Futurology: The tricky art of knowing what will happen next

[bananas]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-12058575

22 December 2010

Futurology: The tricky art of knowing what will happen next
By Finlo Rohrer BBC News Magazine


Cheap air travel was among the predictions (illustration from Geoffrey Hoyle's book)

A 1972 book which predicts what life would be like in 2010 has been reprinted after attracting a cult following, but how hard is it to tell the future?

Geoffrey Hoyle is often asked why he predicted everybody would be wearing jumpsuits by 2010. He envisioned a world where everybody worked a three-day week and had their electric cars delivered in tubes of liquid.

These colourful ideas from his 1972 children's book, 2010: Living in the Future, helped prompt a Facebook campaign to track him down. His work has now been reprinted with the year in the title amended to 2011.

"I've been criticised because I said people wear jumpsuits," explains Hoyle, the son of noted astronomer and science fiction author Fred Hoyle. "We don't wear jumpsuits but to a certain extent the idea of the jumpsuit is the restriction of liberties."

<snip>

[LongTomH]

1. To quote a great American philosopher.............

"It's hard to predict; especially the future!" Yogi Berra

And from Robert A. Heinlein (I think!): "It does not pay a prophet to be too specific."

Edited to add: Arthur C. Clarke did not predict the communications satellite; he invented the concept. He did the math showing at what altitude a satellite's orbital speed would equal the speed of the Earth's rotation, thereby making it stationary to observers on the ground. The proper word is "geostationary."

Edited again: The article stated that other people had predicted geostationary satellites before; I believe they are wrong and Clarke should get the credit.

[muriel_volestrangler]

6. A Slovene, Herman Poto&#269;nik, described a geostationary satellite in 1928

At the end of 1928, he published his sole book, Das Problem der Befahrung des Weltraums - der Raketen-Motor (The Problem of Space Travel - The Rocket Motor) in Berlin.
The publisher, Richard Carl Schmidt, printed the year 1929 as a publishing date, probably from a purely business motive (to keep the book looking new throughout the coming year) and this date is often mistakenly given as the actual date of publication. In 188 pages and 100 illustrations, Potočnik set out a plan for a breakthrough into space and the establishment of a permanent human presence there. He conceived a space station in detail and calculated its geostationary orbit. He described the use of orbiting spacecraft for detailed observation of the ground for peaceful and military purposes, and described how the special conditions of space could be useful for scientific experiments. The book was translated into Russian in early 1935, Slovene in 1986 (by the Slovenska matica), English in 1999 (by NASA) and Croatian in 2004 (by Marino Fonović, published by Labin Art Press).

http://www.investsciencesee.info/NOORDUNG.html

The NASA translation: http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/SP-4026/contents.html

[Speck Tater]

2. Ah, but some things NEVER change.

For example, ever since the 1960's computers that match human intelligence have ALWAYS been "ten years in the future", and always will be.

[DCKit]

3. Let's hope the next big thing is less energy intensive.

Merry Xmas y'all!

[LiberalEsto]

4. Some of us have outdone him

For example, I now work a no-day week.

Also, jumpsuits are a bitch if you're female and have to use the loo.

[dimbear]

5. A fabulous resource for this is the Sci Fi covers of the 20s/30s

http://paleo-future.blogspot.com/2008_08_01_archive.html

scroll down a little...........

Particularly the mags edited by Hugo Gernsback. Radio Experimenter, stuff like that.