"He has passed away. He had a cardio-respiratory attack," said de Silva quoted by Reuters.

Clarke has lived in Sri Lanka since 1956, when he decided to pursue his interest for underwater exploration along that coast and on the Great Barrier Reef. In the recent years, he was bound to a wheelchair due to post-polio syndrome.

Arthur C. Clarke was born on December 6, 1918 as a son of an English farming family, the seaside town of Minehead, Somerset.

In 1936, he moved to London and pursued his early interest in space sciences by joining the British Interplanetary Society. He also began to write science fiction.

During the World War II, he joined the RAF, eventually becoming an officer in charge of the first radar talk-down equipment, the Ground Controlled Approach, during its experimental trials. He later described that period of his life in the non-science-fiction novel, “Glide Path”. After the war, he returned to London and to the BIS, becoming its president in 1947-50 and again in 1953.

In 1945, a UK periodical magazine “Wireless World” published his technical paper "Extra-terrestrial Relays" in which he first set out the principles of satellite communication with satellites in geostationary orbits. One year later, Clarke wrote “The Sentinel”, the story that became the basis for his most famous literary work: “2001: A Space Odyssey”

In 1968 his novel became the basis for the film of the same name, co-written and directed by Stanley Kubrick.

During his seven decades career, Clarke has been the author of over 100 books. The first story he sold professionally was "Rescue Party", written in March 1945 and appearing in Astounding Science in May 1946. Amongst its best-known works are "Childhood's End" (1953), "The City and the Stars" (1956), "The Nine Billion Names of God" (1967), "Imperial Earth" (1975) and "The Songs of Distant Earth" (1986).

In 1998, his lifetime work was recognized by H.M. The Queen when he was honored with a Knighthood, formally conferred by Prince Charles in Sri Lanka two years later.

Among his many non-fiction works, “Profiles of the Future” (1962) looked at the probable shape of tomorrow's world and stated his “Three Laws”.

“1. "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."

2. "The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible."

3. "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."”

For his scientific work, Sir Arthur C. Clarke has received numerous honors, such as the Vikram Sarabhai Professorship of the Physical Research Laboratory, Ahmedabad, the Lindbergh Award and a Fellowship of King's College, London. Also, the geostationary orbit at 36,000 kilometers above the equator is named The Clarke Orbit by the International Astronomical Union.

As a science fiction writer Clarke won the Nebula Award of the Science Fiction Writers of America in 1972, 1974 and 1979; the Hugo Award of the World Science Fiction Convention in 1974 and 1980, and in 1986 became Grand Master of the Science Fiction Writers of America.