1934 predictions

1) electronic umpires
2) a week on the moon as a sales prize
3) business conventions held via television
4) a world network feeding into schoolrooms
5) wrist watches would still be used for telling time
6) a second watch would be a walkie talkie tied into a "local phone system"

It's strange that they envisioned a week on the moon, but couldn't see beyond a "local phone system"

Of course no one envisioned that faster, further, higher transportation would be replaced by decades of designing around fuel economy

Quote: Pacomartin

Of course no one envisioned that faster, further, higher transportation would be replaced by decades of designing around fuel economy

No one guessed the auto industry would
be restricted to mostly gas cars because
of the stranglehold big oil would have on
research into any other mode of transportation.

They did come close on the phones and
teleconferencing, though.

I didn't realize the word "television" was widely used in newspaper articles in 1934. Very few people had seen television at that time. It was only 11 years earlier that first United States presidential address was broadcast on the radio.

The word was adopted into English from the French in 1907 when the technology was still theoretical. That same year "radio" first appeared in English. But I just didn't think that they were talking about TV in 1934.

I thought TV was introduced to the public in the 1939 World's Fair.

Quote: Pacomartin

1) electronic umpires

Perhaps cyclops in tennis, and instant replay in other sports count as electronic umpires.

Quote: Pacomartin

I thought TV was introduced to the public in the 1939 World's Fair.

I collected WF stuff years ago. TV was a big deal
at the '39 fair, there was a pavilion for it. In the
40's it was available to rich people in NYC
and was broadcast a few times a week until
it took off in the late 40's.

This is how they were set up at the fair, tiny
screens you saw in a mirror.



The RCA building was shaped like a vacuum tube.

Quote: Evenbob

No one guessed the auto industry would
be restricted to mostly gas cars because
of the stranglehold big oil would have on
research into any other mode of transportation.

They did come close on the phones and
teleconferencing, though.

The only "stranglehold" is that no other fuel has all of the advantages that oil/gasoline have. The automakers have looked for alternatives for years. "Big Oil" is not doing a thing about it.

I agree, they did get a few things pretty right. Even "right on" if you consider that we are talking mostly vocabulary differences. The "local phone network" I think meant more like a walkie-talkie, so you could talk with people just nearby in that style. C-Phones had this feature for a few years.

Quote: Pacomartin

1) electronic umpires

Could be done. Probably no one really wants one. See the years of controversy in the NFL over using replays to make calls.

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2) a week on the moon as a sales prize

Not a bad guess at the time, but the cost is much higher than the authors imagined.

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3) business conventions held via television

Done.

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4) a world network feeding into schoolrooms

Done.

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5) wrist watches would still be used for telling time

I haven't owned a watch in years. but people still use them to tell time.

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6) a second watch would be a walkie talkie tied into a "local phone system"

Not quite that, but cell phones will do. They've been ubiquitous since the 90s.

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It's strange that they envisioned a week on the moon, but couldn't see beyond a "local phone system"

I recommend reading Clarke's "Profiles of the Future." He delineates two types of failures to accept predictions of technological advances. Ironically, he also once explained why things like mobile phones would be few and not that useful in cities, for reasons of bandwidth. I think he lived long enough to be proved wrong.

"The Americans may need the telephone but we do not. We have plenty of messenger boys."

All that aside, Science Fiction constantly makes predictions about the future. Bits do make it, but overall it tends to lag behind, or to be wildly optimistic. Thing is many advances are literally unimaginable until someone makes a key discovery. For instance, no one would imagine lightning could power a horseless chariot back in ancient Rome, or that it contained the means to send messages across the world at the speed of light.

Quote: AZDuffman

The automakers have looked for alternatives for years.

They looked as much as big oil would
let them. Which is to say, with all the
gusto of a wet fart..

Quote: Evenbob

They looked as much as big oil would
let them. Which is to say, with all the
gusto of a wet fart..

How did Big Oil not "let" them?

Let me guess, you had a 1978 Nova that was getting 90 MPG. When you took it to the dealer for service the dealer stole the experimental carburetor that somehow got installed by mistake on the assembly line?

Quote: AZDuffman

How did Big Oil not "let" them?

Big oil is famous for buying up
patents that threatened their
business, among other below the
belt tactics designed to keep the
gas flowing until oil finally does
run out. Which now doesn't look
likely for a very long time.