Science fiction writers who predicted the future. Predictions of the future in the field of art

In the 1980s, China launched a crackdown on what the government called "spiritual pollution." Even science fiction has been banned. The decision was motivated by the fact that in the genre there is no practical use and idle dreams and fantasies are often subversive. The ban did not last long - modern China produces science fiction on an industrial scale. What made the leaders of communism change their minds? As part of international cooperation, Chinese representatives went to Silicon Valley. They talked with those people who create new technologies for all of us, and asked themselves the question: why are Chinese specialists so good at reproducing technologies, but not succeeding in inventing them? The Chinese noticed that most of Silicon Valley's top engineers were fascinated by the future, and many admitted that they literally grew up with science fiction.

Science fiction writers indeed often foresaw the life of future generations. Many of them described technologies that their contemporaries could not even dream of, and someone simply inspired scientists to make fantasy tale come true. Which of the science fiction writers turned out to be a better predictor than Nostradamus?

1. Isaac Asimov

The American science fiction writer had a difficult fate: in 1964 he was invited to make a report on what the life of mankind would be like in half a century. Of course, Asimov was a talented writer and scientist, but he was not a clairvoyant! He got into trouble by assuming that half of the energy on the planet would be generated by nuclear power plants. But he perfectly foresaw the advent of 3D films, wireless technologies, smartphones, satellite communications and the Internet. And at the same time the construction of solar power plants in the deserts. Would you say that wireless technology was no longer "such a fantasy"? Don't be fooled. They like to laugh at Star Wars, filmed 20 years later: George Lucas could imagine flying faster than the speed of light, but not wireless headphones in the cockpit! Therefore, Isaac Asimov predicted even more in the 60s than could be expected from science fiction writers of the 80s.

1. "I, robot";

2. "End of eternity";

3. "Academy";

4. "Foundation";

5. "The gods themselves."

2. Arthur Clark

Briton Arthur Clark deservedly received a knighthood from Queen Elizabeth II, becoming Sir Arthur. He was not only a writer, but also an inventor and scientist. Clarke foresaw artificial satellites back in 1945. He assumed that if satellites were placed in an equatorial orbit, they, like the Earth, would have a rotation speed of 24 hours. Such satellites today broadcast TV signals, and their orbit is called the "Clark Belt".

1. "Space Odyssey";

2. "The end of childhood";

3. "City and stars";

4. "Moon dust";

5. "Date with Rama."

3. HG Wells

Thank God, not all the fantasies of HG Wells turned out to be realistic. Otherwise, an unenviable fate would have awaited us, described in the novel "The Time Machine", where humanity degenerated into two races: ground and underground. Closer to the truth was the novel "The War of the Worlds" written in 1898. The writer described the laser long before the invention - only 18 years later Einstein would make an assumption about stimulated emission, physical basis any laser. And the first optical quantum generator will appear even later. In addition, Wells developed the concept of biological warfare and described aerial bombing, which was still forty years away. However, these are such predictions about which one can say: it would be nice if they did not come true.

1. "Time Machine";

2. "War of the Worlds";

3. "Island of Dr. Moreau";

4. "People are like gods";

5. "The first people on the moon."

4. Robert Heinlein

If you do not know when Robert Heinlein lived and worked, an unprepared reader can easily consider him a contemporary. But the writer died in 1988, moreover, at a very advanced age. No wonder Heinlein became the first professional science fiction writer! And today it is considered one of the best. Well-deserved fame: Robert Heinlein described the prototypes in his works mobile phone, microwave oven and even Internet search engines. Well, on the little things: the modern Segway scooter is the material embodiment of the “gyroscopic unicycle” invented by Heinlein.

1. "Door to summer";

2. "Stepchildren of the Universe";

3. "Stranger in a foreign country";

4. "Starship Troopers";

5. "The moon is a harsh mistress."

5. Ray Bradbury

Ray Bradbury is one of the few American science fiction writers who actively published in the USSR. It is difficult to say which inventions the writer foresaw and which he inspired with his work. His books include, for example, a lock that opens with the owner's fingerprint, as well as a hovercraft, which the Japanese have already made a reality.

one. "451" Fahrenheit»;

2. "Martian Chronicles";

3. "Wine from dandelions";

4. "Summer morning, summer night";

5. "Cat pajamas."

Skeptics say that "predictions of the future" written by science fiction writers are random and inaccurate. But there are too many such coincidences. However, given the passion of inventors and engineers for science fiction, it is logical to assume that the dreams of their favorite authors became a source of inspiration for them. If scientists at Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute are seriously talking about the possibility of creating a lightsaber, soon it will be possible to talk not only about writers, but also about directors who predicted the future.

The development of technology leads to the fact that sooner or later the predictions made by the futurists of the past come true. Not all, of course, but also interesting. We offer you to get acquainted with several predictions of the future in drawings, books and music, which later became a reality, sometimes with terrible consequences, such as the sinking of the Titanic cruise ship after a collision with an iceberg.

The French dreamed of seeing people with wings

More than a century ago, French artists tried to guess what the latest modern technologies a hundred years later, that is, in the year 2000. And on postal pictures released in 1990, you can see that some of their versions turned out to be similar to modern vehicles.

One of the most influential people in the literature of the late 19th - early 20th century was the Frenchman Jules Verne - a geographer and writer, a classic of adventure literature, one of the founders of science fiction. He was the first to describe parallel civilizations with other technologies not similar to those on Earth. It was his books that Kote took as a basis to draw pictures of the future.

In order to complete the work on time, Kote invited several of his colleagues. In total, they drew about a hundred postcards, but something went wrong during the manufacturing process and most of them were not published. Only one set has survived. It was first shown to the public in 1986 and is now freely available online.

In particular, 100 years ago it was assumed that people would fly on aircraft of various designs, roller skate en masse, and underwater vehicles would move with the help of whales.

German fantasies: peeping and monsters on the rails

Around the same time as in France ( turn XIX-XX centuries), pictures depicting the future were made in Germany. On them you can see both submarines and giant monsters on the rails.

German futurologists assumed that at the beginning of the 21st century people would be able to travel under water (an underwater airship), glide through the water on special skis on their own, invent wings for flying, invent security cameras, and trains would transport entire blocks of houses at once.

Unlike the French, German artists were made on chocolate boards and gained great popularity.

The sinking of the Titanic was described 14 years before the tragedy

In 1898, the story "Futility" was published in the United States, its author is an American journalist, writer, former naval officer Morgan Robertson. Robertson's story did not bring much fame then, and until the crash of the Titanic liner in 1912, it was not reprinted. But then the author was declared a clairvoyant: there were many coincidences of the fruits of his imagination with real facts disasters.

The theme of the "Titanic" after its crash was very popular, and in 1912 Robertson republished the story under a new title: "Futility - the collapse of the Titan." That's when fame came to the author. All subsequent reprints of "Futility" were made just according to the version of the book sample of 1912.

In Robertson's book, in particular, it was predicted that in April a giant liner would leave Europe for America, in North Atlantic hit an iceberg and go to the bottom. In reality, the shipwreck also happened in April, most of the passengers on both ships died, and not everyone had enough lifeboats during the shipwreck. Both ships tried to set a speed record and both sank about 740 km from the island of Newfoundland. In general, everything is as Robertson predicted.

However, enthusiasts from the American Titanic Memory Society tracked down the original text of Futility. It turned out that in the second edition, Robertson changed many of the technical parameters of his mythical Titan in such a way as to bring them as close as possible to the real dimensions of the Titanic. For example, he changed the displacement and the power of his ship, "removed" the sails from the deck.

By the way, in the original "Futility" the collision of the liner with the iceberg is not the culmination of the plot. In the first edition, the ship goes at full speed, smashing a wooden fishing schooner to pieces along the way (but does not stop to pick up survivors) and only then "catches" an iceberg. The main character and his beloved manage to jump from the ship onto an ice block, suffer hardships, fight polar bears, and in the end everything ends with a happy ending.

As for the almost coincidence of the names of the fictional and real cruise liners, then skeptics say that in the second half of the 19th century, three British ships called Titania sank off the coast of the United States at once (the name of the fairy queen from the comedy Dream in midsummer night"William Shakespeare). Robertson, as an expert in shipping and a maritime journalist, of course, knew about these cases. The disappearance of ships at all times was considered a serious event, such stories were widely covered by newspapers. Perhaps these facts prompted the writer to name his miracle ship "Titan".

A dystopian novel "The Beach" by a talented English writer Alex Garland about the self-awareness of his young contemporaries, who grew up in the urban jungle in the conditions of the global commercialization of the world, was published in 1997.

The novel tells about young men who find one of the last corners on Earth, untouched by civilization - a tropical island, where they enjoy life, gradually forgetting the rest of the world. Everything changes on September 11, when it reminds of itself " real world", bringing horror and death to the island.

The book "The Beach" became an absolute bestseller, although at first the publishers did not pay attention to it. The archetypal motif of the search for an earthly paradise, its acquisition and destruction show internal inconsistency and the spiritual tragedy of the generation, all this did not arouse enthusiasm among the publishers.

However, in 1999, director Danny Boyle made the famous adaptation of the novel of the same name - Feature Film The Beach starring Leonardo DiCaprio.

Prior to September 11, 2001, no one paid any attention to the symbolic signs described in this book. But after the collapse of the New York twin towers, various conspiracy theories appeared. At the same time, the fans of "The Beach" drew attention to the date indicated in the book.

British comedian predicts Gaddafi's death

British actor Joseph Meyher, in an episode of the show "Second Chance", aired in 1987, said that former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi would die in 2011.

In one of the episodes of "Second Chance" comedian Joseph Meyher appeared in the image of the apostle Peter, who determined which of the celebrities after death will go to heaven and who to hell. According to the plot, Peter sent Muammar Gaddafi to hell for his connection with terrorists. According to the text of the show, the Libyan leader was supposed to die on July 2, 2011.

In reality, the former Libyan leader lived only three months longer. After the revolution in Libya, the colonel was killed by rebels while trying to escape from Sirte on October 20, 2011.

The fate of a cool rapper is to predict your fate

The musical subject matter is very wide, especially in the rap genre, where the main thing is the text, which can be used to say whatever you want. This does not prohibit many rap fans in any texts to search (and find!) secret signs and even predictions of the future.

For example, there is such a popular American rapper Sean Corey Carter, better known as Jay-Z. Deprived of something in childhood, a person can spend a lifetime to compensate for these gaps. Some are so carried away that it is already impossible to stop them, even if they have conquered the most sky-high peaks.

Rapper Jay-Z's sensational debut in 1996 marked the beginning of his fast-paced and highly prolific career. He releases an album a year with mandatory pressings, shoots hits like clips from a machine gun.

In 1998, the rapper's song "Money, Cash, Hoes" included the lyrics: "S**t, I led a life you can write a book on/Sex, murder, mayhem, and romance for the streets/Me and I "ll tell ya, it" ll be a best seller

In 2010, rapper Jay-Z did co-author a book about his life. His autobiography quickly found itself in the top three best-selling books in the US.

By the way, in 2012, Jay-Z's capital was more than $500 million, and his 12 albums were marked at the top of the Billboard 200 - a record among all solo artists and second in history behind The Beatles.

Even more revealing are the lyrics from rapper 2Pac's (Tupac Amaru Shakur's real name) song titled "If I Die Tonight": "I hope they bury me and send me their my rest/Headlines reading Murdered to Death, my last breath"(" I hope they bury me and let me rest / The headline will be "Killed to death, until my last breath").

Tupac Amaru Shakur is an American rapper, film actor and public figure. The vast majority of his songs are about the hard life in the ghetto, violence, poverty, racism, problems modern society and conflicts with other rap artists. Social activity Tupac was aimed at protecting political, economic, social and racial equality, and his early recordings were about violence, drug and alcohol problems, and conflicts with the law.

Tupac was killed in 1996, the killers were never found. 2Pac's body was cremated and some of the ashes were mixed with marijuana and smoked by his friends. This is the first rapper to have a monument erected.

Some newspapers did use the headline "Murdered to Death" when reporting on the rapper's death. However, most likely, the choice of journalists was not accidental, but the words from the song 2Pac were deliberately used.

The guitarist who sang about his own death

Legendary guitarist Jimi Hendrix died about three years after singing "The Ballad of Jimi". It contained these words: "Many things he would try, for he knew he" d soon die ... Now Jimi "s gone, he" s not alone, his memory lives on ... Five years, this he said. He "s not gone he"s feel dead" ("He would have tried a lot of things if he knew that he would soon die ... Now Jimi is gone, he is not alone, but the memory lives longer ... Five years, so he said. He left, he died".

Although Hendrix stated during his lifetime that the song was dedicated to one of his friends, who was also called Jimi, but at the end of the recording of the first song, you can hear the words of the author: "this is my story." After the death of the guitarist, his fans gave vent to fantasy.

Hendrix was found dead on the morning of September 18, 1970 in a room at the Samarkand Hotel in London. He spent the night with his German girlfriend Monika Charlotte Danemann and died in bed, choking on his vomit after taking nine sleeping pills. Daneman noticed that something was wrong with Jimi, but she was afraid to call an ambulance because of the drugs that were everywhere in the apartment.

In the film biography of Hendrix, the doctor on duty at the time on the ambulance said that by the time Jimi was taken to the hospital, it was already impossible to save him. Jimi Hendrix was buried at Greenwood Memorial Park in Renton, against his wishes to be buried in England.

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25 books that put forward bold and, most importantly, correct guesses about future technologies and events.

1. Mars has two natural satellites

Such an amazingly accurate guess can be found in the pages of Gulliver's Travels, written by Jonathan Swift in 1735. Only 142 years later, in 1872, the satellites of the Red Planet - Phobos and Deimos - were discovered by astronomers.

24. The best human chess player will be beaten by a computer before the year 2000

This is precisely the prediction made by Raymond Kurzweil in the book The Age of Intelligent Machines, published in 1990, when chess computers were still rather weak and were beaten by grandmasters almost without problems.

However, after only 7 years, the Deep Blue supercomputer beat Garry Kasparov, the strongest chess player on the planet.

Today, chess programs are so strong that the match between a human and a computer has lost all sporting meaning.

25. The lunar module will be launched in Florida and, returning to Earth, splash down in the ocean

104 years before the flight of Apollo 11 to the Moon, this is how everything was described in Jules Verne's novel From the Earth to the Moon (1865).

Everything went according to the same scenario in reality - a team of American astronauts led by Neil Armstrong splashed down in a special module and was soon picked up by the Hornett aircraft carrier.

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Sometimes we cannot even imagine how accurately some writers predict the future of the world in their science fiction books. Apparently the authors of some fiction novels and stories know much more about the world around them than ordinary people. We have selected the most impressive predictions of writers that have become a reality in our time.

1. Cryonics

The first hints of cryonics theory can be found in the short story "Jameson's Companion", written by Neil R. Jones in 1931. The protagonist of the story - Professor Jameson - asks to transfer his body after death to the Earth's orbit, hoping that it can be preserved at a temperature of absolute zero.

However, the concept of human cryopreservation was only popularized in 1947 by the American scientist Robert Ettinger, who later became known as the "father of cryonics". He wrote a utopian short story called The Penultimate Trump, which made him the first person to suggest that in the future, people would be able to choose whether they want to freeze their own body in order to then resurrect it.

2. Lab-grown meat

Artificially cultivated meat was first mentioned in a science fiction novel called "On Two Planets" written by Kurd Laswitz in 1897. In this book, "synthetic meat" is one of the varieties of synthetic food brought to Earth by the Martians.

3. Landing on the moon

In 1865 French writer Jules Verne published his novel "From the Earth to the Moon ...", in which he described a huge space gun capable of launching projectiles from the Earth to its satellite.

A century later, the Apollo 11 spacecraft landed on the moon. The writer was able to predict not only the name of the device, but also the exact number of people on board. Verne even managed to predict the feeling of weightlessness experienced by the astronauts.

4. The crash of the Titanic

Morgan Robertson's story "Futility, or the Wreck of the Titan" was published in 1898. In it, the author told readers about a large "unsinkable" ship that was wrecked after colliding with an iceberg. 14 years later, the largest ship at the time was built, which was called the Titanic, and the circumstances of its crash were the same as described by Robertson.

5. Atomic bomb

In his novel The World Set Free, H. G. Wells predicted that in the future, a large number of people, and the reason for this will be uranium-based hand grenades, which he called atomic bombs. 31 years have passed since the publication of the book, and as part of the Manhattan Project, a real atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima.

6. Nuclear arms race

Robert Heinlein's 1941 short story "A Worthless Solution" describes the United States, which was able to develop nuclear weapons ahead of other countries and become the only superpower on our planet. Heinlein also describes attempts by other nations to develop similar bombs. Later, all these events took place during the Cold War, when the nuclear arms race took place.

7. Waterbed

Robert Heinlein predicted not only cold war but also waterbeds. In his novel Stranger in a Strange Land, written in 1961, he described these kinds of beds in such detail that their actual inventor had some patent problems.

8. Credit cards

In the utopian novel Looking Backward, published in 1888, Edward Bellamy accurately predicted the advent of credit cards, although they had only been used since the 1950s.

The protagonist of the novel, Julian West, falls asleep in 1887 and wakes up in a utopian society in the year 2000. In this new society, all people receive the same amount of credit from the government, which can be used to buy various goods.

9. Moons of Mars

In his popular novel Gulliver's Travels, published in 1726, Jonathan Swift claimed that Mars had two moons. However, 151 years passed before scientists were able to actually detect them. In Swift's novel main character visits the fictional island of Laputa, where many scientists and astronomers live. It is they who tell the main character that Mars has two tiny moons.

10. Bluetooth headsets and headphones

Although the personal stereo did not appear until 1977, Ray Bradbury described headphones designed to distract the mind from the outside world in his novel Fahrenheit 451, which was published in 1953. People in Bradbury's society often use shells and thimbles, which are strikingly similar to today's headphones and Bluetooth headsets.

11. Invention of the Internet

In 1898, Mark Twain wrote a short story, "From the London Times, 1904," which took place in 1904. The story focused on the mystery of the crime: the inventor of a promising new device called the Telescope was murdered. The new gadget is described by the author as a "contactless" phone that creates worldwide network information available to all. Very similar to modern internet, is not it?

12. Antidepressants

In his dystopian novel Brave New World, Aldous Huxley takes a rather bleak view of a society controlled through psychological manipulation. Drug-addicted citizens cannot live without pills that improve mood. These drugs, called "soma", were created to reduce sad and anxious thoughts. The novel was written two decades before the first experiments with antidepressants began, but Huxley was able to predict their popularity.

The non-profit organization X-Prize is known for stimulating scientific development through a competitive system. The winners receive cash prizes allowing them to continue their research and possibly make a breakthrough in their field. Usually the Foundation awards awards in the categories of energy, development of the surrounding space, education and biology, but here an exception was made.

Writers are asked to write a story on behalf of a passenger on Flight 008, flying in an airplane 20 years in the future. Anyone can take part in the competition by sending before August 25 a text in English from 2000 to 4000 words, which will reflect their unique vision of the future. The top prize is $10,000 and a trip for two to Tokyo plus ili, a pocket universal translator, according to Futurism.

To inspire the contestants, the organizers presented the Top 10 classic sci-fi guesses that have come true so far:

Bank cards

EAST NEWS

Artwork: "Looking back", a story of 1888

In his Utopia, Bellamy describes " universal cards”, through which people from anywhere in the world could access their savings. The first credit appeared in the 50s of the twentieth century.

tanks

EAST NEWS

Artwork: "Land battleships", a story from 1903

Wells' fighting vehicles were 30 meters long, with conical turrets and eight pairs of wheels. The first appeared in 1916 at the Battle of the Somme.

Earphones

EAST NEWS

Artwork: "451 degrees Fahrenheit", a story of 1953

In the 1950s, audio devices were huge, but Bradbury described a tiny radio you could carry around. - "inserts" came into use only in the 2000s.

Video conference

EAST NEWS

Artwork: Ralph 1241C 41+, 1911 novel

Gernsbeck described the "telephot" device, which made it possible to see whoever you were talking to from a distance. The first did not appear until 1964, when AT&T installed the first public video phones in New York City.

landing on the moon

EAST NEWS

Artwork: From the Earth to the Moon, 1865 novel

One hundred years before real event Verne foresaw many of the details of a man on the moon, including - he accurately calculated the required amount of fuel.

Nuclear war

EAST NEWS

Artwork: "Useless Solution", short story 1940

In Heinlein's story, the US develops an atomic weapon that ends the Second world war, but leads to a race. All this happened 5-10 years later.

Bionic limbs

EAST NEWS

Artwork: Cyborg, 1972 novel

Caidin describes a man who has received numerous injuries. As a result, he was implanted with bionic legs that allow him to run fast, a hand that gives incredible strength, and an eye that has a built-in camera. Bionics have already become a reality, and eyes may soon appear.

Total control

EAST NEWS

Composition: 1984, 1949 novel

In Orwell's dystopia, the state is constantly behind its citizens through a network of cameras. Now, there are more than 32 security cameras installed within a radius of 200 meters from the house in London where the author wrote this book.

satellite communications

EAST NEWS

Artwork: "Space Station: For the Application of Radio", 1945 essay

Clark postulated the use of geostationary to transmit the television signal. This was before commercial television began.