The Future Of Things

While we are still talking of making predictions, we can now add a new name to those of the great seers ..... American engineer John Elfreth Watkins, Jr. who in the December 1900 edition of the Ladies Home Journal wrote an entitled “What May Happen in the Next Hundred Years ”, with 29 predictions ..... some, where right, and in fact his hit rate was better than your average savant.

Included in his predictions of 100 years of progress were the following:

Prediction #1: There will probably be from 350,000,000 to 500,000,000 people in America and its possessions by the lapse of another century.

Actual, there are in fact 313,000,000 million US citizens.

Prediction #2: The American will be taller by from one to two inches.

Actual, this is exactly the current average height increase in US males.

Prediction #5:  Trains will run two miles a minute, normally; express trains one hundred and fifty miles an hour between New York and San Francisco.

Actual, Amtrak's flagship high-speed rail line, the Acela Express, opened between Boston and Washington, DC. It reaches top speeds of 150mph (it should be pointed out that this was not the average, and is slower that fast trains in China, Japan, France, and in fact anywhere else, except of course the UK, who can't even manage that).

Prediction #6:  Automobiles will be cheaper than horses are today.

Actual, well cheap second hand cars are about the price of a good hacking horse, and a good race horse can be more or less the price of an average new car.

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.

Actual, fighter planes, tanks, and nuclear shells/missiles could be covered by this prediction.

Prediction #9:  Photographs will be telegraphed from any distance and Photographs will reproduce all of Nature’s colours. 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. Prediction #18: Telephones Around the World. Wireless telephone and telegraph circuits will span the world.

Actual, Phones, TV, Internet, PC's, WiFi and satellites have allowed colour media content to transmitted in seconds and communication to every part of the globe. 

Prediction #12:  Peas as Large as Beets. Peas and beans will be as large as beets are to-day, and Prediction #13:  Strawberries as Large as Apples!

Actual, well fruit and vegetables are often larger than in his time, and certainly plants are more productive so in essence he's right. But we haven't tried to produce extra large produce, mainly for reasons of taste and utility.    

Prediction #15: No Foods will be exposed .... to air ..... Liquid-air refrigerators will keep great quantities of food fresh for long intervals.

Actual, mass tinning and sealed packaging is the norm, with refrigerated food making up the other 95% of shop produce.

There Are Many Visions Of The Future

Prediction #17: A university education will be free to every man and woman. Several great national universities will have been established. Medical inspectors regularly visiting the public schools will furnish poor children free eyeglasses, free dentistry and free medical attention of every kind.

Actual, in the UK and US, we have the great national universities, but they were not free in the US and are not free anymore in the UK (excluding Scotland where its still free). The UK has 'free' health care for the poor, and very cheap provision for most. The US has some provision for the very poor, although maybe not as generous as in Europe or Canada.

Prediction #21: Hot and Cold Air from Spigots will be turned on from spigots to regulate the temperature of a house.

Actual, Central heating and Air Conditioning are the norm in the developed world.

Prediction #23: Ready-cooked meals will be bought from establishments similar to our bakeries of today at a price much lower than the cost of individual cooking. The food will be served hot or cold to private houses in pneumatic tubes or automobile waggons.

Actual, supermarket ready meals, takeaways and home deliveries are all common place now.

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.

Actual, this is not quite the case but we are heading this way with drugs that target genes or organs, and skin injections via pressurised air bursts are also more common.

Prediction #28: There will be no wild animals except in menageries.

Actual, not yet but by 3000 AD we will probably have driven many species to extinction in the wild.

Prediction #29: To England in Two Days.

Actual, he didn't predict air planes (he thought airships would remain slow because of winds), so he thought super fast passenger liners would sail the seas ... so we have exceeded his predictions with airliners.

So who was this far-sighted man?  Well he was a railroad engineer who lived from 1852 to 1903. He suffered a "disabling" accident in 1873 and became a clerk for the Pennsylvania Railroad. He then took a job as curator at the transport section of the US National Museum in 1885, where he also became a writer for the Ladies Home Journal's sister magazine, the Saturday Evening Post, based in Indianapolis.

His job at the museum allowed him access to many scientists and he used this access to make his predictions. "These prophecies will seem strange, almost impossible". He said that that he had consulted the country's "greatest institutions of science and learning" for their opinions on 29 topics.

A reproduction of the full list is here (or on the links above) ... you will have to save to your PC to read this image because of blogspot limits on sizes.