Apr 6, 2008

Futurology...

...is -no doubt- a very risky "science". History has proved that our imagination and our power to do and discover and create do not go together as well as we would like them to go!

If you don't think so, just check out this article from a 1954's Popular Mechanic Magazine (with the "original" photo):

"Scientists from the RAND Corporation have created this model to illustrate how a “home computer” could look like in the year 2004. However the needed technology will not be economically feasible for the average home.


Also the scientists readily admit that the computer will require not yet invited technology to actually work, but 50 years from now scientific progress is expected to solve these problems. With teletype interface and the Fortran language, the computer will be easy to use."

I wonder how surprised those guys would be by a MacBook Air!


PS: Even when I did my own research to find out more about the picture, it appear as legitimate when I published it. Thanks to one of our readers, I just found out that it is not... so, the orignal photo wasn't so "original".

But the statement about Futurology stands. For example, Charles Darwin, in the foreword to his book, The Origin of Species, 1869, said: «I see no good reasons why the views given in this volume should shock the religious sensibilities of anyone». Check out some more interesting future predictions gone bad!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thats a fake picture. Check snopes.

San said...

Hey thanks! I checked in some places but I couldn't find it *someone send it to me* so I thought it was for real (I mean, I have some other ones that are more or less the type that they do are real, sadly I have them in my "Life" collection frm the 60's in Argentina). Thanks for the data, I will post a PS!