Omnia Mutantur, Nihil Interit

Posted on March 18, 2008 by JE

Arthur Clarke is dead, it seems. Behind every man alive now stands one more ghost.

[Seen at jimvanpelt‘s LiveJournal.]

About JE

James Enge is the author of the World-Fantasy-Award-nominated novel Blood of Ambrose (Pyr, April 2009). His latest book is The Wide World's End. His short fiction has appeared in Black Gate, Tales from the Magician's Skull, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction and elsewhere.
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2 Responses to Omnia Mutantur, Nihil Interit

  1. Anonymous says:
    March 21, 2008 at 6:43 am

    1. When a scientist 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.

    ~Arthur C. Clarke

    • JE says:
      March 22, 2008 at 6:32 pm

      Law 1 is not quite as I remember it. I remember it running something like: If a distinguished and elderly scientist says something is impossible, he is probably wrong. If a younger scientist says something is possible, he is probably right. The Wikipedia page on Clarke’s Laws has yet a third version.

      I may have gotten Clarke’s First Law confused with Asimov’s rebuttal; I was always more of an Asimov fan than a Clarke one. (Though I really like Clarke’s short stories, which I think tend to be underrated.)

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