Take a look at all of the technology around you:
computers, tablets, cell phones, cameras, planes, trains, and
automobiles. There was a time where these advancements were only
faint glimmers in the imaginations of some and long before they
became a reality, some engineers and inventors had already
predicted their arrival into the future.
Take a look at some of technology predictions
that actually came to be.
1. Leonardo da Vinci predicts the
Leonardo da Vinci, commonly known for his
artistic abilities, was way beyond his years. Some other areas of
his expertise were in mechanical engineering, military engineering,
physiology, and biology, among many others. Da Vinci can actually
be credited with predicting the invention of the helicopter. He
created over 100 drawings that portrayed his theories of flight,
showing how humans could fly. His drawing of the ornithopter flying
machine could very well have been the inspiration for the modern
Example of Da Vinci’s helicopter
While many components and designs of the
helicopter were created throughout the 1800’s, not until
1907 did the first helicopter lift off of the ground. Initially, a
Frenchman Louis Charles Berguet got one to lift off for about a
minute. A few months later, Paul Cornu flew a helicopter for a few
minutes longer. But Da Vinci had the idea in motion 400 years
2. Thomas Edison predicts
Thomas Edison, an American inventor well known
for the phonograph and electric light bulb, published an article in
1911 in the Miami Metropolis making
some predictions about technology in the year 2011.
“Books of the coming century will all
be printed leaves of nickel, so light to hold that the reader can
enjoy a small library in a single volume. A book two inches thick
will contain forty thousand pages, the equivalent of a hundred
volumes; six inches in aggregate thickness, it would suffice for
all the contents of the Encyclopedia
Britannica. And each volume would weigh less than a
Edison’s prediction sounds very
similar to the capabilities of an iPhone.
Edison also made reference to the rise of steel
within our society. He says, ““The house of the
next century will be furnished from basement to attic with steel,
at a sixth of the present cost — of steel so light that
it will be as easy to move a sideboard as it is today to lift a
drawing room chair.”
3. John Elfreth Watkins predicts digital
photography and televisionJohn Elfreth Watkins, a civil engineer who
worked for American railroads published an article in December 1900
entitled “What May Happen in the Next Hundred
Years.” Some of his predictions were very
“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. The instrument bringing
these distant scenes to the very doors of people will be connected
with a giant telephone apparatus transmitting each incidental sound
in its appropriate place.”
Today our television doesn’t
quite look like this, but we do use it to “see around the
world” just as Watkins predicted,
Isn’t that what a television does?
This was written in 1900, but the first successfully demonstrated
television wasn’t produced until 1927 by Philo Taylor
Farnsworth. By 1939, the opening of the New York World’s
Fair was televised and by 1960, cable television began to rise in
Watkins also made a prediction about digital
“Photographs will be telegraphed from
any distance. If there be a battle in China a hundred years hence
snapshots of its most striking events will be published in the
newspapers an hour later. Even to-day photographs are being
telegraphed over short distances. Photographs will reproduce all of
In 1969, the charge-coupled device (CCD), the
image sensor that can be found in digital cameras today, was
created. Not until 1981 did Sony Corporation produce the first
electronic camera. (It recorded images on a two-inch still-video
4. Jules Verne predicts electric
Jules Verne, a French science fiction writer, in
his book Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the
Sea, published in 1870, makes reference to electricity and
electric submarines. In the novel, Captain Nemo travels around in
an electric submarine called the “Nautilus.”
Verne refers to electricity as “a powerful agent,
obedient, rapid, easy, which conforms to every use, and reigns
supreme on board my vessel."
On a side note, Da Vinci also made references to
submarines in his drawings back in the 15th century.
The Goubet II, one of the first electric
submarines, was created in 1889.
A number of electric submarines sprouted after
this novel was released, including one of the first all-electric
submarines created by French civil engineer, Claude Goubet, which
were names the Goubet I and the Goubet II in 1889.
5. Bill Gates predicts social networking
Bill Gates, co-founder of Microsoft, published
The Road Ahead in 1995 where he
discussed the future of the digital age. In his book he makes
reference to the ability to meet new people and keep in touch with
others more easily.
Even Bill Gates is on Facebook.
“The (information) highway will not
only make it easier to keep up with distant friends, it will also
enable us to find new companions. Friendships formed across the
network will lead naturally to getting together in person."
Although he does say we would get together more
in person, which may not be as accurate, today social networking
allows us to connect with people from the past, other
professionals, as well as keep in contact with people from all over
Imagine the predictions we can make about the
world 100 years from now.■