Predictions from 1900 for 2000

JTsyo

Lifer
Nov 18, 2007
11,709
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Predictions

The one about the fast flying refrigerators gave the picture of the winged toaster screensaver but with fridges full of fruit.
 

Ika

Lifer
Mar 22, 2006
14,267
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81
Wow, some of those are eerily accurate. Some of them are just weird (peas the size of beets?).
 

KeithTalent

Elite Member | Administrator | No Lifer
Administrator
Nov 30, 2005
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Did a shitty job of predicting inflation though:

The trip from suburban home to office will require a few minutes only. A penny will pay the fare.

KT
 

Iron Woode

Elite Member
Super Moderator
Oct 10, 1999
30,854
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the only one that was reasonably correct was #18.

the rest suffered from lack of understanding technological advances, although it is understandable as its difficult to imagine new things that are not based on existing things.

also the food ideas were a little weird. I guess they thought the bigger the better.

I lol'd at the milkweed stuff.
 

sandorski

No Lifer
Oct 10, 1999
70,085
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Those are almost all way off and some of them would be the death of us all if they happened. A few kinda almost were right, like transmission of Pictures/Audio.
 

destrekor

Lifer
Nov 18, 2005
28,799
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Originally posted by: KeithTalent
13 and 26 are the same. :confused:

KT

while that is true, they drove home a significant point: we have more control over crops. Grapes the size and texture of apples?! WHA? Interesting.
 

Throckmorton

Lifer
Aug 23, 2007
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A lot of them really are eerily correct. They virtually predicted TV and the internet, and also TV dinners. They were largely right about suburbs... They've been eating up America.
 

OutHouse

Lifer
Jun 5, 2000
36,413
616
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hummm interesting flight never occurred to them.


Prediction #29: To England in Two Days. Fast electric ships, crossing the ocean at more than a mile a minute, will go from New York to Liverpool in two days. The bodies of these ships will be built above the waves. They will be supported upon runners, somewhat like those of the sleigh. These runners will be very buoyant. Upon their under sides will be apertures expelling jets of air. In this way a film of air will be kept between them and the water?s surface. This film, together with the small surface of the runners, will reduce friction against the waves to the smallest possible degree. Propellers turned by electricity will screw themselves through both the water beneath and the air above. Ships with cabins artificially cooled will be entirely fireproof. In storm they will dive below the water and there await fair weather.


wow...
Prediction #10: Man will See Around the World. Persons and things of all kinds will be brought within focus of cameras connected electrically with screens at opposite ends of circuits, thousands of miles at a span. American audiences in their theatres will view upon huge curtains before them the coronations of kings in Europe or the progress of battles in the Orient. The instrument bringing these distant scenes to the very doors of people will be connected with a giant telephone apparatus transmitting each incidental sound in its appropriate place. Thus the guns of a distant battle will be heard to boom when seen to blaze, and thus the lips of a remote actor or singer will be heard to utter words or music when seen to move.
 

destrekor

Lifer
Nov 18, 2005
28,799
359
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Originally posted by: Throckmorton
A lot of them really are eerily correct. They virtually predicted TV and the internet, and also TV dinners. They were largely right about suburbs... They've been eating up America.

eating up? While I grew up in the city and went to a public school system... I vastly imagine America as suburban. And that was the way it was looked at. I'd prefer suburban American life to city life any day, as that gives me more access to those freedoms we all love. I like the idea of having a large yard, peace and quiet except for noise generated on my property (such as from blasting stereos), and an often less-hectic pace of life. Sounds far more enjoyable.

The whole concept of expanding to all the land in America kind of planted the suburban seed, and I am one to welcome that idea. :)
 

JS80

Lifer
Oct 24, 2005
26,271
7
81
wow they predicted the intarwebs
Prediction #9: Photographs will be telegraphed from any distance. If there be a battle in China a hundred years hence snapshots of its most striking events will be published in the newspapers an hour later. Even to-day photographs are being telegraphed over short distances. Photographs will reproduce all of Nature?s colors.
 

sandorski

No Lifer
Oct 10, 1999
70,085
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Originally posted by: JS80
wow they predicted the intarwebs
Prediction #9: Photographs will be telegraphed from any distance. If there be a battle in China a hundred years hence snapshots of its most striking events will be published in the newspapers an hour later. Even to-day photographs are being telegraphed over short distances. Photographs will reproduce all of Nature?s colors.

Not really, that's kinda more like a Fax they describe there.
 

Shawn

Lifer
Apr 20, 2003
32,237
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Originally posted by: Throckmorton
A lot of them really are eerily correct. They virtually predicted TV and the internet, and also TV dinners. They were largely right about suburbs... They've been eating up America.

Yeah, and perhaps satellite imagery too.
 

GagHalfrunt

Lifer
Apr 19, 2001
25,297
2,000
126
They threw 100 blind darts and hit a couple. Law of averages says they would. Most were wildly inaccurate and downright stupid.
 

RichardE

Banned
Dec 31, 2005
10,246
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Prediction #25: Oranges will grow in Philadelphia. Fast-flying refrigerators on land and sea will bring delicious fruits from the tropics and southern temperate zone within a few days. The farmers of South America, South Africa, Australia and the South Sea Islands, whose seasons are directly opposite to ours, will thus supply us in winter with fresh summer foods, which cannot be grown here. Scientist will have discovered how to raise here many fruits now confined to much hotter or colder climates. Delicious oranges will be grown in the suburbs of Philadelphia. Cantaloupes and other summer fruits will be of such a hardy nature that they can be stored through the winter as potatoes are now.

Can easily be correct in the fact we get alot of our Winter food from the southern zones.




Prediction #27: Few drugs will be swallowed or taken into the stomach unless needed for the direct treatment of that organ itself. Drugs needed by the lungs, for instance, will be applied directly to those organs through the skin and flesh. They will be carried with the electric current applied without pain to the outside skin of the body. Microscopes will lay bare the vital organs, through the living flesh, of men and animals. The living body will to all medical purposes be transparent. Not only will it be possible for a physician to actually see a living, throbbing heart inside the chest, but he will be able to magnify and photograph any part of it. This work will be done with rays of invisible light.

Almost there...almost


Prediction #8: Aerial War-Ships and Forts on Wheels. Giant guns will shoot twenty-five miles or more, and will hurl anywhere within such a radius shells exploding and destroying whole cities. Such guns will be armed by aid of compasses when used on land or sea, and telescopes when directed from great heights. Fleets of air-ships, hiding themselves with dense, smoky mists, thrown off by themselves as they move, will float over cities, fortifications, camps or fleets. They will surprise foes below by hurling upon them deadly thunderbolts. These aerial war-ships will necessitate bomb-proof forts, protected by great steel plates over their tops as well as at their sides. Huge forts on wheels will dash across open spaces at the speed of express trains of to-day. They will make what are now known as cavalry charges. Great automobile plows will dig deep entrenchments as fast as soldiers can occupy them. Rifles will use silent cartridges. Submarine boats submerged for days will be capable of wiping a whole navy off the face of the deep. Balloons and flying machines will carry telescopes of one-hundred-mile vision with camera attachments, photographing an enemy within that radius. These photographs as distinct and large as if taken from across the street, will be lowered to the commanding officer in charge of troops below.

Odd how this guy predicted the impact of planes in war better than the commanders of the first World war.