What does our future hold? You might have more luck gazing into a crystal ball than words from these visionaries. Here are a few predictions from some of the greatest minds of science. Everyone has an "off" day.
And, be sure to check back regularly for the latest predictions; we'll be adding to this page weekly.
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- "Man will not fly for 50 years."
- Wilbur Wright, co-inventor of the airplane, 1901
- "Over [future] cities ... the aerial sentry or policeman will be found. A thousand aeroplanes flying to the opera must be kept in line and each allowed to alight upon the roof of the auditorium in its proper turn."
- Scientific American editor Waldemar Kaempfert, 1913
- "The more important fundamental laws and facts of physical science have all been discovered, and these are now so firmly established that the possibility of their ever being supplanted in consequence of new discoveries is exceedingly remote."
- Physicist Albert A. Michelson, 1894
- "[In the future] there are numerous diseases which can be not merely cured, but ultimately abolished when we have once discovered how to use oxygen adequately ... Liquified oxygen will no doubt be our sole disinfectant."
- British futurist and social scientist T. Baron Russell, 1905
- "Biologists think that before the century is out, they will have succeeded in changing the 'information' contained in DNA. If so, it will become possible eventually to control the shape -- or color -- of men."
- Time magazine, 1966
- "By 2000, politics will simply fade away. We will not see any political parties."
- Inventor R. Buckminster Fuller, 1966
- "The actual building of roads devoted to motor cars is not for the near future, in spite of many rumors to that effect."
- Harper's Weekly, 1902
- "By the turn of this century, we will live in a paperless society."
- General Motors chairman Roger Smith, 1986
- "Automobiles will start to decline almost as soon as the last shot is fired in World War II. The name of Igor Sikorsky will be as well known as Henry Ford's, for his helicopter will all but replace the horseless carriage as the new means of popular transportation. Instead of a car in every garage, there will be a helicopter.... These 'copters' will be so safe and will cost so little to produce that small models will be made for teenage youngsters. These tiny 'copters, when school lets out, will fill the sky as the bicycles of our youth filled the prewar roads."
- Harry Bruno, aviation publicist, 1943
- "There is practically no chance communications space satellites will be used to provide better telephone, telegraph, television or radio service inside the United States."
- Federal Communications Commission member T.A.M. Craven, 1961
