Fifty years hence: or, What may be in 1943: A prophecy supposed to be based on scientific deductions by an improved graphical methodGrimshaw, Robert
Science
Fifty years hence: or, What may be in 1943: A prophecy supposed to be based on scientific deductions by an improved graphical method
Grimshaw, Robert
Twentieth century -- Forecasts; Utopias
Umbrella covers and other textile objects of irregular shape, formerly
made up of gored sections, are now woven in one piece and of any
desired fineness. Rugs and seamless carpets an inch thick and of
infinite variety in pattern are produced with any wished-for outline,
to fit the projections and recesses of the apartment for which they may
be ordered.
Flexible and malleable glass are no longer scientific curiosities;
and toughened glass bells break the night’s silence with their sweet
chiming of the hours as they fly.
In porcelain and other ceramic wares the long-lost arts of the ancients
have been rivalled or revived; and the most exquisite productions of
the Land of the Rising Sun duplicated or excelled.
In brewing and wine-making all hurtful compounds are eliminated, and
none but the health-giving and gladdening retained.
In mechanics an entirely new principle has been applied; the cold of
winter, as well as the heat of summer, being harnessed to do man’s
work. The scientific engineers of 1925 recognized the fact that in any
motor it was the difference between the initial and final temperatures
of the steam, gas, or other medium employed, that did the work; this
work being the utilizable percentage of that difference in temperature;
and acting upon this idea, by 1935 there were engines which ran by
cold as well as those driven by heat. The snow-fields of winter then,
as well as the great arid plains of summer, have for some time been
used to make and store up power, which is used only as wanted.
A striking landscape feature is the great number of windmills, stately,
picturesque and beautiful, which lazily flap their sails or merrily
spin with the brisk breeze, generating and storing up power for the
houses upon which they are perched. These mills are let run full speed
in the fiercest storms; the surplus of power going to the owner’s
storage system, to be used when wanted, or contributed to the common
stock in case of need.
Railway cars are made very largely of aluminum and paper, thus
possessing great stiffness, lightness and strength.
Many new varieties of steel have made their appearance; boron and
silicon being used indifferently with carbon in forming combinations
with iron, which possesses properties never before seen in steels of
any kind.
The hardening of copper has been rediscovered, and for twenty-five or
more years this metal has been tempered and worked just as steel was
in the century preceding.
The manufacture of anti-friction metals has been so far advanced that
the use of lubricants is rendered unnecessary.
Transportation of the person and of goods, large and small, is as
greatly advanced as that of ideas and images.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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