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The Arthur C. Clarke Gamma Ray Burst
Larry Sessions, a columnist for Earth & Sky, has suggested in his blog that the gamma-ray event whose radiation reached us a few hours before Arthur C. Clarke died, and which occurred 7.5 billion years ago, be named the Clarke Event. The outburst, which produced enough visible light to render it a naked-eye object across half the universe, is officially designated GRB 080319B. What more fitting tribute to Clarke than to associate his name with the greatest bang since the big one? Sessions suggests writing to any astronomers, heads of physics departments, or planetarium operators you know and talking up the proposal.
The Clarke Event makes it sound like he was involved in it some way. Show that his death triggered the burst and I will be most impressed.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
Clarke event, a gamma ray burst? I don't think so. I'm holding out for the lunar obelisk.
This is my sig.
Just don't name any missions to Europa after him! That would probably upset him.
I got a catholic block.
If they find a large cluster of stars in the near future, I'll recommend "The Dick Cheney Clusterfuck."
clarke is well known venerable saint in astronomical and science circles
if you wanted to call it the eliot spitzer event, or the march madness event, you might have some trouble convincing
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
So long, Mr. Clarke, and thanks for all the fiction...
eleven plus two / twelve plus one
What would that be in Teraballmers?
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
What more fitting tribute to Clarke than to associate his name with the greatest bang since the big one?
But Zaphod Beeblebrox already has a name. :)
I don't think the parent was trolling as much as bringing up a good point. Why don't we wait a while for all the facts to come out before we start naming things after Clarke?
...but that he must let the world believe he is dead--until he can control the raging beast within. **DUH DUH DAH DUH DUUUUUUUUHN**
Is Arthur C. Clarke capable of wiping out all life on Earth? If not, I don't think it would be right to equate him with GRB 080319B.
Oh no! I'm stupid!
It was Ms. Gallumbits describing Zaphod Beeblebrox
How embarrassing!
eleven plus two / twelve plus one
I may be wrong, but I don't think there is any protocol for giving proper names to GRB events and no international body to recognize such a name - like the IAU does with minor planets. It's a nice gesture put probably not something that would end up in common usage...
We're just seeing this news on Slashdot now? This hit digg 7.49 Billion years ago.
What, having the single most valuable orbit type named after him isn't enough? The orbit has the further advantage of actually being his idea.
When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a skull.
With all due respect, should we not remember him by naming something after him that itself will be remembered? I mean really, this Gamma Ray Burst is not going to be a topic for many people in even a couple weeks, let alone several years from now. We remember Kennedy via the Kennedy Space Center, Hawking gets Hawking Radiation, Einstein/Galileo has some satellites and the examples are really endless here. Why not name something after him which will carry his namesake more actively throughout the future. Of course this is not the only thing that will bear his name, but out of all the possibilities people want to spend their effort on this one? I'd like to see that enthusiasm directed towards something better than getting a GRB event named after him. Cool? Maybe. Lasting? No.
Invexi - a Phoenix, AZ based web design and web development company.
Can you back up the pedophile claim? Thought not. As far as I can tell not one shred of evidence for the claim has ever been found. He was still knighted, after a two year delay caused by these claims. That shows pretty clearly that the claims were investigated and found to be false.
And as you tread the halls of sanity, You feel so glad to be, Unable to go beyond. I have a message, From another time..
The facts have come out. Years ago. He never did anything. No one ever came forward. No evidence was ever found. This is old news.
And as you tread the halls of sanity, You feel so glad to be, Unable to go beyond. I have a message, From another time..
An explosive event in space named after Clarke? Oh, great....
This would make.
"We are all geniuses when we dream"
- E.M. Cioran
No doubt Larry had read Clarke's short story "The Star".
"You'll get nothing, and you'll like it!"
Due to his prediction of geosynchronous communications satelites, this type of orbit is already named after him.
How about making sure Clarke Orbit becomes the common name for the geostationary orbit?
Shouldn't that be "greatest *observed* bang since the big one?" /nitpick
IBM doesn't play chess with the Universe.
Please proceed to the counter to have your geek card revoked for the combined failure in incorrectly citing a classic AND incorrectly using a hyperlink and inadvertently pointing out your own first failure.
The only change I can believe in is what I find in my couch cushions.
How do we know this gamma ray burst isn't what finally did him in?
sudo eat my shorts
There were so many stars you could have used. What was the need to give those people to the fire, so the symbol of their passing might shine above Sri Lanka?
Les Miserables Volume 1 now up with my reading of
Seriously, what if there's a inhabited planet around one of those stars and they find out what we think of them some day? We might be the ones who end up getting the shock-and-awe treatment, with a Mother Of All Nova Bombs.
The only collection of objects that might deserve the name Cheney might be a scattering of parasite-ridden coyote droppings. Although given that scavenger dung may have better poll ratings . . .
Say hello to my little sig.
Arty Clark is gone. Fer fux sake!
...was the biggest bang since the big one so this burst should be named after her.
OTH if a seven billion year old gamma ray burst could be used to debunk Christian mythology I think then maybe there is a case for naming it after Clarke.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Make sure you use a telescope with a clock drive and a filter. Declination: Undisclosed Right Ascension: Undisclosed
"to associate his name with the greatest bang since the big one?..." I thought Zaphod had that title.
I'm not impressed with the supposed uniqueness of this event. We've had the ability to detect GRBs for only about 10 years and initially that ability was pretty crude. To make a big deal of this being the biggest one "ever" is quite presumptuous.
Reminds me of when Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 collided with Jupiter. Levy said (during the live TV coverage) that it was a once-in-a-hundred-million-year (I forget the exact number, but it was big) event. What a remarkable coincidence that it happened just a handful of years after we developed the ability to detect it.
But it's a good name given the work he put into the theory of geostationary satellites. However, I would like to make a suggestion: that where a marker, be it physical or electronic, is clearly designed with the intent of indicating the presence of alien life in the galaxy, the information type be measured in a ten-point scale of Clarkes. (A basic signal is one Clarke, up to a sufficiently advanced signal that makes it indistinguishable from magic, which would be ten Clarkes. In honour of Arthur C. Clarke's series on the supernatural, complex numbers are permitted.)
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Clarke merits something more substantial and permanent. I'm advocating renaming Europa as Clarke's Moon.
Re: "the greatest bang since the big one..." Seems unlikely. It's only the biggest one since we've been watching.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
What the hell is the person that modded this a troll even doing in this article?
This is not a troll, unless you have no geek cred whatsoever. It's a small segment from one of the best sci-fi short stories you'll read.
I'm as anti-religion as the next nerd, but just because a post mentions a god, you can't immediately presume it to be trolling.
Besides, it's a science-fiction article, if there was ever going to be a perfectly suitable place to make reference to gods, it's here.
With all due respect to science fiction writers, are we already out of astronomers to honor?
There were actually *four*, a new record for Swift for bursts in a single day. I believe a more apt reference is 'The Nine Billion Names of God'; see 'A Cosmic Coincidence' at http://www.clarkefoundation.org
Hey, that's Eccentrica Gallumbits!!!
ZWithaPGGB=Zaphod With A Pan Galactic Gargleblaster. Imagine a very soused two headed guy wandering around a bar having conversations with all and sundry.
That story was fabricated. The newspaper retracted its comments, and made a full public apology.
Why let the truth get in the way of an opportunity to troll?!
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
> Larry Sessions, a columnist for Earth & Sky, has suggested in his blog that the gamma-ray
> event whose radiation reached us a few hours before Arthur C. Clarke died, and which
> occurred 7.5 billion years ago, be named the Clarke Event.
However, the discoverer of the burst quickly responded, saying "That's a nice thought, but I was planning on naming it the Anne Hathaway Event in hopes of getting some premium ass."
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
K [Men in Black]