Profiles Of The Future: An Inquiry into the Limits of the Possible - Softcover

Clarke, Arthur C.

3.96

601 ratings by Goodreads

9780575402775: Profiles Of The Future: An Inquiry into the Limits of the Possible

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0575402776 ISBN 13: 9780575402775

Publisher: Phoenix, 2000

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This book originally appeared in 1962, and was based on essays written during the period 1959 � 1961. Since it was concerned with ultimate possibilities, and not with achievements to be expected in the near future, even the remarkable events of the last decade have dated it very little. But Arthur Clarke has gone over the book making corrections and comments where necessary in order to bring it right up-to-date. The author, amongst many fascinating excursions into what the future may hold, discusses the fourth dimension and the obsolescence of the law of gravity, the exploration of the entire solar system and the colonisation of some of it; seas will mined for energy and minerals, and asteroids will be pulled to Earth to supply needed materials; men, already bigger than they need be, may be bred smaller to be more efficient on less food.

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Review:

Arthur C Clarke says this is his most important non-fiction, noting it is impossible to predict the future and all attempts to do so in any detail appear ludicrous within a very few years. This book does not try to describe the future, but to define the boundaries within which possible futures must lie. Extensively revised in 1999 from the original 1962 edition, ideas here also found their way also into 2001: A Space Odyssey and The Fountains of Paradise. Often Clarke leaves the original text then comments on how knowledge has grown over 37 years, making for a fascinating reflection on the rapidity of our changing futures. He explores the range of science and technology, defining the inability to envision how the future might be in terms of failures of either nerve or imagination... refusal to accept the implications of science as it already is, or to see how it might one day be. He then systematically, in accessible, non-technical language, sets out what may be theoretically possible--manufacturing and medicine to transport and communications--within the laws of physics. And following Clarke's Second Law

The only way of finding the limits of the possible is to go beyond them into the impossible.

states the cases for and against the most fantastical science fiction, including time travel, invisibility and matter transmission. Essential for layman, scientist and science-fiction reader alike. --Gary S. Dalkin

Book Description:

A fascinating collection of essays speculating on future scientific possibilities by the master of science and science fiction

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