The British science-fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke, author of 2001: A Space Odyssey , proposed a ‘law of science’ in 1968: ‘Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.’

Clarke’s proposition had a quality of rightness, of stating the obvious with sparkling clarity, that propelled it into dictionaries of quotations. The timing was perfect: Concorde would soon be flying over rock festivals packed with hippies obsessed with ‘magick’. Naturally Clarke’s readers understood the difference between aerodynamics and sky gods. But African tribesmen gawping at an early aeroplane, or Pacific Islanders watching an atomic explosion, could only conclude that they were witnessing a supernatural event: for them, a scientific explanation was literally inconceivable. And one day

See Full Page