Predicting the future

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BenAttenborough

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Hello

Does anyone have suggestions for landmark sci-fi books from the 19th and 20th centuries that have made predictions about the future?

I am interested in both predictions that have come to pass and the more outlandish predictions which have been wrong (or haven't yet come to pass). If you could state the name of the book, author, publication date and what it predicted, plus a brief summary of how the prediction turned out that would make the discussion more interesting.

Full disclosure: I am doing a graphic design project at university about timelines. I’m doing mine on science fiction and its relationship with the real world and I thought this might be a good forum to get some ideas. I don’t mean for this to be spam and I would be happy to credit anyone who comes up with suggestions. This is work is not for profit.

This is not just me trying to get others to do work for me. The idea of this particular module is for me to collaborate with others. So I am programming an interactive timeline and illustrating it, but I am hoping to collaborate with others to generate the written content or at least ideas for what works to include. If you don’t want to be a part of this please let me know.

I’d also be interested in anyone who would like to write short informational pieces about these books to be used in my timeline project. This is strictly on a not-for-profit basis – but could be fun!
 
A couple of famous ones come to mind...

Star trek predicted the use of small communicators... voila, we have cellphones.

There was also, not so much a science fiction, but a novella entitled: Futility, or the Wreck of the Titan. It predicted the sinking of the largest luxury liner called the Titan 14 years before the sinking of the Titanic. The parrallels are astounding. Futility, or the Wreck of the Titan - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

There is ofcourse the very famous novel, 1984, which predicted the mass use of spying by Government... and is often used in reference to anti-government sentiments around totalitarian regimes in the west.
 
Arthur C Clarke calculated Geostationary Orbit (where a satellite is essentially stationary over an area of land) and wrote some very early stories with Space stations and satellites situated there.

This has led to Geostationary orbit being referred to often as the Clarke Orbit
 
Hi,

Jules Verne - submarines as in twenty thousand leagues.
Asimov - robots - on the way (though probably no three laws).
Star Trek - lets add holograms and a spatial compression drive - though GR didn't invent it.
Adlard - The Voltface trilogy - the web (sort of).

You might also want to check out Future Shock by Alvin Toffler.

I'm sure there are hundreds of others.
 
It might not quite fit... but Frank Herbert's Dune spoke much about the wars that Spice (an obvious parable to Oil) would create for humanity.
 
You might want to add "Ender's Game". While the plot itself doesn't actually make a good future prediction, Card's description of technology amazed me. About halfway through the book I got curious and looked up the date of publication - 1977. He has the kids using laptops and playing virtual online games where others can get in and interact. Then there are the discussion newsgroups where the kids influence public opinion through online chatting using the internet, although he does not specifically use the term internet. In 1977 I would not have imagined these things. Not bad, Card!
 
Suppose you try some retro-futurism.

The Door into Summer by Robert Heinlein.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Door_into_Summer

It was written in 1956. The story takes place in 1970 and 2000. So it provides Heinlein's perspective compared to what we know happened then.

The nuclear war is interesting compared to the Cuban missile Crisis.

psik
 
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Ralph124c 41+ by Hugo Gernsback (1911) is a bit of a classic in this respect. Rather poor as literature, but chock full of ideas. This summary from Wikipedia:

Some successful predictions from this novel include television (and channel surfing), remote-control power transmission, the video phone, transcontinental air service, solar energy in practical use, sound movies, synthetic milk and foods, artificial cloth, voiceprinting, tape recorders, and spaceflight. It also contains "...the first accurate description of radar, complete with diagram...", according to Arthur C. Clarke in his "non-genre" novel Glide Path (1963).

More recently:
Neuromancer William Gibson
Snow Crash Neal Stephenson
 
Star Trek's touchscreen computers were pretty nifty and predated iPads and android devices by a few decades.

Neal Stephenson is a good shout - The Diamond Age was all about nanotechnology, which hasn't arrived yet where Stephenson envisioned it, but it has moved forward.
 
A Logic Named Joe 1946 by Murray Leinster . This story basically foreshadowed Internet buying online.
 
Jules Verne Paris in the 20th Century . Written 1863 and never published in Verne's Lifetime ,the book was largely unknown until about 20 years ago when it was rediscovered. it's set in Paris 1963 and some of the things he predicted are rather surprising.
 
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