Arthur C. Clarke dies at 90 - washingtonpost.com

It's a sad day for science fiction fans... Sir Arthur C. Clarke has passed. It's always difficult when the world loses a visionary... RIP

Arthur C. Clarke dies at 90 - washingtonpost.com:

"Clarke was best known in popular culture as the author of the story that inspired Stanley Kubrick's 1968 film '2001: A Space Odyssey,' but his greatest contribution to technology is creating the conceptual framework for geostationary satellites -- machines that would remain in the same spot above the earth and act as relay stations for signals from the ground, covering a wide area. He published a paper about the concept in 1945, which was ultimately realized two decades later. The orbit into which geostationary satellites are placed is now known as the Clarke Orbit."

-ZB