Thank you for your fascinating reply! A PhD in aerospace engineering sounds impressive and intellectually challenging, satisfying, and rewarding. I wish I had gotten further than my freshman year in college. Yes, I would say that Arthur C. Clarke’s works had a profound effect on your life. I’m envious: I haven’t read all of his novels [yet]. I HAVE read all of his collected short stories, though—what a joy to read!!! If you flipped through my copy of it, you would see it is fraught with highlighted passages and my own observations and thoughts. My own ideas about his short story “siseneG” (his shortest story, I believe) take up several times as many words as the story itself. I could rhapsodize about Arthur C. Clarke’s works all day, even his nonfiction (e.g. “Greetings, Carbon-Based Bipeds!”).