Yeah, yeah: Heinlein figured out waterbeds and Clarke geosynchronous satellites years before they were actually built, but really, that’s not all that impressive, IMO.
What’s impressive is when a SF writer figures out the cultural impact of a gadget–not the gadget itself, but how it’ll change the culture/society.
I’ve got three off the top of my head:
Leinster’s 1950’s short story “A Logic named Joe” (“logic”=personal computer) predicts the internet–which is impressive in a time when all the big writers were thinking of city-block sized computers, but even more than that, predicts being able to order stuff online, look stuff up and more impressive than that, anticipates the problems with keeping stuff secret in a digital society and realizes the need for porn-filters for kids.
Heinlein’s Between Planets–note this was written in about 1951–15-20 years before hijackings made airport security commonplace–during the run-up to a war, when tensions are running high, not only does Heinlein think about having everyone have their bags X-rayed, he has the security guy remind our hero to take cameras out of his bags so the film won’t be fogged. (This wasn’t actually done in the US until the '70s. cite )
Heinlein again (I’m rereading him): In Space Cadet (and Between Planets) Heinlein predicts the cell-phone (which is no big deal–Dick Tracy’s wrist-radio was close enough to a cell-phone) but in Cadets, Heinlein actually thinks about how annoying they can be–one character’s mom calls him at an embarrassing time and he gripes about how hard it is to get time away from her.
And to forestall the digression that often follows, no: the correctness of a prediction doesn’t make an SF story any better or worse. But it’s still cool when an author hits a home run with a prediction.
Orson Scott Card sort-of predicted the rise of blogs as potent political forces. In Ender’s Game, two teen-agers start a pair of online columns functionally identical to blogs as part of a bid for political power. It takes the point way too far - one of the kids hopes to be appointed Hegemon of Earth on the strength of his blog - but the idea that the Internet could allow amateur columnists to exert real political influence is spot-on.
Asimov in the original Foundation stories has Hari Seldon (and others) carrying pocket calculators (he even used that term) to do mathematical calculations. “I even got the color of the digits right” he bragged, in a lecture I attended – he’d said they were red, although only a couple of years later all the calculators changed from energy-gulping Red LED displays to low-power gray LCD displays.
Unfortunately, the prediction about even the pocket calculators has been made obsolete – I don’t even see scientists and engineers carrying them around anymore – PCs are ubiquitous and you can do the same things with PDAs, so who needs them?
David Brin’s ‘Earth’ (for me one of the greatest SF books of the last 25 years had some interesting ones.
In 1989 he predicted the concentration of opinions. That is, those interested in certain politics would only read, via online filters, things that they agreed with. God knows that’s happening now.
Even though I refuse to acknowledge the book’s existence, in the first Rendezvous with Rama sequel book, Clarke described a worldwide depression triggered by a bubble when “everyone” become day traders after stock trading becomes trivially easy to do thanks to the Internet.
Of course, he put that point in time well out in the 21st century (or maybe the 22nd…), but it fairly resembled the dotcom crash (perhaps combined with the economic effects of the subprime crash).
I think accountants still use pocket calculators designed in the 1980s. When you’ve got a limited set of calculations you need to make over and over again, quickly and reliably, a dedicated device with a good physical button layout makes sense.
The HP 12C financial calculator is still being manufactured and sold. I’m not certain when it came out, but I bought the scientific version (the 16C) in 1983, so somewhere in that time frame. I can’t think of another tech product with that long a lifespan.
John Schneider’s The Golden Kazoo predicted that presidential candidates would be elected due to their ad campaigns and not their principles. It also assumed that the campaign would change slogans in order to keep gaining an edge. Also the parties would nominate pretty-boy nobodies who looked good but were basically empty suits.
For what it’s worth, I do still carry and use a pocket calculator… But even other physicists tend to look at me a bit oddly when I whip it out.
While we’re at it on Heinlein and pocket-phones, another character in Space Cadet deliberately packed his phone at the bottom of his bag to avoid that problem, and in the short story “Blowups Happen”, one fellow deliberately leaves his pocket-phone at the office when he slips off to the bar for a drink.
The Mote in God’s Eye published in 1974 by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle had pocket computers that sound very much like iPhones complete with cameras and microphones and network access and communication, except they use a stylus instead of their finger. Jerry Pournelle actually owns an iPhone now.
True Names by Vernor Vinge published in 1981 had avatars and hackers and people hiding their true identities on the web. Vinge is actually a computer scientist, so I wonder how much of his book Rainbows End (2006) will turn out to be true. In it people wear contact lenses that provide a digital overlays for what they are actually looking at. Google is already working on a primitive version where you point your camera phone at something and it will display information about it, but Vinge’s is much more immersive. A library might look like a medieval castle depending on what layer you selected.
I was rereading The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress by Robert Heinlein (1965) recently and I was surprised how well the sequence holds up where Mike, the AI that is actually running the lunar revolution, decides they need to show Adam Selene, the fictional leader of the revolution, on Television and creates a realistic digital image of him for television.
With the new OLED displays that are translucent, we can expect to see some form of this in the next couple of years. Imagine sunglasses that show you the deal of the day of a clothes store as you pass it by in the mall.
I know this thread is about SF authors’ predictions coming true… but maybe some inventors were actually inspired by SF works? In that case it wouldn’t be a true prediction. =D
Anyone know of an idea suggested by a SF author that was later created because of that suggestion?
Well back to ACC, Imperial Earth has the mini-sec (secretary) gadget that is for all practical purposes a PDA or I-pad. What is interesting other than his description of what it does is what the characters use it for, which is exactly how we use our laptops, Ipods or PDAs. The protagonist for instance hears a strange sound that reminds him of howling wind, likes the sound copies it, names it “Wind Sounds” and places it in a group of favorite sounds he has collected! Exactly how we would download an MP3 renamed it and place it in a folder. Characters record speeches collect favorite pictures, sounds and data, the unit interfaces with computers for upload and downloads and is hand held and people have it with them at all times like we carry a cell phone. Also how elaborate passwords are needed to protect personal data. People become obcessed with recording their entire life in data somewhat reminiscent of today when a lot of us need to be “plugged in” at all times. I think it was very prophetic in the way people would use a piece of technology.
Several of them. Leo Szilard has stated that he knew the political implications of the Atomic Bomb from the device of that name appearing in H.G. Wells’ The World Set Free.
Supposedly, the inventor of the waterbed credited Heinlein with his description of the device in a couple of his stories. (But some folks claim this is either not true, or exaggerated)
I seem to remember there was some talk a couple decades ago of tanker submarines for very deep offshore oil wells. The engineers credited Frank Herbert’s Under Pressure as inspiration for the idea. I don’t believe the project went anywhere but it was proposed.
