10 Modern Things That Were Predicted Hundreds Of Years Before They Appeared

We,
human beings, like to make things up. Our imagination takes us to the
future filled with mind-bending technologies, surreal gadgets, and
abilities that surpass everything we thought possible. We read about
them in science-fiction books, watch futuristic movies, and
eventually get inspired to create them in real life. Think
smartphones are a totally new invention? Nope, they were predicted
decades ago! Same goes for credit cards, self-driving cars, and even
smartwatches. Here are 10 modern things that were predicted hundreds
of years before they appeared.

Video-chatting

It
seems that some people, like the 19^th
century artist Jean-Marc Côté, had an ability to glance into the
future. He’s one of the creators of En L’An 2000, an image series
of technological achievements we should have made by the year 2000.
This art collection was first printed in 1899! In it, Jean-Marc Côté
depicted the future of video chatting – when no such visual
technologies existed yet!

iPad

Arthur
Clarke, author of 2001:
A Space Odyssey,
made a prediction in 1968, describing a technologically advanced
civilization that created life on Earth. In the book he mentioned
electronic newspapers that look much like modern day iPads or tablets
for reading.

Apollo
11

Jule
Verne’s From Earth to the Moon
has the exact depiction of Apollo 11 mission to the Moon. The
similarities are uncanny! In the novel three men boarded a spacecraft
named Columbiad and launched from Florida. 104 years later three
astronauts boarded the Apollo 11 spacecraft with a command module
named Columbia that also launched from Florida! In the novel a
telescope was able to see the mission in progress, and that’s
exactly what happened in real life!

Laser

H.
G. Wells is known for his futuristic novels and precise predictions.
Back in 1898 he described what he called a ‘Heat-Ray’ in his
novel The War of the Worlds.
This weapon was capable of destroying anything from any distance
without a hint of noise with just one short flash of light.

Automated
bathroom

Another
illustration from En L’An 2000 demonstrates a fully automated
bathroom that will make you all pretty in a matter of minute. We
might not be using automatic brushes and robotic makeup machines
(yet!), but what we can do is control most of our bathroom with just
one gadget and an app. It’ close enough!

Self-driving
car

Isaac
Azimov’s novel Sally
was among the first ones to introduce the concept of a car that
doesn’t require a driver – it simply drives on its own! Well,
today automated cars are part of our reality and companies like Tesla
and Waymo are already testing them in actual traffic, without a
safety driver. Soon we’ll be roaming around in smart cars operated
by computers only!

Credit
cards

We
should thank Edward Bellamy and his 1888 book Looking
Backward for the invention of the
credit card. Yep, wireless money transactions have been bothering the
minds of people for centuries, and now it is the reality we live in!
All you need is a smartphone and a special app to move your money
around.

Computerized
education

The
French art series En L’An 2000 imagined future education to be super
hi-tech with headphones, wires, and lots of gadgets. While our
education process doesn’t quite look like that, it has certainly
become more technologically advanced. Most of the information and
books have gone digital and there’s no need to dig around the
library anymore.

Smartphones

In
1926 John B. Kennedy interviewed Nikola Tesla for New York Times and
got priceless gems of knowledge. Tesla predicted there would be
immense amounts of information transferred wirelessly, communication
would become effortless with pocket-sized equipment, and the whole
planet will be united into one. Well, we’re close enough, Mr.
Tesla.

Headphones and flat-screen TV

Ray Bradbury was quite good at predicting the future himself. In his classic dystopian novel Fahrenheit 451 he mentioned modern-looking headphones and technology that used big flat screens just like modern computers and TVs.