the future that never was

7/29/2019 The Future That Never Was

1/32

The Future That NeverWas:

Pictures from the Past


2/32

The Future That Never Was: Pictures from

Past Popular Mechanics magazine is in the business of

predicting. Whether it is tech trends, cars to comeor tomorrow's top science, we have been lookingforward in the printed page throughout our 100-plus-year history. And it's not always accurate.

Excerpted from the bookThe Wonderful Future ThatNever Was, curated by Gregory Benford, here's alook at some of our brilliantand dubiouspredictions pre-dating 1969.


3/32

Introduction

When Popular Mechanics magazine launched in 1902, it seemed almost impossible for our editors and writers to 2010 might look like, but that didn't stop them from trying. Since then, we've published countless predictions of sinventors, and other visionaries as steam gave way to electricity, stone buildings were overshadowed by skyscraperand steel, and advances in transportation and telecommunications seemed to shrink the world.

Now we live in an era we're used to thinking of as the future. Though we still lack flying cars and jet packs (as p1928 and 1964), our clothes are made of milk (as we forecast in 1929), our foods are fortified with grass (1940), asorted by robots and delivered by airplane (though perhaps not the way we anticipated in 1921). Surrounded by wfast-evolving culture of innovation, it's just as challenging today for us to imagine the next century as it must haveearly 20th century colleagues to envision the fabled year 2000.

So we decided it was high time to take a look back at the predictions of the past, not only to score them on accurashockingly prescient, some hilariously wrong) but also to pay tribute to the inventiveness of the past. We hope thiarticles and essays, which first appeared in Popular Mechanics between 1903 and 1969, will inspire fabulous new vas recalling the sense of wonder that previous generations of readers felt when they craned their necks at the firstread about the first heart transplant, and watched the first man walk on the moon. Power up your personal helicous on a glorious adventure in the many wonderful worlds of tomorrow.


4/32

Prediction 1928: Reimagining Chic

A Venetian-like plan submitted for

Chicago solves transportation

problems and allows for a pleasant

day of shopping.


5/32

Prediction 1930: Revolving Buildin

Among the modernistic buildings propose

architects is that of a revolving restaurant

mounted on a huge column. This affords

an opportunity for sight-seeing while dinin

strolling on platforms.


6/32

Prediction 1928: City of The Futu

Cross section of the future city, with many traffic levels underground; top,street for pedestrians only, and airplane landing fields, above.

The step-back skyscrapers of the future will have moving stairs on theoutside of the buildings instead of elevators, with facilities for passengers toalight at any floor, declared Harvey Wiley Corbett, noted city planner.Some of the skyscrapers will be a half mile high and will house small-sizedcities.

Major Henry H. Curran of New York, opposes Mr. Corbett and points tothe impossibilities of such buildings in terms of human happiness as well asconstruction, saying, There are everyday workers who count their ribs onrelease from the elevators and subways that take them to their offices. Theymust pop out of kiosks like prairie dogs.

TRUE!

The tallest building in todays world is

Burj Khalifa in Khalifa. At 2,684 feet, its

just over a half mile high, although its use

is primarily commercial and it lacks the

moving stairs.


7/32

Prediction 1932: Clean Car Emissio

In the odorless city of the future, automobiles will wemasks. Poisonous and disagreeable fumes from gasolioil-propelled vehicles will disappear, making it unnecea citys inhabitants to wear gas masks. By running an ea tightly closed room, experimenters protected by gasseek to determine how much poisonous matter must

removed from an automobiles exhaust to make it harand inoffensive.

LEFT: The canary, little martyr of gas experiments;CENTER: An apparatus for purifying exhaust gases; Experimenter wears gas mask in fight to cleanse citys


8/32

Prediction 1950: Suburban Life

The best way of visualizing the new world of A.D. 2000 is to introduce you to thwho live in Tottenville, a hypothetical metropolitan suburb of 100,000. The highradiate from Tottenville are much like those of today, except that they are broadeany curves. In some of the older cities, where it was difficult to alter the streets bimmense investment in real estate and buildings, the highways are double-deckeddeck is for fast nonstop traffic; the lower deck is much like our avenues, with brigilluminated shops. Beneath the lower deck is the level reserved entirely for busine

In the homes, electricity is used to warm walls and to cook. Factories all burn gas

originates in sealed mines. The tars are removed and sold to the chemical industrvalues, and the gas thus laundered is piped to a thousand communities. But thatssource of energy in Tottenville. Theoretically, 5000 horsepower in terms of solaran acre of the earth's surface every day. Many farmhouses in the future will be herays and some cooking will be done by solar heat.


9/32

Prediction 1928: A Land of Perpetua

Sunshine The home of the future, as an architect envisages it in year 2000 was

exhibited in London recently. The new invention Vitaglass admits thesuns ultraviolet rays in fair weather into each room, and producesartificial sunlight for cloudy days and night use to create a permanentsummer-day effect.

Complete with convertible metal furniture; bunk rooms rather thanbedrooms, laid out somewhat like steamer cabins; movable walls; agarage for a combination airplane-automobile with folding wings;and, on the garage roof, a second-story swimming pool, gardens fitted

with plants in movable containers; and wireless power and programreception masts, the citizens of tomorrow will have a home full ofsunlight.


10/32

Prediction 1928: Rooftop Lake

An inches-deep rooftop lake may beco

important air-conditioning method.


11/32

Prediction 1935: Hitting The Tra

From the prairie schooner to the modern trailer

coach is a vast step forward. More surprising is this

prediction of Roger W. Babson, able statistician:

Within twenty years, more than half the

population of the United States will be living inautomobile trailers!


12/32

Prediction 1929: Clothing Will Be Ma

From Asbestos Dresses of asbestos that will be as lustrous as silk and will give

long wear, with ease in cleaning, are predicted by an easternscientist. Fabrics are already being made from trees andvegetables and the Romans made a sort of cloth from asbestosfibers centuries ago, so this prophecy is considered entirelyreasonable by experts. The use of asbestos in the early Roman

days was confined largely to the weaving of shrouds. Accordingto tradition, Charlemagne had a tablecloth of asbestos which wascleaned by throwing it into the fire. In the seventeenth century,Chinese merchants displayed asbestos handkerchiefs and theEskimos in Labrador have used lampwicks made of an asbestosfabric for many years.


13/32

Prediction 1950: Housekeeping of th

Future When the housewife of 2000 cleans house she simply tu

hose on everything. Why not? Furniture (upholstery inclrugs, draperies, unscratchable floorsall are made of syfabric or waterproof plastic. After the water has run dowin the middle of the floor (later concealed by a rug of syfiber) she turns on a blast of hot air and dries everythingdetergent in the water dissolves any resistant dirt. Tablecnapkins are made of woven paper yarn so fine that the ueye mistakes it for linen. She throws soiled linen into tincinerator. Bed sheets are of more substantial stuff, butonly to hang them up and wash them down with a hose puts the bedroom in order.


14/32

Prediction 1928: Space Saving Furni

Pneumatic armchairs, with enormous inflated

cushions built up in sections, can be deflated

folded up into a small space when not needed

dining room table built in three sections can b

completely set, even to the centerpiece of flowand then folded up as a three-story tea cart an

wheeled in from the kitchen.


15/32

Prediction 1963: High Tech Kitch

A glass-dome oven, a range that cooks by

induction heating without warming its

marble top and a refrigerator with

revolving shelves are features of this

kitchen. The uncooled top section of therefrigerator stores dry foods.


16/32

Prediction 1928: No More Milk Bot

Fifty years hence, according to Roger W. Babson,

internationally known statistician, the milk bottle w

probably be a museum relic, along with the ice wag

coal shovel and the ash can, and our milk and butte

derived from kerosene instead of cows, while mostother food will be served in concentrated or pill for


17/32

Prediction 1937: Microwave Cooki

Cooking a ham sandwich in high-freq

radio waves. This method may be com

the home of the future.


18/32

Prediction 1947: Dinners Without Drud

Before long you may see frozen dinners shotels, trains, planes, ships, factories, officyour own home. They probably will be sogrocery stores and delicatessens.

A wide selection of frozen dinners is expbe available soon in grocery and frozen fostores. Eventually, frozen meals will be defrom house to house.

FACT: The first TV Dinn

was sold by C.A. Swanso

Sons in 1953, spawning ahuge frozen-meal industr


19/32

Prediction 1940: Automatic Store

Foods and other items will be carried to the cashier not by thecustomer but by a conveyor belt in this assembly line grocerystore. The customer is given with a roll of tape which is punchedwith holes when she inserts a key in a slot next to the itemselected. When she finishes shopping, she hands the tape to aclerk who operates a combination translator and adding

machine. This instrument interprets the punched holes just as apiano player plays from a music roll. Electrical impulses race togravity chutes and release guards that drop unbreakable articlesto the conveyor belt. More delicate merchandise is lowered to themoving belt by a tripper shelf, so all types of supplieseveneggsmay be handled by this system.


20/32

Prediction 1939: Electric Remote

Controlled Home

Manufacturers have come to look upon the design and distribution of hoappliances as a long-term job of making electric homes. Todays house isseparate centers of electrification. Tomorrows electric home will be builelectric power supply and appliances.

This future home will probably be equipped with a number of control ceany one of which the homemaker can give her commands to appliances the kitchen and laundry. Electric ranges already are equipped with autom

for temperature and cooking time, but there is no practical reason why thoperations together with the other appliances cannot be controlled remoany room in the house. Perhaps short-wave radio may be utilized for thiswell as for answering the doorbell and receiving visitors by transmitting athem and unlocking the door.

FACT: A Japanese inventor patent

bar code-reading remote control f

microwave ovens back in 1989, an

simpler controller was patented in

America in 2005. For some reason

idea has never caught on.


21/32

Prediction 1942: Push Button Phon

Push buttons are predicted to replac

phones.

The 1963 Seattle World's Fair intr

the push button phone, and this overtook dial phones.


22/32

Prediction 1944: Home Theater

Give them a few years and the magicians of RCA

and General Electric and DuMont and the rest

will produce a television projector matching

todays movies in clarity on a six-foot home screen

or a 15 by 20 foot theater screen. The Americanappetite wants nothing less than todays ball game

thrown on the playroom screen as large as life and

as noisy.


23/32

Prediction 1954: The Television You C

Hang On Your Wall

General Electric scientists predict yo

picture screen in 1964 may be so thi

can be hung like a painting on the w

mounted like a vanity mirror in a tab

model.

FACT: Todays LCDs hang on wa

around the country, but in 1964, th

plasma displays were just beginni

be developed, and still encased in

unwieldy boxes.


24/32

Prediction 1905: Electric Handsha

To discern every expression on the face of th

you are talking with, to hear his voice and fee

pressure of his hand, when separated by hun

miles, is the ambitious prediction of French s

Under such circumstances the physician couldprescribe for a patient in another city.


25/32

Prediction 1968: Wristwatches in 2

Waltham engineers foresee this excitingpossibility: Wristwatches in the year 2000 willbe used for more than time measurement.They will be total communications centers,containing devices not only for accurate timing

but also for voice and vision communicationand recordingtheyll even contain simpleminiaturized computers. How about that for aprediction!


26/32

Prediction 1964: Biochemical Pacema

The Pacific hagfish has three hearts, one of

has no nerve connections to the body. Dr. D

Jensen discovered that this nerveless heart is

beating by a powerful biochemical pacemake

eptatretin, which may replace implanted elecpacemakers as a treatment to regularize the

heartbeat of people with faulty cardiac nerv


27/32

Prediction 1951: Personal Helicopt

This simple, practical, foolproof personal

helicopter coupe is big enough to carry tw

and small enough to land on your lawn. It

carburetor to ice up, no ignition system to

apart or misfire: instead, quiet, efficient ramkeep the rotors moving, burning any kind

from dime-a-gallon stove oil or kerosene u

aviation gasoline.


28/32

Prediction 1966: Cars In 2016

What will cars be like in 2016? The Automobile Club of Mthis year celebrating its 50th anniversary, wondered about recently and approached widely publicized seer Jeane Dixher to gaze into her crystal ball and come up with a few anFifty years from now, Miss Dixon predicted, cars will flit bforth on cushions of air, the wheels retracting upon starti

will be fueled by some exotic new compound yet to be de

gasoline as we know it will have gone the way of the buggradar-like device will guard against cars being involved in aConsensus here is that Miss Dixon is on fairly safe groundstudies of such designs and gadgetry are already in the walthough a long, long way from fruition.


29/32

Prediction 1965: Vertical Takeoff An

Landing Planes

In air travel, efforts to design and place in service asupersonic airliner by 1970 are well known. Lessfamiliar, however, is another development of almostequal significance, vertical takeoff and land planes(VTOLS). Some, using jet engines, blow the air downfor takeoff and landing, and rearward for forward

cruise. Others, using props, tilt the engines or tilt thewings. The most recent, the Bell X-22, uses fourducted props, tilting them up or down for forward orvertical flight. Success of any of them could lead totransports that could carry passengers fromdowntown areas, bypassing hard-to-get-to airports.


30/32

Prediction 1959: United States Not Firs

The Moon

The first American trip to the moon will be launched not from earth but from a space station in our planet. It is possible even now, of course, to send a man to the moon the hard way; a single mcramped into a tiny shell with just enough fuel to reach the moon, land and fire himself back towearth. At the present time his chances of surviving would be slim, so the United States, at least, wa single man directly from earth. Our program is set, and does not include anything so wild and fwill build an elegant space station to accommodate about 50 men, then set out in perhaps two peships and a cargo ship. The Russians have a basic, relatively unpretentious moonship. The Amerimore elegant, larger and has a much bigger crew. This, perhaps, is the crux of the whole problem

vis-a-vis Russia in space. The Russians think the stakes are nothing less than the cosmos. The AmOkay, the cosmos. But with safety, comfort, the dignity of man, showers in our space liners, bigtogetherness, psychological adjustment, compatibility, friendship. The Russians whip somethingtogether and shout Davai! Give, lads! And off they go. I am certain in my own mind that the fispaceship will land on the moon within five years. And the way things are going at present, the memerge to put the first footprints into the ancient lunar dust will not be Americans.


31/32

Prediction 1950: Electronic Machin

Predicts The Weather

One of the more remarkable electronic machines of the Year 2000 is one tpredict the weather with an accuracy unattainable before 1980. It is a combof calculating machine and forecaster. The calculator solves thousands of sequations in a minute; the automatic forecaster carries out the computersinstructions and predicts the weather from hour to hour. In 1950, meteorohad no time to deal with the 50-odd variables that should have been mathe

handled to predict the weather 24 hours in advance. With the use of this mis easy to spot a budding hurricane off the coast of Africa. Before it has a gather strength and speed as it travels westward toward Florida, oil is spreathe sea and ignited. There is an updraft. Air from the surrounding region, wincludes the developing hurricane, rushes in to fill the void. The rising air cso that some of the water in the whirling mass falls as rain.


32/32

the future that never was

Documents