Sir Arthur Charles Clarke

( 16 December 1917 – 19 March 2008 )

Concept of the geostationary communications satellite

Clarke’s most important scientific contribution may be his idea that geostationary satellites would be ideal telecommunications relays. He described this concept in a paper titled “Extra-Terrestrial Relays — Can Rocket Stations Give Worldwide Radio Coverage?”, published in Wireless World in October 1945. The geostationary orbit is now sometimes known as the Clarke Orbit or the Clarke Belt in his honour.

However, it is not clear that this article was actually the inspiration for the modern telecommunications satellite. John R. Pierce, of Bell Labs, arrived at the idea independently in 1954, and he was actually involved in the Echo satellite and Telstar projects. Moreover, Pierce stated that the idea was “in the air” at the time and certain to be developed regardless of Clarke’s publication. Nevertheless, Clarke described the idea so thoroughly that his article has been cited as prior art in judgements denying patents on the concept.

Though different from Clarke’s idea of telecom relay, the idea of communicating with satellites in geostationary orbit itself had been described earlier. For example, the concept of geostationary satellites was described in Hermann Oberth’s 1923 book Die Rakete zu den Planetenräumen(The Rocket into Interplanetary Space) and then the idea of radio communication with those satellites in Herman Potocnik’s (written by pseudonym Hermann Noordung) 1928 book Das Problem der Befahrung des Weltraums — der Raketen-Motor (The Problem of Space Travel — The Rocket Motor) section: Providing for Long Distance Communications and Safety published in Berlin. Clarke acknowledged the earlier concept in his book Profiles of the Future.

Clarke’s Law

Arthur C. Clarke formulated the following three “laws” of prediction:
1. When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.
2. The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.
3. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.