Predictions of the Year 2000 from 1900

It's rather interesting what "the most learned and conservative minds in America" foresaw 100 years ago. Some are spot on, and some are ... not.

I'm still waiting for pneumatic tubes to be installed in my building...

I like the prediction about no more flies or mosquito's...

I have my doubts as to the origin of that article... some statements seem to clash with real science of the period; notions of what electricity can do, for example, are patently absurd.

And then you have a some guy predicting X-rays. Mixed bag, I guess.

The "real science" of electricity in the 1890s was about where the internet was in the 1990's--i.e., just getting off the ground commercially with a lot of hype and hope surrounding it. Note that's when the first electric companies were formed and electric power was just starting to catch on in cities. Also, the theory of x-rays has been around since the 1890's.

I suppose the Yorktown Historical Society may have pulled a fast one on us with a fake article but I don't think the science is really out there any more than what modern science fiction writers have extrapolated from computers and the internet today (ala William Gibson and Neal Stephenson).

You might be interested in the Timeline Re Electricity 1800-1899 to get a perspective of where the science of electricity was when 1900 rolled around. Xrays were actually discovered in 1896 and who would have thought that fax machines were first invented in 1843!

Wouldn't be to hard to confirm, I am sure this magazine is in some libraries archives...

A blogger has posted a scan of the purported article.

You really should just listen to Estarra. She was alive back then you know.

Prediction #16: There will be No C, X or Q in our every-day alphabet. They will be abandoned because unnecessary. Spelling by sound will have been adopted, first by the newspapers. English will be a language of condensed words expressing condensed ideas, and will be more extensively spoken than any other. Russian will rank second.

Heh.

I'm with Estarra, where are my pneumatic tubes??!!! (that would be so cool >_<)

Ze drem vil finali kum tru! And zen world!