Arthur Clarke - 3001 - The Final Odyssey

The city will be found on the NASA Voyager images 20637.02 and 20637.29, or more conveniently in Figure 23.8 of John H. Rogers's monumental "The Giant Planet Jupiter" (Cambridge University Press, 1995).

Chapter 19: The Madness of Mankind

For visual evidence supporting Khan's startling assertion that most of mankind has been at least partially insane, see Episode 22, 'Meeting Mary', in my television series Arthur C. Clarke's Mysterious Universe. And bear in mind that Christians represent only a very small subset of our species: far greater numbers of devotees than have ever worshipped the Virgin Mary have given equal reverence to such totally incompatible divinities as Rama, Kali, Siva, Thor, Wotan, Jupiter, Osiris, etc. etc....

The most striking – and pitiful – example of a brilliant man whose beliefs turned him into a raving lunatic is that of Conan Doyle. Despite endless exposures of his favourite psychics as frauds, his faith in them remained unshaken. And the creator of Sherlock Holmes even tried to convince the great magician Harry Houdini that he 'dematerialized' himself to perform his feats of escapology – often based on tricks which, as Dr Watson was fond of saying, were 'absurdly simple'. (See the essay 'The Irrelevance of Conan Doyle' in Martin Gardner's "The Night is Large", St Martin's Press, US, 1996.)

For details of the Inquisition, whose pious atrocities make Pol Pot look positively benign, see Carl Sagan's devastating attack on New Age Nitwittery, "The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark" (Headline, 1995). I wish it – and Martin's book – could be made required reading in every high school and college.

At least the US Department of Immigration has taken action against one religion-inspired barbarity. Time Magazine ('Milestones', 24 June 1996) reports that asylum must now be granted to girls threatened with genital mutilation in their countries of origin.

I had already written this chapter when I came across Anthony Storr's "Feet of Clay: A Study of Gurus" (HarperCollins, 1996), which is a virtual textbook on this depressing subject. It is hard to believe that one holy fraud, by the time the US Marshals belatedly arrested him, had accumulated ninety-three Rolls-Royces! Even worse – eighty-three per cent of his thousands of American dupes had been to college, and thus qualify for my favourite definition of an intellectual: 'Someone who has been educated beyond his/her intelligence.'

Chapter 26: Tsienville

In the 1982 preface to "2010: Odyssey Two", I explained why I named the Chinese spaceship which landed on Europa after Dr Tsien Hsue-shen, one of the founders of the United States and Chinese rocket programmers. As Iris Chang states in her biography "Thread of the Silkworm" (Basic Books, 1995) 'his life is one of the supreme ironies of the Cold War'.

Born in 1911, Tsien won a scholarship which brought him from China to the United States in 1935, where he became student and later colleague of the brilliant Hungarian aerodynamicist Theodore von Karman. Later, as first Goddard Professor at the California Institute of Technology, he helped establish the Guggenheim Aeronautical Laboratory – the direct ancestor of Pasadena's famed Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

With top secret clearance, he contributed greatly to American rocket research in the 1950s, but during the hysteria of the McCarthy era was arrested on trumped-up security charges when he attempted to pay a visit to his native China. After many hearings and a prolonged period of arrest, he was finally deported to his homeland – with all his unrivalled knowledge and expertise. As many of his distinguished colleagues affirmed, it was one of the most stupid (as well as most disgraceful) things the United States ever did.

After his expulsion, according to Thuang Fenggan, Deputy Director, China National Space Administration, Tsien 'started the rocket business from nothing... Without him, China would have suffered a twenty-year lag in technology.' And a corresponding delay, perhaps, in the deployment of the deadly 'Silkworm' anti-ship missile and the 'Long March' satellite launcher.

Shortly after I had completed this novel, the International Academy of Astronautics honoured me with its highest distinction, the von Karman Award – to be given in Beijing! This was an offer I couldn't refuse, especially when I learned that Dr Tsien is now a resident of that city. Unfortunately, when I arrived there I discovered that he was in hospital for observation, and his doctors would not permit visitors.

I am therefore extremely grateful to his personal assistant, Major-General Wang Shouyun, for carrying suitably inscribed copies of 2010 and 2061 to Dr Tsien. In return the General presented me with the massive volume he has edited, "Collected Works of H. S. Tsien: 1938-1956" (1991, Science Press, 16, Donghuangcheggen North Street, Beijing 100707). It is a fascinating collection, beginning with numerous collaborations with von Karman on problems in aerodynamics, and ending with solo papers on rockets and satellites. The very last entry, 'Thermonuclear Power Plants' (Jet Propulsion, July 1956) was written while Dr Tsien was still a virtual prisoner of the FBI, and deals with a subject that is even more topical today – though very little progress has been made towards 'a power station utilizing the deuterium fusion reaction'.

Just before I left Beijing on 13 October 1996 I was happy to learn that, despite his current age (85) and disability, Dr Tsien is still pursuing his scientific studies. I sincerely hope that he enjoyed "2010" and "2061", and look forward to sending him this "Final Odyssey" as an additional tribute.

Chapter 36: Chamber of Horrors

As the result of a series of Senate Hearings on Computer Security in June 1996, on 15 July 1996 President Clinton signed Executive Order 13010 to deal with 'computer-based attacks on the information or communications components that control critical infrastructures ("cyber threats").' This will set up a task force to counter cyberterrorism, and will have representatives from the CIA, NSA, defense agencies, etc.

Pico, here we come...

Since writing the above paragraph, I have been intrigued to learn that the finale of the movie Independence Day, which I have not yet seen, also involves the use of computer viruses as Trojan horses! I am also informed that its opening is identical to that of Childhood's End (1953), and that it contains every known science-fiction cliche´ since Me´lie`s's Trip to the Moon (1903).

I cannot decide whether to congratulate the script-writers on their one stroke of originality – or to accuse them of the transtemporal crime of pre-cognitive plagiarism. In any event, I fear there's nothing I can do to stop John Q. Popcorn thinking that I have ripped off the ending of ID4.

The following material has been taken – usually with major editing – from the earlier books in the series:

From "2001 A Space Odyssey": Chapter 18 Through the Asteroids and Chapter 37 Experiment.

From "2010: Odyssey Two": Chapter 11 Ice and Vacuum; Chapter 36 Fire in the Deep: Chapter 38 Foamscape.

My thanks to IBM for presenting me with the beautiful little Thinkpad 755CD on which this book was composed. For many years I have been embarrassed by the – totally unfounded -rumour that the name HAL was derived by one-letter displacement from IBM. In an attempt to exorcise this computer-age myth, I even went to the trouble of getting Dr Chandra, HAL's inventor, to deny it in 2010 Odyssey Two. However, I was recently assured that, far from being annoyed by the association, Big Blue is now quite proud of it. So I will abandon any future attempts to put the record straight – and send my congratulations to all those participating in HAL's 'birthday party' at (of course) the University of Illinois, Urbana, on 12 March 1997.