All through history, writers, scientists, and geniuses have foreseen the future. Though most of these predictions may appear to be silly and funny, some futurists did hit the nail on head. We believe they relied on logic, intuition, and certainly a bit of luck. City Express lists few of the most incredibly correct predictions ever.
Online shopping predicted in 1967
Philco Ford, an early pioneer in electronics, produced a film titled, Year 1999 AD, which speculated life in the coming decades. Online shopping and bill paying, electronic funds transfers, compact home laser printers, and even ‘instant written communication between individuals anywhere in the world’– that is email – long before the Internet was a twinkle in anyone’s eye – were all envisioned.
Raymond Kurzweil’s predictions
Raymond Kurzweil is an American author, computer scientist, futurist and the inventor of text reading software and speech-recognition devices, among others. Kurzweil had predicted the fall of the Soviet Union, wireless internet becoming practical for mainstream use in the early 21st century. In 1999, he predicted e-books, face recognition software, and nanotechnology. By the way, these are just a handful of examples.
e-Learning was spoken of in 1988
In 1988, during an interview science fiction author Isaac Asimov predicted that through computers, the world would have access to “connected libraries,” which would act as a “teacher in the form of access to the gathered knowledge of the human species.”
iPad was predicted in 1968
Famous science fiction author Arthur C Clarke‘s 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey, had two astronauts reading news on something that looked suspiciously like an iPad. As surprising as it is, in the the novel version of the sci-fi, this gadget was called a ‘Newspad’– it enabled astronauts to read any newspaper even in space.
...And psychic octopus
An octopus named Paul, gained instant fame in 2010 for correctly predicting the results of all six of Germany’s 2010 World Cup matches. Paul was given food in two different glass boxes – each with the flag of the two competing teams. From whichever box Paul chose to eat first was considered his prediction as winner of the match. Thanks to his extraordinary ability, Paul also predicted the winning teams in basketball games.
Prophesy from Scrubs
In an episode of the hilarious 2006 TV series Scrubs, the janitor makes an uncanny comment that, “In my opinion, we should be looking for Bin Laden in Pakistan.” In 2011, the US soldiers did find the terrorist hiding in a well-guarded house in Pakistan. That was when, comedy turned serious!