Clarke's First Law

Today I was reminded of Arthur C Clarke's 'first law'.  Clarke was one of my favorite sci-fi authors as I grew up, and he is famous for having invented the idea of the geo-synchronous orbit.  We all rely on these satellites for communications these days.

Clarke maintained that three laws were enough for anyone - so he limited himself to this many.

His first law has often seemed right to me:

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.

See Clarke's three laws here