Hugo Gernsbackwrote a syndicated piece in 1925 that imagined the macrocosm of 1975 . It appeared in the February 8th edition of theSan Antonio Light(San Antonio , TX ) and has an interesting mixture of hits and misses . high spot from the article are excerpted below . you may read the part in its entiretyhere .
Gernsback realise that the future had the potential to be even more antic than we could imagine :
The chances are that if someone run across this fifty years from now , he will severely doom the writer of this for his heavy lack of vision , for , no matter how wild the predictions may seem now , they will look very tame fifty years hence . If someone had tried to explain tuner to you fifty years ago , or the go - beam , or atomic number 88 , he would have been put down as ripe for the insane asylum , and you may rest check that we are no unlike today .
On television :
Movies by wireless ! Why not ? You will be able to have a prompt image produced in some central plant and projected in your home , on your yacht , or on your camping head trip , the ikon being sent by radio set , and received and projected upon your screen . All this is utterly possible .
On teleportation :
By [ 1975 ] , we shall be capable to send all variety of textile by radio . If you retrieve that it is unimaginable to transmit a boatload of ember thousands of mile , you need only go back less than fifty years , when it would have been thought equally impossible to have the street cars of Syracuse , N.Y. , run by the power generated by Niagara Falls . Today no one think anything of this .
On personal transportation :
Each pedestrian will roll on electric skates , such as have been constructed even today . An insulated wire feed from the skate to the straits or shoulder joint of the skater will be sufficient to take the business leader from the radio power line , and we shall then all be propelled electrically at a rate at least four or five times as tight as we take the air today .
On building of the future :
All of our building and houses are due for a great revolution . In the Wintertime all of our buildings will be warm , and in the summer they will be cool . The next construction and firm will be fashioned along the principle of a thermos bottle . Each paries will be double , and the blank between the walls will be filled with bobber or some other misfortunate oestrus conductor .
The spinning top of our tallest construction will be flat and glass - covered . They will have airplane landing platform on which all form of airplanes , or even the trans - Atlantic planes of the future will shore .
On hanging gardens :
Our large office buildings , or , for that affair , individual houses , will have real garden with large trees on top of the roof , as has already been tried experimentally with modest plants in some of our large cities .
On electrified crops :
Not only that , but plant life will also be greatly stimulate as recent in high spirits frequency experiment on plant have shown . Our crop and plants will spring up practically two to ten times as rapidly and the crops will be more productive under this electrification . Under such stimulus it will be quite potential to raise crops at least double or perhaps more often during the year ; and the most interesting part about this is that it will be the Fannie Merritt Farmer absolutely nothing except for fertilizer . And this he want anyway .
On moving pavement :
Below the elevated railway we have continuous incite platforms . There will be three such moving platforms alongside of each other . The first platform will move only a few miles per hour , the second at eight or ten mile per hour , and the third at twelve or fifteen miles per hour .
You step upon the tedious moving one from terra firma and move to the faster ones and take your seat . Then get at your station , you could either take the lift to the top chopine or else you could get off upon the " rarefied story " and take the libertine train there . which contain only every thirty or forty blocks . Or , if you do not wish well this , you’re able to descent by the same elevator down to the local metro .
Previously on Paleo - Future :
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