CLOSING: 2035

WRITTEN: 1935-02

When wireless is perfectly applied the whole earth will be converted into a huge brain, which in fact it is, all things being particles of a real and rhythmic whole. We shall be able to communicate with one another instantly, irrespective of distance.

Nikola Tesla

"A Machine to End War," Liberty magazine, February 1935

Written: 1935-02

Addressed to: within a century

Source: "A Machine to End War

Author: Nikola Tesla

Category: Technology

Annotation

Tesla's vision of wireless communication enabling a global brain is an uncanny prefiguration of the internet and mobile communications. By 2020, over 4.5 billion people were connected to the internet. The language of 'particles of a real and rhythmic whole' anticipates the network-theory language of the digital age.

What Actually Happened

The internet and mobile phones achieved near-universal connectivity. By 2025, over 5 billion people had internet access via wireless devices.

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2000

Photographs will be telegraphed from any distance. If there be a battle in China a hundred years hence, snapshots of its most striking events will be published in the newspapers an hour later.

John Elfreth Watkins Jr.

1980

Consider a future device for individual use, which is a sort of mechanized private file and library. It needs a name, and, to coin one at random, 'memex' will do. A memex is a device in which an individual stores all his books, records, and communications, and which is mechanized so that it may be consulted with exceeding speed and flexibility.

Vannevar Bush

1975

It is not too much to expect that our children will enjoy in their homes electrical energy too cheap to meter.

Lewis L. Strauss