Clarke's three laws

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Arthur C. Clarke formulated the following three "laws" of prediction:

When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.
The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

1 Origins
2 References in other works
3 See also
4 External links

[edit] Origins

Clarke's Law, later the first of the three laws, was proposed by Arthur C. Clarke in the essay "Hazards of Prophecy: The Failure of Imagination", in Profiles of the Future (1962). The second law is offered as a simple observation in the same essay; its status as Clarke's Second Law was conferred on it by others.

In a 1973 revision of Profiles of the Future, Clarke acknowledged the Second Law and proposed the Third in order to round out the number, adding "As three laws were good enough for Newton, I have modestly decided to stop there." Of the three, the Third Law is the best known and most widely cited.

Clarke's Third Law codifies perhaps the most significant of Clarke's unique contributions to speculative fiction. A model to other writers of hard science fiction, Clarke postulates advanced technologies without resorting to flawed engineering concepts (as Jules Verne sometimes did) or explanations grounded in incorrect science or engineering (a hallmark of "bad" SF), taking clues from trends in research and engineering (which unfortunately dates some of Larry Niven's best novels).

But in novels such as The City and the Stars and the story The Sentinel (upon which 2001: A Space Odyssey was based) Clarke goes farther; he presents us with ultra-advanced technologies limited only by fundamental science. In Against the Fall of Night, the human race has mysteriously regressed after a full million years of civilization. Humanity is faced with the remnants of its past glories: for example, a network of roads and sidewalks that flow like rivers. Although physically possible, it is inexplicable from their (and our) perspective. Explaining the "how" of such a technology would be distracting, and far from the point of the story. (Imagine detailing how radios work while relating the events of World War II to a Stone Age artisan.) Clarke's Third Law explains the source of our amazement as our limitation, rather than the impossibility of the technology.

[edit] References in other works

Isaac Asimov wrote a corollary to Clarke's First Law, stating: "When, however, the lay public rallies round an idea that is denounced by distinguished but elderly scientists and supports that idea with great fervour and emotion -- the distinguished but elderly scientists are then, after all, probably right."
Larry Niven, in discussing fantasy, wrote "any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology." This is sometimes known as "Niven's Law" even though it is not on the list known as "Niven's Laws".
Terry Pratchett refers to the law in his Discworld books by having wizard Ponder Stibbons state that "Any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology." Furthermore, in another novel `The Last Hero`, Leonard of Quirm is working on the Discworld's first (non-magical) flying machine, and states that he has no use for artisans who have "learned the limits of the possible."
In the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Where No One Has Gone Before", an engineer compares an advanced alien's technology as "You're asking us to believe in magic." The alien (known only as "Traveler") replies, "Yes, I guess from your perspective it does seem like magic." Picard is enlightened. A few years later in "Who watches the watchers?" after viewing federation technology a primative society thinks captain Picard is able to form magic.
In the first non-Asimov Foundation Novel, the emperor declares, "If technology is distinguishable from magic, it is insufficiently advanced." This is a paraphrase of Gehm's Corollary to Clarke's Third Law, "Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced."
In Part Three of the Doctor Who story Battlefield, the Seventh Doctor asks Ace if she remembers Clarke's Law (Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic) and explains that the same can be held true in reverse (Any sufficiently arcane magic is indistinguishable from technology) while justifying the possibility of a dimensional spaceship which has been grown, not built.
In Superman Returns, Lex Luthor is twice heard saying, in reference to Kryptonian technology, that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
A character in S.M. Stirling's Dies the Fire describes a certain technology as "Something so far beyond ours we can't understand it, and it looks like magic."
The narrator in Dean Koontz's novel The Taking quotes Clarke's third law more than once. She also says that the reverse may be true: in an age when faith in science is ascendant, supernatural phenomena may be mistaken for advanced technology.
In the online webcomic Freefall, a third corollary is introduced by one of the main characters, Florence Ambrose: "Any technology, no matter how primitive, is magic to those who do not understand it."
In the online RPG Kingdom of Loathing there is an enemy named the MagiMechTech MechaMech. The description of this monster states that it is made of magic and technology, but since the significantly advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic it is impossible to discern how much of each is present.
Babylon 5 features an enigmatic group known as the "Technomages". Operating in the 23rd century, they openly admit that their "powers" are based on technology, but live by the very principle of Clarke's Law that their advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic; as a result they act much like classical wizards. One technomage tries to relate this by saying that a space station in deep space could only be explained to primitive people in terms of magic, and similarly their technology outstrips that of other contemporary spacefarers enough that it seems like magic.
In Charles Sheffield's Heritage Universe series of novels, a character quotes an alien adage that "Any sufficiently antique technology is indistinguishable from magic.".
In Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle, Jack Shaftoe remarks to Enoch Root "They cannot see the string at this distance, and suppose you are doing some sort of magick", who responds "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a yo-yo."
A practical demonstration of the Third Law (despite pre-dating it by several decades) can be seen in A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain, when the protaganist uses, in sequence, a touch of astronomy and some applied chemistry to appear a great and powerful wizard, able to trump the petty magics of Merlin.
Dilbert author Scott Adams complains that, "in my house, any sufficiently advanced technology is broken, and no one knows how to fix it."[1]
A quest in the computer game expansion The Elder Scrolls III: Tribunal involves reactivating an ancient piece of technology that controls weather to simulate magically controlling it.