Thomas Edison's PREDICTIONS in 1911 for 2011

[AsianDivaGirlsWebDude]

What will the world be a hundred years hence?

None but a wizard dare raise the curtain and disclose the secrets of the future; and what wizard can do it with so sure a hand as Mr. Thomas Alva Edison, who has wrested so many secrets from jealous Nature? He alone of all men who live has the necessary courage and gift of foresight, and he has not shrunk from the venture.

Already, Mr. Edison tells us, the steam engine is emitting its last gasps. A century hence it will be as remote as antiquity as the lumbering coach of Tudor days, which took a week to travel from Yorkshire to London. In the year 2011 such railway trains as survive will be driven at incredible speed by electricity (which will also be the motive force of all the world's machinery), generated by "hydraulic" wheels.

But the traveler of the future, says a writer in Answers, will largely scorn such earth crawling. He will fly through the air, swifter than any swallow, at a speed of two hundred miles an hour, in colossal machines, which will enable him to breakfast in London, transact business in Paris and eat his luncheon in Cheapside.

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. The baby of the twenty-first century will be rocked in a steel cradle; his father will sit in a steel chair at a steel dining table, and his mother's boudoir will be sumptuously equipped with steel furnishings, converted by cunning varnishes to the semblance of rosewood, or mahogany, or any other wood her ladyship fancies.

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 pound.

Already Mr. Edison can produce a pound weight of these nickel leaves, more flexible than paper and ten times as durable, at a cost of five shillings. In a hundred years' time the cost will probably be reduced to a tenth.

More amazing still, this American wizard sounds the death knell of gold as a precious metal. "Gold," he says, "has even now but a few years to live. The day is near when bars of it will be as common and as cheap as bars of iron or blocks of steel.

"We are already on the verge of discovering the secret of transmuting metals, which are all substantially the same in matter, though combined in different proportions."
Before long it will be an easy matter to convert a truck load of iron bars into as many bars of virgin gold.

In the magical days to come there is no reason why our great liners should not be of solid gold from stem to stern; why we should not ride in golden taxicabs, or substituted gold for steel in our drawing room suites. Only steel will be the more durable, and thus the cheaper in the long run.

ADG

[pristine]

right on some, wrong on others.

read some of Tesla's shit instead.

[Phoenix]

he forgot about economics and greed

[lagcam]

Originally Posted by AsianDivaGirlsWebDude

.....In the magical days to come there is no reason why our great liners should not be of solid gold from stem to stern; why we should not ride in golden taxicabs....

Wow, Edison predicted hip hop?

[AsianDivaGirlsWebDude]

Originally Posted by lagcam

Wow, Edison predicted hip hop?

Lincoln was first...



ADG

[HomerSimpson]

Better checkout the Nikola Tesla and his predictions....

[CaptainWolfy]

Originally Posted by HomerSimpson

Better checkout the Nikola Tesla and his predictions....

What he said! Or better yet come visit his house in Belgrade!

[CaptainHowdy]

Originally Posted by HomerSimpson

Better checkout the Nikola Tesla and his predictions....

[AsianDivaGirlsWebDude]

Originally Posted by HomerSimpson

Better checkout the Nikola Tesla and his predictions....

Originally Posted by CaptainWolfy

What he said! Or better yet come visit his house in Belgrade!

Originally Posted by CaptainHowdy

Ghey science!

ADG

[donnie]

Originally Posted by CaptainWolfy

What he said! Or better yet come visit his house in Belgrade!

LOL @ "his house in Belgrade".

Tesla was born in Smiljan (Croatia) went to school in Karlovac (Croatia) and studied/worked in Hungary, Vienna and Slovenia. Before moving to France and USA?

There are actually no evidence that he ever even visited Belgrade.

[JFK]

Originally Posted by HomerSimpson

Better checkout the Nikola Tesla and his predictions....

link? I like Tesla

and this is funny

More amazing still, this American wizard sounds the death knell of gold as a precious metal. "Gold," he says, "has even now but a few years to live. The day is near when bars of it will be as common and as cheap as bars of iron or blocks of steel.

"We are already on the verge of discovering the secret of transmuting metals, which are all substantially the same in matter, though combined in different proportions."
Before long it will be an easy matter to convert a truck load of iron bars into as many bars of virgin gold.

[Machete_]

Originally Posted by AsianDivaGirlsWebDude

More amazing still, this American wizard sounds the death knell of gold as a precious metal. "Gold," he says, "has even now but a few years to live. The day is near when bars of it will be as common and as cheap as bars of iron or blocks of steel.

Yeah, i don't think so.

[d-null]

Originally Posted by donnie

LOL @ "his house in Belgrade".

Tesla was born in Smiljan (Croatia) went to school in Karlovac (Croatia) and studied/worked in Hungary, Vienna and Slovenia. Before moving to France and USA?

There are actually no evidence that he ever even visited Belgrade.

there is still controversy whether he was Serbian or of Romanian ancestry, but most commonly cited as being ethnic Serbian

[RyuLion]

super bowl xlvi will be in 3D <--------

[CaptainHowdy]

Originally Posted by AsianDivaGirlsWebDude

Ghey science!

ADG

[ilnjscb]

Tesla was great, and so was Edison. Tesla actually worked for Edison for a while. Without them and maybe 50 others like them, we'd still be living in caves and picking beetles out of each others asses for dinner.

[Klen]

Funny how somany people say how around this age there will be flying cars.I bet there wont be flying cars in next 500 years.Spaceships maybe but flying cars no way.A parody movie like demolition man is better at predicting future then some serious people.

[Angry Jew Cat - Banned for Life]

Originally Posted by KlenTelaris

Funny how somany people say how around this age there will be flying cars.I bet there wont be flying cars in next 500 years.Spaceships maybe but flying cars no way.A parody movie like demolition man is better at predicting future then some serious people.

There is absolutely no reason for us to need "flying cars" thus nobody is going to rush out and create them. If someone does, it is simply to show off the efforts of science. It would be inefficient and dangerous as fuck for everybody to be whizzing around in the air just to get to the grocery store. We basically already have flying cars, we call them planes, and there is a reason why everyone and their uncle isn't flying an airplane or a helicopter to work in the morning.

[Phoenix]

Originally Posted by JFK

link? I like Tesla

and this is funny

More amazing still, this American wizard sounds the death knell of gold as a precious metal. "Gold," he says, "has even now but a few years to live. The day is near when bars of it will be as common and as cheap as bars of iron or blocks of steel.

"We are already on the verge of discovering the secret of transmuting metals, which are all substantially the same in matter, though combined in different proportions."
Before long it will be an easy matter to convert a truck load of iron bars into as many bars of virgin gold.

that sounds like sci fi..but the funny part is..there is so much gold in the ground here in canada...we could flood the world market and make the price drop in half...but for some reason we arent allowed to cash in on it..lol

[Barefootsies]

Originally Posted by pristine

right on some, wrong on others.

Same as Nostradamus, the Mayans, or the local psychic's who read your palm.

Originally Posted by pristine

read some of Tesla's shit instead.

True dat.

[Ravage]

Originally Posted by KlenTelaris

Funny how somany people say how around this age there will be flying cars.I bet there wont be flying cars in next 500 years.Spaceships maybe but flying cars no way.A parody movie like demolition man is better at predicting future then some serious people.

Quite the contrary, the technology exists to make flying cars and has existed for quite a while. The problem is with the way people drive on the roads, would you really trust the populace to fly around skyscrapers, around and over hydro poles and wires; devise and expect them to follow the rules of the air when the majority can't even follow the current rules of the road?

Flying cars are a great idea conceptually, but there is no way it would ever work in this world where 99% of people are complete fucktards.

It'd also give a whole new realm to combating crime and terrorism when they can now fly their car bombs into buildings and banks.

[LAJ]

"... women will be shaving their nether regions"

He was dead on about that one.

[_Richard_]

Originally Posted by AsianDivaGirlsWebDude

ADG

interesting the thoughts on his 'leaves of nickel'

[V_RocKs]

He was getting mighty old...

[seeandsee]

his Balls are shining above my head

[Agent 488]

kind of weak. hg wells was much better.

[Davy]

Books made out of nickel? Uhhh... right.

[FlexxAeon]

'leaves of nickel' = iPad, Kindle

DUH!

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 pound.

thats a GODDAMN iPad hahaha!