an African-American football player. And the term 'monkey' is used as a racial slur against African-Americans. So you tell me.
Nailed it !
He was right about one thing. What he told me was unbelievable. Unbelievable in the fact of how accurate he was.
He was incredibly accurate!
Predicted pretty much every major high tech invention we have, modern telecommunications to AI to 3D printing.
He's only repeating what the Victorians said about the future in 1915.
1964 Worlds Fair was well timed for Stanley Kubrick’s new project 2001.
Not only meeting with Arthur C. Clarke, but seeing the work of Douglas Trumbull and
hiring spacecraft consultants Frederick Ordway and Harry Lange.
Do you think Clarke helped Kubrick fake the moon landings then?
Informed, intelligent and a creative genius - nails it. What makes his predictions more powerful - is the year he is making them in.
He proposed that in the future, we should not commute but communicate. Yet, should we have a desire to commute in space, despite the enournous amounts of time and energy required to reach any destination where there, with only a faintest likelihood possibly could be something to visit at all...
The world could be as he predicted but mankind is mankind and sceptics has denied us reliable energy and antidemocrats has ruined the culture in one of our largest countries on earth...
I see him more like Professor Frink on The Simpsons: a highly intelligent philistine. The type of person best kept far away from power and any real influence.
@@dixonpinfold2582 Can you specify that fear, a little?
He came from a generation of hope and saw the wealth of possibilities in the future. We need visionaries like that. It doesn't seem like he was reckoning with the inherent limitations on how to realize those hopes. I love this optimism.
And monkey servants. Gotta love monkey servants and dolphin maids.
@@martinsolomon5500 I try and look at this in a way of more positive light. The best I can come up with is that introducing new sapient life into the human order would (no proof of this) encourage the species as a whole to further improve on itself, if only to stay ahead of those they would deem beneath them.
It's a rather unsettling truth, but the flipside of the coin is humanity getting complacent in its own belief of intellectual superiority.
That's why i invest in Tesla. Just saying.
@@martinsolomon5500 Cat girl maids would be better to be honest
WOW this guy was right on the path on so many subjects! I found this talk brilliant ,I'm amazed I have not heard more about his guy but deffently plan on looking for more of his work .What a visionary
may i suggest you look into his personal background as well as his works...
He written many books, still available.
Amazing visionary.. I was fortunate enough to meet with and do some early IT work with him, his brother Fred & visit rocket publishing. A real gent 🙏
Amazingly insightful, especially about telework and also AI. My admiration for his intellect only grows.
Just imagine what he can't talk about being a government contractor
I am too young to have viewed this live, but after watching the entire 12 minutes, I honestly believe that Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Gene Roddenberry, were all sat around the TV set taking notes. Pierre Boulle was drinking wine and trying to write a sequel to La Planète des singes and everyone else were thinking the TV presenter had lost the plot. Great piece of TV history and well worth my 12 minutes.
Just a case of the collective unconsience at work. You'll see
Pretty damn sure all those folks read Clark's writings from their childhood. Clark, Asimov, Brin, Heinlein, and many more. I grew up reading all of them and often wondering what was taking so long. Now, finally, we have Elon Musk actually doing it.
What an amazing visionary. Alot of his predictions have already come true
Did we solve the servant problem with the help of the monkey kingdom? Did I miss that? 🤣
@@BritneyLaZonga No but we build a lot of black monolith buildings nowadays 😆
Where is HAL now we need him?
The one prediction is Sri Lanka become a most powerful country in the world.will it be ?
Spot on
Genius
Amazing we had great minds back then
Even 18 century
Made England ❤
Almost like a prophet from God
My time 1960
Golden years back then
Proper England back then
I bet you no children to day heard about this guy???
My school days we had to sharpening pencils before lessons
Today kids sharpening knifes
Stabbing each other to death every day in UK
Thanks for listening
Amazing technology we chatting and I don't know you
Ps
I could be a computer
Ha, ha, 😂😂😂
So be careful not to sent gifts
Chat soon
He's a brilliant man and I've read a lot of his books. Not to say he wasn't without some of the foibles of his generation, but he had some amazing insights into where things might go.
Foibles? Why did he live in Sri Lanka???
Very brilliant mind for that time period.
He did indeed move to a tropical paradise and conduct his business from there.
You know what, Mr. Clarke? It has been fantastic. Great call.
At the 9:30 mark he is talking about Calvin & Hobbes Transmogrifier. Amazing!
I found it interesting that he couldn't predict the USSR collapse in 2001: A Space Odyssey. Reading the book and seeing USSR mentioned made me realize how hard it is to predict the future.
3-D printers, instant communications, Mars, planetary travel, long distant work & travel, demise of cities, all foretold by Mr.Clarke. Never a fan of science fiction but, I did enjoy this man, his voice & ability to grasp the reader/ viewers attention.
What foresight this man had... The internet, 3d Printers, communications etc...
I am a huge fan of this man’s work. But even he seemed to forget the most important single thing which would not change. Us.
So true. was watching a documentary on translations of ancient Egyptian and Babylonian documents from 3 or 4 thousand yrs ago, and even back then peopel were having the same problems and issues as today. ( money, crime, romance, business dealings).
I beg to differ Mr. Jackson what about the gradual merger of technology with humans, that is to say bionic body part replacement which is no longer fiction. I can certainly see a time in the not too distant future that A.I will be an integral part of the human consciousness.
@@hookbeak2321 yes, he talks about machines that can print memories into our brains. That "printing" may not be limited to memories, or knowledge.. but also values and passions. In other words, such tech would be able to completely transform what it is to be human. It would also be able to link us to each other in telepathic connections, or fully emerge us into virtual worlds. THAT would potentially inflate the value of physical living, if the alternative is to live as a king in a digital world, where every desire would meet instant fulfillment and gratification, and your body would be young, clean, beautiful and free of disease for centuries.
Agree. His books focused mostly on technology and little about how people live or react under those circumstances.
Yeah a little strange, he sure didnt just communicate with his boyfriend, too enamured with Tech, bet he would predict USA hitching rides to LEO in 2022.
“Prediction is very difficult, especially if it's about the future!” - Niels Bohr
Great quote!
Yogi Berra said that too 😂
He was only 47 in this clip. Unbelievable.
Yes. People didn't age well in the past. Poor diet , unhealthy living and 40 smokes a day.🚬
Baldist😂
😮
Clarke was a true modern predictor of the future . Bearing in mind he predicted what we are using right now its astonishing so few know or appreciate his work. Even Bill Gates scoffed at the idea everyone would own a pc so that's how far Clarke was ahead of his time.
He seriously knows his stuff, or he's a time traveller...RIP Arthur, you would be amazed at how far we have come (im sure you are frozen somewhere waiting for Immortality)
Why do you say you're sure of that when it's easy to look up the fact that his remains were buried without freezing?
@@smadaf Not the sharpest tool in the box are you......
@@GeVeBeGaming What sort of an intellectual arrogance do you hold to berate someone for not reading your mind with force powers.....he may not be the sharpest but at least he's most likely the nicest.
@@heresjohnny602 Facepalm :-)
@@GeVeBeGaming Oh yes you're the height of intellectual prowess, good boy.....🙄🙄 find a cliff pal.
He didn’t predict the development of pocket computers being used to disseminate pictures of grumpy cats.
He did that later in his life.
This is why he was one of the first on my reading lists as a kid.
Men will no longer commute, they will communicate.
My favorite phrase from the video.
Crazy cus thats exactly what I do as a professional engineer now working from my room
I felt like I had to symbolically wave at Arthur C. Clarke from nearly 60 years into the future after watching this recording on a technological platform he and many other intelligent and open-minded people envisioned. So I did. Though he might not agree with everyone's web history and the things we choose to use the internet for lol.
I looked him up and he lived until 2008, so he still got to see a good chunk of what he envisioned come to fruition.
From Wikipedia: The concept [of geosynchronus satellites] was first proposed by Herman Potočnik in 1928 and popularised by the science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke in a paper in Wireless World in 1945.[4] Working prior to the advent of solid-state electronics, Clarke envisioned a trio of large, crewed space stations arranged in a triangle around the planet. Modern satellites are numerous, uncrewed, and often no larger than an automobile.
Widely known as the "father of the geosynchronous satellite", Harold Rosen, an engineer at Hughes Aircraft Company, invented the first operational geosynchronous satellite, Syncom 2.[5] It was launched on a Delta rocket B booster from Cape Canaveral July 26, 1963.
And still a work of fiction.
@@jasondavis8886 What? Satellites a work of fiction?
I was just writing about Dr. Harold Rosen in another reply! He was a good friend of ACC and was a great brother in law to me, before passing a few years back.
And the orbit in which they sit is known as Clarke's orbit.
Did anyone notice the SuperComputer behind the speaker? Oh I mean Christmas lights, lol!
So Strange to hear a futurist talk about life in a long off time that was 22 years ago.
6:30 In fact this did happen only 3 years after he made the prediction
Cryonics have been a thing since 1967 , when the first person was cryopreserved ,and is still frozen to this day
While we have had this since all the way back then , we still have not yet developed a way to "bring them back" , but with cryopreservation we can just wait until we find it out , even if it takes centuries
the city of 1964 is exactly the same as the city of 2023. the buildings of Denver are the same buildings. The buildings of Los Angeles are mainly the exact same buildings. Most of the buildings are 50-75 years old.
I like his prediction about a surgeon in one city operating on a patient in another, perhaps half the world away.... because of course this is now achieved.
One must assume that the patient is in an operating room supported by medical professionals who are physically present even if the surgeon is elsewhere. So for most people, physical spaces are still relevant.
So what? The Amazing Criswell predicted that -- in the future, brain surgery will be performed in vending machines!
Even the replicator has come true to an extent, we can print houses now
Don't care what anyone says, Arthur was uncannily accurate in some of his predictions!
I have always enjoyed reading Arthur C Clark and it’s amazing to see his predictions and how spot on they were
We may be adaptable in the grand scheme, but change has never come without great cost (both in the short and long term). The question is, is the change worth the cost? For instance, was The Pill really all that great for society? Was Social Media for that matter?
It may well be that 'change' is inevitable, which might make the question moot. Just had to ask it anyway.
We'll never make it to The Year 2000 at this rate.
What do u mean?
Climate change will have destroyed the earth by then.
Year XBEG-0R8004 seems feasible, thou
The timing was wrong, but the twin advent of high end communication and covid has accelerated the idea of distance working. In NZ it has become a new norm. People are seriously calculating the merits of living outside cities and commuting to for social purposes. Tele surgery is also an emerging reality. Distance consultation is another new norm. 9/10 Mr Clarke.
Alas most humans are creatures of habit (morons) so 'we' only ever adopt novel ideas (that already exist!) when someone puts a gun to our heads! :-)
Artur C. Clarke can predict the future because he is an inspiration to many scientists, so they strive to make it real. We need more Artur C. Clarkes in that aspect.
And less Elon Musk.
Elon Musk not only is a visionary like ACC, he actually puts ideas into practice.
There is a grain of truth in what you say. SF writers are often also scientists and engineers. This creates a sort of feedback loop. On the flip side; they are often very intelligent and well informed about science and engineering. Thus what they see as a likely future sounds like fantasy to the general public. Interesting that this far along in the comments; no one has mentioned that he predicted the Geosynchronous Satellite.
He gave screenwriters the plot of a ton of sci-fi films in this clip.
Thank you Arthur for your great good and ideas including 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Visionary. The world needs more people like him.
What??? more pedophiles? Are you insane?
@@jamdias8449 Yes what you say is true. Arthur C Clarke was a P@#DOPHILE
Elon Musk
Well that's odd i can't even see the 3 replies on my own post 🤔🤔
@@PaulJohn01 I get that ALL the time
Was spot on on the communication part
Because he was one of the proponents of satellite communication
The Romans first invented the World Wide Web, when they had a ball of wool and strunk it out between themselves making a network. They then used static pulses down the wool to signal messages.
I prefer him to his contemporaries - his measured Englishness shone through in his writings. There wasn't the garish sensationalism of his American counterparts. His characters were serious but not cold. His stories did contain some wry humour. He wasn't just a scifi author - he had worked with technology in his days in the RAF. So his writings bore an authenticity and aged well. "Gluttonous barbarism" - we're there.
He was a friend to everyone that wrote him a letter or an email. I cherish the 2 letters I have from him. Humble and curious.
There have been special people throughout world history who moved the world forward, he was one of them, he had great foresight.
Having read many of his works, Arthur C. Clarke was, in my opinion, the most practical SF visionaries of the medium. I especially liked his elevator to an orbiting space station that I believe was actually considered by NASA and is theoretically possible.
The space elevator is being considered ever more concretely, indeed. I hardly can imagine that it shouldn't really come, one day - it easily could come still in the current century.
@@JordiH69 Interesting point. Perhaps you'd have to suspend operations, for a while. You also could need quite long to reach the end in a geostationary orbit, 35,786 km up in the sky, so that you'd have to study weather reports thoroughly indeed.
@@HansDunkelberg1 Especially as at 300mph it would take about 72 hours, even at Mach 1 it would take nearly 9 hours assuming constant velocity.
@@polla2256 Well, why not high speeds? The satellites for the weather prediction are in place, already. You'll soon learn to predict hurricanes or calm weather over a much longer span than so far, with the help of optical computers. These apparently will afford both a storage and a speed three orders of magnitude above current machines, and with much less heat production.
An idea I now have developed for a protection of the cable during a storm is that you'd allow the wind to pull it out from some contrivance in which it would be coiled and held by a feather. Such a cable would anyway have to withstand quite some forces, but with a usage of such a feather you also might become able to ensure that it won't rip due a momentary strong pulling by the wind.
@@HansDunkelberg1 Ha ha! "Suspend" operations. I see what you did there!
I’m stuck by how enthusiastic he was about these predictions. I wonder if he felt the same at the end of his lifetime.
As usual, a few reasonably accurate predictions and a good amount of wild speculation. Usually the economics of any given advancement are not considered.
The communication part is rather spot on, but not all and cities are still relevant today, even more so than in the pasts as more people moving to cities. One is kinda true was a cities having more huge highways, but apparently that is a wrong city design concept we adopted, and we became more car centric that now we are suffering from congestion due to induced demand for cars. These days it is more progressive for a city that has invested more on public transport like railways and better more inviting pedestrian and bike infrastructure. So far cities have no signs of going away.
And neither are the social aspects considered, except with gross incompetence.
@@kornkernel2232 The issue I see being mentioned often is that people just don't have buying power to afford the price of an actual housing unit. Debt is becoming an issue in supposed first-world countries from what I keep reading here and there.
Most would prefer living in the apartments and condos because it is simply cheaper, but this flies in face of stress and tension living in confined quarters as well as the limited number of appliances and creature comfort that could be placed.
My country for instance has an overabundance of newly build condos and housing residences, plenty of which remain empty because people don't find them beneficial to their lifestyle. This is a given as well when one has to travel on the highway to get to the city for work.
Sadly, unless we re-engineer the entirety of society to be 'efficient' I dare say we currently are making problems to solve problems.
He was a guest speaker at a conference I attended in 2001. He used a video link from his home. Technology he predicted.
Arthur C. Clark was a man of great foresight. Back in the 1970's I read many of his novels and non-fiction books. I can still remember that in one novel he wrote in the late 1940's, people were using "radio cookers", and of course the microwave oven is ubiquitous these days. Truly a man of great vision, with an interest in the unusual.
I took up reading Arthur C Clarke in about 1970, a genius by any measure.
Wow. Imagine a world where we all thought like Arthur, Tesla, or Einstein.
such a clever man, I love his writing
Rendezvous with Rama is a classic. If you want to get into his work it’s a good one to start with
My favorite science fiction author of all time. Genius.
We often use the word "Genius" too liberally but in ACC's case, it's entirely appropriate.
Surprising to me at least that most of his predictions haven't come true yet. Most have been seen to be a bit more tricky than you'd think... suspended animation and terraforming for instance. The thought of training up new animal servants is an 'interesting' one too! One we're hopefully not going to be prioritising.
Haven't you noticed the terraforming?
@@artytomparis tbf you have a point and a half there!🤯
His ideology of forced servitude is what drives tyrants in all ages. An elite class being served by lesser beings is the marxist ideal. You see it on open display in Hollywood.
Cryogenics; terraforming has been going on for centuries...
@@phosphorescentifungi4355 But terraforming for what? Not for humans.
2:50 As others have commented, Arthur C. Clarke’s prediction of the declining role of traditional cities and the rise of remote work has come true, due to the COVID pandemic. Cities like New York are trying to get people to commute back to the office or risk losing tax revenue from property taxes.
Technological (and social) progress obstructed by politics, who would have thought
My son toured the world for 12 months whilst fully employed. No one knew he was away as he always completed his work on computer.
I remember him taking our physics lesson one day about 1952. He talked of world wide TV when Taunton awaited terrestrial TV. A real genius. Ady
That's great! How were the 1950s in your experience? I was born in the early 2000s and therefore I can scarcely truly imagine.