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.
What do you think life will be like in the year 2111?
http://www.paleofuture.com/blog/2011/1/18/edisons-predictions-for-the-year-2011-1911.html via Geekosystem | Photo: Library of Congress
and flying 200 mph in gigant machines?
He did seem to have a poor understanding of physics.
He was obsessed with steel. That would be a horrible house to live in and very uncomfortable.
Thomas Edison, first Interior Design Hipster.
Either that, or society will have collapsed as a result of continuing wars over food, water and space and a failed attempt at global governance. Huge numbers of people (perhaps 1 billion) will be refugees of war and climate change, whether colder or hotter.
SCIENCE!
I love earth crawling, hate swallows, and I don't like eating on the cheapside.
Come on old man! your best invention was your non falling chair...uh no, the rocking chair existed from long ago before and is far better that your solution... well I could say that your best invention was the electric chair, but no, I prefer remember that is the invention that describes you better.
Edison, the pathetic man honored by pathetic people, but the history is written by the winners, in this case I prefer to honor another millonaire more humanitarian.
Advances in medicine and disease prevention will have raised the life expectancy to more than 100 years. Power generation through the incineration of waste biomass will be commonplace. Railroads will be a mere memory. Landfills and small dumps will be the goldmines of the day as "prospectors" search for recyclable petroleum-based plastics they can sell. Two failed missions with total loss of life will spell the end of efforts to establish a permanent facility on Mars. Out-of-control inflation and skyrocketing oil prices spark gas riots forcing the president of the once-powerful US to declare martial law in several major cities. Electric charging stations are overwhelmed as consumer rush to buy electric vehicles. The wait for office visits increases again as physicians endure yet another round of union strikes against government health care mandates. The dollar is devalued once more against foreign currency as markets drop it from trading. Protesters in Washington DC burn stacks of $1,000 dollar notes...
2111? hmmm I think the big corporations will rule the world and we will all be slaves for the wealthy.
They're either steel or douglas fir.
Wood-framed windows have a higher R-value, even if they are clad with Al or vinyl.
That was a common belief amongst alchemists at the time however, so you can't really blame him.
It's virtually impossible to accurately predict that far ahead. Even world experts fail to accurately predict the state the world will be in regarding their particular field 15-20 years into the future. At least he had a good shot at it.
As for 2111, I believe 2 things are certain: overpopulation and inflation.
I believe that in 2111, Dick Clark's frozen, severed head will still be hosting New Year's Rockin' Eve on ABC.
Nano-bots controlled by a SuperComputer will perform the
actual surgery transferring the Brain from the 100yr old
body to the 20yr old Clone.
There won't be any problem finding a Billionaire that can
get past the moralities involved.
Whatever Corporation offers immortality will charge at least $1,billion.
Ha, if Edison couldn't predict the future of tech, then no one can. Worth pointing out that steam turbines still produce about 80% of the world's electricity.
anyway future cannot be predicted ...!!
One could say his prediction about high speed electric trains was a good description of what happened in Europe and Japan during the 1980s.
Space travel isn't faring too well and so we will learn to produce lush plant life in our deserts so we can inhabit them. Perhaps we'll have sea worlds, too, but I rather think we'll build up before we build out in the ocean.
Because people need to work, robots won't be as popular as people have imagined, although housework will definitely be easier to manage through clever, time saving inventions.
Shopping will be done through some kind of Internet system, and because the world will be so crowded, we'll all be more home oriented. In fact, we might have more family businesses operated out of the home as people did in the middle ages, but they'll be much more modern and efficient.
We'll still have governments and loyalties to our government, but we'll all have become so self sufficient that we won't have as much need for wars. Our interpersonal relations will start becoming more important than our relation to our governments. Ponderous government systems such as Fascism and Communism will seem even more cumbersome than they do now.
Clothes won't be scientific and efficient. They more advanced we become, the more we crave color and adornment.