14 Sci-Fi Books That Predicted the Future

14 Sci-Fi Books That Predicted the Future

• 1.Gulliver's Travelsby Jonathan Swift (1726)

While Gulliver is on the island in Laputa, astronomers see that Mars has two moons in its orbit. Nearly a century later, Swift's minute detail turns out to be eerily true in real life.

• 2.Frankensteinby Mary Shelley (1818)

Shelley's idea of dead tissue reanimation wasn't a new concept in her time. While her story was a terrifying sci-fi read, Frankenstein's experiment was actually all the rage in the early 1800s. These experiments laid the foundations for other procedures, like the first successful heart transplant.

• 3.From the Earth to the Moonby Jules Verne (1865)

Submarines and airships were around in Verne's day, and while his idea of ships shooting out of a cannon was inaccurate, he did prophesy a launch site in Florida, the actual site of many Apollo missions.

• 4.Looking Backwardby Richard Bellamy (1888)

Bellamy's novel about an American utopian society foresaw the use of credit cards 63 years before they were invented. Although he used the term credit card in the novel, the concept was more closely related to spending a Social Security dividend, rather than borrowing from a bank.

• 5.With the Night Mailby Rudyard Kipling (1905)

The Wright Brothers' first flight was in 1903, but even Kipling couldn't have known at the time that airplanes could have the capacity to ship packages all over the world -- much like they do in his short story.

• 6.Ralph 124c 41+by Hugo Gernsback (1911)

The title of this series of short stories,124c 41+, is a play on words that means "one to foresee for one another". The main character talks about inventions like television, solar power, video phones, movies with sound, artificial cloth and space flight.

• 7.The World Set Freeby H.G. Wells (1913)

Years before the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, there was H.G. Wells' novel about a world living in a nuclear age. The book is credited as physicist Leo Szilard's inspiration for the atomic bomb.

• 8.Brave New Worldby Aldous Huxley (1931)

Huxley's novel predicted the use of mood enhancing medicine that keeps the citizens of London "sane" (not entirely unlike anti-depressants), and the use of genetic engineering.

• 9.1984by George Orwell (1949)

Although the NSA as the world now knows it is not quite as extreme as Orwell's Big Brother, the use of surveillance, news jargon and police helicopters are all prophecies of1984.

10.Fahrenheit 451by Ray Bradbury (1953)

Apple's earbud design is eerily similar to Bradbury's portable audio devices, “little seashells … thimble radios”, that are used in his classic dystopian novel.

• 11.2001: A Space Odysseyby Arthur C. Clarke (1968)

Characters in Arthur C. Clarke's novel get their news by "electronic papers", which worked similarly to today's iPads and other tablets.

• 12.Stand on Zanzibarby John Brunner (1969)

Widely regarded as one of the most prophetic novels ever, Brunner's novel, set in 2010, creates an America under the leadership of President Obomi, and the country is plagued with school shootings and terrorist attacks. Major cities like Detroit are practically wastelands. Among the major inventions include electric cars, direct TV and laser printers.

• 13.Cyborgby Martin Caidin (1972)

Martin Caidin's novel speculated the notion of human-like bionic limbs, which may not have been possible in the 1970s. Today, the prosthetics field has made great strides in creating practical limbs for amputees.

• 14.The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxyby Douglas Adams (1979)

The amusing little Babel Fish in Adams' novel creates a real-time translation for Arthur and his cohorts. Many new apps on the market for both Android and iOS are also mimicking the Babel Fish's abilities today.

How a 1974 sci-fi novel for teen eerily predicted the rise of personal drones.

Or, what I learned from “Danny Dunn, Invisible Boy”

Clive Thompson

Medium.com

Do you want to read a document that neatly specs out the future of personal drones — including the weird, fun, and creepy ways they’ll change society? I’ve got a book for you to read.It was written in 1974. It was a sci-fi novel aimed at teenage kids.

Forty years ago, itnailedeverything we’re arguing today about personal drones, privacy, and the danger of government overreach.

The Danny Dunn series started in the 1950s, written by Raymond Abrashkin and Jay Williams. They covered the adventures of a teenager — who was obsessed with science and engineering — and his friends Irene, and Joe. Danny’s father was dead, so Danny lived with his mother at the home of Professor Bullfinch, a kindly Ben-Franklin-esque scientist whose inventions Danny and his friends inevitably messed with: Antigravity paint, a time machine, a heat ray.

Which brings us the fascinating ethical landscape ofDanny Dunn, Invisible Boy.It begins with Danny and his friends asking the Professor whether anyone could become invisible and spy on others. The Professor argues that physics probably wouldn’t allow true invisibility. But he offers a second, more pragmatic option:

Basically, he imagines a drone. Then he goes on to build one. A few weeks after the chat about invisibility, the Professor calls the three kids over to his lab. Surprise! He’s invented the device he envisioned. Thanks to a new semiconductor he accidentally discovered, he has been able to create the tiniest cameras, sensors and flight-control switches that have ever existed. He’s packed them into a “sensory probe” shaped like a tiny dragonfly, which the pilot can fly as far as 2,500 yards away, remotely powered by microwave.

You control the drone using a keyboard box, a thoroughly funky virtual-reality helmet, and what look like a pair of souped up Nintendo Power Gloves. With head inside the hemet, the pilot sees what the dragonfly sees, and even feels what the dragonfly feels via haptic feedback in the gloves. The kids immediately ask to give it a try, and the Professor figureshey — 1970s teenagers piloting the world’s first remote-controlled spy drone! What could possibly go wrong? So Irene straps on the controls, which in the hands of the book’s fabulous illustrator, looks completely metal:

Irene zooms the drone around the lab, and then, being super interested in biology, she starts following a robin to its nest, where she gets a breathtaking closeup view of it feeding its children. “She could even see the tiny pulse throbbing in his breast, and she remembered that birds have a very high temperature and that their hearts beat as fast as ten times a second.” (Parents, there is a teachable moment like this on almost every page.)

In essence, Irene discovers something that environmentalists are realizing today: Thatsmall personal drones are great for observing the natural world. Later on, Danny suggests that drones would also be perfect for exploring other planets — something thatNASA scientists are now pondering for Mars’ lower atmosphere.These are the upsides of personal drones that we’re currently exploring in today’s world.

But new tools also create new social collisions.

The freaky privacy implications of drones raise their serpentine heads when Danny takes the controls. He flies around the neighborhood, spots his mother running an errand, and decides, mischievously, to follow her. His sneaky delight turns sour when he discovers she’s buying some lemons to make a surprise pie for him and his friends. “It’s not a surprise any more,” he realizes. Later in his flight, he flies the drone into his school and finds the local bully inside, secretly planning to cheat in the next day’s spelling bee. Busted!

The use of a drone for a good purpose — exposing unfairness, right? Except as the Professor points out, Danny discovered the nefarious activity by invading someone’s privacy. He cannot go inform on someone by using evidence he obtained by illicit voyeurism. Two wrongs don’t make a right.

Society, of course, has a strong interest in regulating and studying new technologies. But it’s not always easy to predict how a technology will shake out. Overall, though,Danny Dunn, Invisible Boywas shockingly accurate in its foresight about the drone debate. It reminds us that if you want to understand the future, the best place to go may not be newspapers, white papers, or industry blogs. It’s young-adult science-fiction.