Comments on: A futurist prediction that came true

By: teapot

teapot — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 03:50:00 +0000

Complete abolition of static interference from electrical devices and from other stations

Someone forgot to tell this to my wireless FM headphones.

By: Bookburn

Bookburn — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 18:10:00 +0000

I understood “their own frequency” as their own phone number.

By: seyo

seyo — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 16:10:00 +0000

All that, AND, unquestionably the best and fastest way to cook a sweet potato!

By: bolamig

bolamig — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 10:30:00 +0000

It sure feels like he anticipated the internet, even if he couldn’t quite put it into words.

By: sisyphus321

sisyphus321 — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 08:02:00 +0000

Technically …

Optical fiber pretty much killed microwave voice backhaul in the 1980s. Some of the spectrum that was used for private microwave voice and voice-bandwidth transmission around 2 GHz was re-allocated for cellular use (ok, ‘PCS’, but basically the same thing) in the early 1990s. There are a lot of efforts to reallocate microwave frequencies for short-range cellular or wifi-like uses.

The SciAm article is really about the amount of bandwidth that becomes available when the signal bandwidth is a fraction of a very high underlying carrier frequency. Of course, the ‘carrier frequency’ of an optical signal is much higher than a microwave radio signal, so the bandwidth expansion with fiber is much higher than radio.

By: GyroMagician

GyroMagician — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 07:45:00 +0000

Nice find.

Some days, I’m still blown away by automatic doors. I mean, a door that knows I’m standing there, and realizes I want to come in, and opens all by itself. Amazing. On those days, mobile phones and the internet just explode my head.

In reply to MythicalMe: Yes, the pieces were mostly available, but it takes some imagination (and luck) to put them together into something that will actually happen. There is a big gap between building a microwave source/receiver, and everybody in the country carrying a mobile phone in their pocket, linked by some kind of packet network to share data between them.

By: MythicalMe

MythicalMe — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 07:23:00 +0000

While I am impressed with some of the predictions, most of them, by 1947 were easily possible. Microwave energy was already being harnessed and radar was developed in WWII. Frankly, I think the predictions made by Jules Verne were much more impressive.

Ray Bradbury, and to a certain extent, Isaac Asimov were also good at future predictions.

By: paulj

paulj — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 06:16:00 +0000

Back in the early 1970′s my mother’s aunt from the old country saw one and refused to have anything to do with it. Since it couldn’t heat food by any means that she was familiar with, it was obviously the work of the devil.

By: Their feldspars

Their feldspars — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 06:02:00 +0000

1964. World’s Fair. Greyhound pavilion. The future!

By: Palomino

Palomino — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 03:24:00 +0000

1953, Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451.

By: Mark Dow

Mark Dow — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 02:15:00 +0000

Another fantastic set of related predictions from that era (1945) is Vannevar Bush’s “As We May Think” essay.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/As_We_May_Think
In some ways the essay drove the predictions: for example Douglas Engelbart, a radio engineer and then internet pioneer, was influenced by the ideas.

By: Graysmith

Graysmith — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 01:27:00 +0000

Funny, I was thinking about this just the other day, of how amazing it really is to have this little machine that you put something into and shortly thereafter as if by invisible magic you have a hot meal or beverage. I can only imagine it must’ve seemed like pure witchcraft when the first home-use microwave ovens were released in 1967, especially considering how crude technology in general was back then.

By: Cocomaan

Cocomaan — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 01:01:00 +0000

My dad is an electrical engineering professor, and will love this. Thanks for posting.

By: GordonM

GordonM — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 00:49:00 +0000

That’s actually quite a remarkable prediction, even if it glosses over the details (couple of things in there that don’t have anything to do with microwave). But if you translate “their own frequency” as their own website / email / etc.. it has all come true. Amazing.

By: Geoduck

Geoduck — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 00:37:00 +0000

My favorite example of this is Murray Leinster’s 1946 story “A Logic Named Joe”, which essentially predicts the Internet, complete with YouTube and porn potential.

By: Dr. Jeff

Dr. Jeff — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 23:48:00 +0000

I am happily still blown away by just about everything in life. My kids make fun of me for constantly being amazed that one can just pick up a little cell phone and talk to anyone, or for remarking how cool it is that we can send big winged tin cans full of people across the country with ease.

Microwaves are definitely on the list of amazing stuff.