Almost everyone in the world has some predictions about the future. It is obvious that science fiction writers have a special talent in this regard. Many great science fiction writers managed to write the technologies and products we use today long before.
Credit card (Edward Bellamy)
Credit cards are among the indispensable parts of our lives. The emergence of credit cards as an idea, which entered our lives for the first time in 1950, is much older. In his 1887 novel Looking Backward, writer Edward Bellamy was talking about cards with a concept very close to today’s credit card.
Headphones (Ray Bradbury)
In the famous novel Fahrenheit 451, where houses do not burn and firefighters collect and burn books, Ray Brandbury wrote the concept of headphones and airbuds as we know today in this book. These concepts, which he calls the seashell, were quite unexpected in the age of very expensive headphones, where technically two speakers were glued to our heads.
Satellites (Arthur C. Clarke)
Arthur C. Clarke, one of the leading figures of science fiction, put forward the basic concept of satellite communication in his work 2001: A Space Odyssey. Other ideas put forward by the famous writer at that time included technologies such as smart watches.
Journey to the Moon (Jules Verne)
Jules Verne’s book Journey to the Moon is very popular. Although the author has many successful predictions about the future, the most popular among them is the Moon landing. His short story, “From the Earth to the Moon”, knew not only of a human landing on the Moon, but from the structure of the spacecraft to its takeoff and takeoff location, to the astronaut on duty.
Security cameras (George Orwell)
George Orwell’s classic 1984, although it included a tighter surveillance mechanism than today’s structure, was quite accurate at some points. One of them was CCTV cameras. Nowadays, systems such as phone calls and internet activities can also be monitored.
Video interview (Hugo Gernsback)
In Huge Gernsback’s Ralph 124C 41+, the author mentioned a device he called the Telephot. This device consisted of a giant screen and a phone attached to it. Thus, people could see and communicate with each other. It was 1911 when Gernsback’s book was published.
Antidepressants (Aldous Huxley)
In Brave New World, Aldous Huxley talks about people trying not to feel bad. As part of these studies, he was talking about a drug called Soma. Soma was driving people’s negative thoughts away from his mind. Years after this book, doctors began developing antidepressant drugs.
Genetic Engineering (Aldous Huxley)
Another prominent concept in Brave New World was genetic engineering. In the future, humans were genetically tailored to suit different classes and social structures. Today, the situation is not at that level, but there is no guarantee that it will not come.
Tablet (Douglas Adams)
In The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams talked about a tablet-e-reader-Siri hybrid device. This device spoke, could display information digitally and gave various information to our main characters. Voice operation was also possible.
Autonomous Cars (Ray Brandbury)
Currently, autonomous cars are not very common in daily use, but there is no doubt that they will enter our lives one day. The first place we saw this concept was Brandbury’s 1951 novel The Pedestrian.
Internet (Mark Twain)
The year is 1898. Mark Twain was talking about something called the teletroscope. This system, which was technically a dial-up connection, allowed people to connect to a global network with telephone lines, receive information from all over the world and access images.
Transplant (Mary Shelley)
In 1818, Mary Shelley wrote a story. In the story The Modern Prometheus, science had finally triumphed over death. The way to do this was through organ transplantation. In Doctor Frankenstein, on the other hand, the resulting structure was brought back to life by applying electricity to the dead tissues that were brought together. In this work, organ transplantation originated more than 100 years before it actually took place.
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