Bigger Better Faster Foundations of Paradise by Arthur C Clarke essays

Bigger Better Faster Foundations of Paradise by Arthur C Clarke essays Man has always longed to build things, and as time goes on, man feels the need to outdo all previous achievements. Arthur C. Clarke's novel, Foundations of Paradise is a good example of this human characteristic. Vannevar Morgan is an engineer living in the twenty second century, and is known by his peers to be one of the greatest engineers in the world. The creation that gave Morgan this title was the Gibraltar Bridge, connecting Europe to Africa. This bridge is situated five kilometers above the water of the Mediterranean Sea. Dr. Morgan has in his head yet another idea that will become his final and greatest mark on the world. A new substance has been developed through years of research. It is a microcrystaline fiber that is extraordinarily strong and ten times narrower than a human hair. Morgan's idea is to use this material to build an elevator to hoist things into orbit of the Earth. This way, no rockets will be needed to blast things into orbit. Much money will be saved, along with a dramatic decrease in pollution. Morgan knows many people who have faith in his plan, including the World Bank, although many doubt the feasibility of his ideas. I can relate to this because I tend to "dream big" also. Many of my ideas are very grandiose and many times, I have a hard time explaining them to other people. I have found though, like Vannevar Morgan, if I keep one of my ideas in my mind for long enough and think it out, it has a good chance of coming true. It seems like the number of difficulties encountered when an idea is put into place is directly relative to the outcome of the completed idea. A simple idea with little benefit will typically not encounter many problems in production. A grandiose idea with earth-shaking benefits, on the other hand, will have many obstacles to overcome before completion. This rule applies very heavily to the space elevator concept. It turns out that the place on which the ...