Are We In The Future Yet?

Earth, 2009. In Maryland, objects are being teleported from one part of a room to another. In California, scientists are using invisibility cloaks. And in New Zealand, orders have been rolling in for personal jetpacks.

Wait, isn’t it too early for April Fools’ jokes?

The truth is, teleportation, invisibility cloaks and personal jetpacks are all possible today, but not quite like people predicted in the past. The “objects” being transported are quantum particles, and merely a distance of three feet. The only things hidden by today’s invisibility cloak are microwave emissions. And the personal jetpack? It’s there for you -- if you don’t mind spending $100,000 dollars and getting a pilot’s license from the FAA for a half hour in the air.

Clearly, we’re not living in the future that shows like “The Jetsons” envisioned. Will we get there in our lifetime?

Back to the Paleo-future

Cloud-level city streets, cranberries the size of oranges, pneumatic tubes delivering purchases directly to our houses -- this was the 21st century foreseen in 1900 by the Ladies Home Journal, one of many past predictions for this millennium cataloged on the blog Paleo-Future: A Look Into the Future That Never Was. Matt Novak created the site in January of 2008 as part of a project for a writing class in his senior year in college. He was inspired by a family trip to Disney World’s Epcot Theme Park in the mid-1990s. “They had a ride called Horizons, which looked at past and current visions of the future, but since the ride was made in the ’80s, it was already laughable,” Novak says.

One of his site’s most popular posts features Hildebrands chocolate promotional postcards from the early 1900s, depicting various scenes “in the year 2000.” Strange unicycle and balloon contraptions would allow people to walk on water. Moving pavement, complete with benches, would replace city sidewalks. Personal flying machines resembling bat wings, and personal airships (mini-Hindenburgs) would fill the skies. Best of all, a giant steam engine would control the weather, allowing for beach vacations at the North Pole (polar bears, like every other wild animal, would already be extinct). Of course, we’d still be wearing the height of early1900s fashion.

Novak found a newspaper article from 1889 predicting that steam, not gasoline or even electricity, would power the world’s industry. "Every prediction is a partial reflection on its own time," Novak says.

In the 1930s, when the economy wasn’t doing well, people saw technology as a threat to replace humans, Novak says. This resulted in predictions of robot maids and baby vending machines. Pop in a quarter and out comes a baby boy or girl. Talk about a labor-saving device!

Daniel Wilson, author of “Where’s My Jetpack? A Guide to the Amazing Science Fiction Future That Never Arrived,” says past predictions were often based on the self-interest of the people who made them. “A lot of the technology predictions were made by companies, so they would find whatever means necessary to incorporate their technology into the ‘future,’ ” he says.

Where’s my jetpack?

Wilson’s book explores the possibilities of the most-popular visions of the future: things such as jetpacks, flying cars, moon colonies and underwater hotels. “We already have jetpacks,” Wilson points out, noting, however, that they’re plagued by problems such as short flight time and  expensive fuel. The first jetpack, built by the U.S. military in the 1950’s, stayed airborne for only 26 seconds before crashing.