FT Times writer Leo Robson speculates on the collision between scientific progress and our imagination.
“If you can picture something on the cusp of plausibility, it’ll definitely be real by Christmas.”
The problem with futurists is they tend to think both too small with regard to some technologies and too large with respect to others. We have a special place in our hearts for a book we pulled, discarded from a corporate science library, called "The Year 2000", which was written in the 1950's. The book envisions every home with a room devoted to a home computer system...that is, the entire room, not an iPod next to the bed, though the computing power would be similar...and functional jet packs transforming the lives of commuters. Which reminds me of one of my favorite t-shirts:
"This is supposed to be the future.
Where is my jet pack,
where is my robotic companion,
where is my dinner in pill form,
where is my hydrogen-fueled automobile,
where is my nuclear-powered levitating house,
where is my cure for this disease?"
Robotic companion. Check. Still waiting on the jet pack.
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