Out of the cradle

Damien Broderick (d.broderick@english.unimelb.edu.au)
Sun, 07 Nov 1999 12:32:33 -0800

At 05:44 AM 6/11/99 EST, Robert B. wrote:

>To the best of my knowledge, the quote should be attributed to Tsiolkovsky
>and not to Clarke. I wouldn't be surpriced if Clarke had quoted Tsiolkovsky
>on it at some point and the attribution got lost.

Arthur C. Clarke, TALES OF TEN WORLDS, 1963:

`Our beliefs were neatly expressed by that famous remark of Tsiolkovsky's, which I'd hung up for everyone to see as they entered my office:

	EARTH IS THE CRADLE OF THE MIND--BUT
	YOU CANNOT LIVE IN THE CRADLE FOREVER

`(What was that? No--of *course* I never knew Tsiolkovsky! I was only four years old when he died in 1936!)'

That, obviously, is not Clarke himself speaking... but a character in his 1959 story `Out of the Cradle, Endlessly Orbiting', reprinted in the collection. ACC was born in 1917.

Poignantly, that story starts by noting: `The twenty-first century does *not* begin tomorrow; it begins a year later, on January 1, 2001.' Bad luck, Arthur. Less than two months away now, and you were right - the cretins never did learn to count...

Damien Broderick