BOOKS THAT FORECASTED THE FUTURE
Added on: 12th Jan 2016
WATERBEDS
In 1961 Robert Heinlein wrote the book Stranger in a Strange Land
where he mentions the idea of waterbeds. The modern waterbed
was patented in 1971, 10 years later.
SPACE TOURISM
In his book A Fall of Moondust (1962) Arthur C. Clarke predicts
that people will “tour” space. 39 years later, in 2001,
Dennis Tito became the first space tourist.
THE EUROPEAN UNION
In his 1969 book Stand on Zanzibar, John Brunner mentions the
European Union. 24 years later, in 1993, the EU came into existence.
BIONIC LIMBS
In his book Cyborg (1972) Martin Caidin predicts the use of
bionic limbs. 41 years later, in 2013, the first bionic leg
implant was performed.
REAL TIME AUDIO TRANSLATION
In the Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy (1980) by Douglas Adam’s,
the concept of real time, automatic voice translation is mentioned.
34 years later, in 2014, Google updated its translate app
to include this feature.
WORLD WIDE WEB
In his 1984 book Neuromancer William Gibson predicts
cyberspace and hacking. 7 years later, in the early 1990’s,
the world wide web became extremely popular.
BEST HUMAN CHESS PLAYER BEING BEAT
BY A COMPUTER BEFORE 2000
Considering that his book The Age Of Intelligent Machines
was written in 1990, Ray Kurzweil only had 10 years for his
prediction to be fulfilled but he was right. Only 7 years later, in
1997, IBM’s Deep Blue computer became the world chess champion.
LUNAR MODULES WOULD LAUNCH FROM FLORIDA
AND THEN RETURN TO EARTH AS
SPLASHDOWN CAPSULES
A boldly specific prediction, in his book From The Earth To The Moon
(1865), Jules Verne wrote about this scenario 104 years before
the 1969 Apollo mission did exactly that.
Comment on this