KEY POINTS:
Dr Michio Kaku is a Japanese-American theoretical physicist with lovely flowing white hair and a voice so soothing that even if he was warning us that Nazi nanobots were about to turn the whole of mankind into slaves, we'd probably feel quite mellow about it.
Kaku's predictions of
the future, outlined in the three-part BBC4 series Visions Of The Future, are almost this alarming. We are, he claims, at a crossroads in evolution where machines are becoming more human-like and humans are becoming more machine-like. In the first episode he predicts an imminent future where micro chips are inserted into our brains (to cure mental illnesses, among other things) while, in tandem, robots are built programmed with emotions.
Dr Kaku is able to confidently foresee what will happen in 20 years' time because it's already happening today. In the first programme we meet a depressed woman magically transformed into a smiling optimist with the aid of a chip inserted into her head, and some shy students who spend their entire lives in virtual online worlds as undead priests slaying dragons instead of drinking their age in pints of cider.
Then we meet Asimo, a charming 1.3m-tall robot with impeccable manners whose job is to show Honda HQ reception visitors to a table while making idle small talk, then fetch them some orange juice.
This is all very well, but what we're really interested in is what we can expect to buy at the local shops in 2027. Thankfully Kaku does offer up some more enjoyable predictions, such as smart clothing with in-built heart monitors, GPS ear-rings, personal fabricators that rearrange molecules to create whatever we want, and face-recognition spectacles.
As great as these products are, there is one overarching truth about the scientific prophecies in the series - the future was a lot more fun in the past.
1980s
1980s futurology was obsessed with video - video shades, video watches, video tattoos, robots with VCR slots, video killing radio stars. According to 1980s brainiacs, we'd have so much leisure time in the next century (because robots would be doing everything) that we'd have little else to do except lounge around in white bucket chairs and go on holidays - in space, of course. The 1981 book School, Work And Play does a brilliant job of explaining that our "home videophone computers" will make our travel arrangements for us, and that we'll be suctioned to space terminals in underground vacuum bullet trains. But less plausible is that we'll be rocketing towards space islands made to look like South Sea beaches where we can enjoy "weightless games and experience other such delights that only the space islands can offer". Don't worry if you've booked into a Spanish-speaking space island - if you don't speak the language you can hire a machine that instantly translates every word.
In Back To The Future II, made in 1989, Michael J. Fox travelled forward in time to 2015. If their inventions materialise, the world's youth will shortly be riding Hoverboards, wearing self-drying jackets and self-tying trainers, and magnifying pizzas in Black & Decker Rehydraters.
What they got right: Author William Gibson predicted the internet in Neuromancer, as well as the popularity of reality TV.
1950s
The future predicted by 1950s futurologists promised a brighter, cleaner push-button tomorrow powered by atomic energy. The cover story of the February 1950 edition of Popular Mechanics promised readers "Miracles you'll see in the next 50 years". Sadly we're yet to see most of them.
In their imagined year 2000 suburb of super convenience, "soup and milk are delivered in the form of frozen bricks", "sawdust and wood pulp are converted into sugary foods", rayon underwear is recycled into candy, men "whisk away whiskers with a chemical solution", and soluble plastic plates are thrown away after eating.
Better still, there's none of the usual drudgery for the housewife of tomorrow (no mention of house husbands, strangely), because the whole house is waterproof so she does the cleaning with a hose. Could happen.
Cars meanwhile are so old fashioned, the family of the future go everywhere in their teardrop-shaped helicopter that they park on the roof. We've all got one of them, obviously.
What they got right: Solar power was widely predicted as the energy of the future.
1930s
Ever since the first Ford was produced, people had been claiming that in decades to come we would be commuting to work in flying cars. Early attempts were simply wings and an aircraft engine bolted on to existing cars, but at the 1939 World's Fair, a hybrid aerocar was displayed that had everyone imagining their home of the future would need to come with a runway instead of a drive.
This was also the era when they imagined everyone eating steak and kidney pie flavoured pills for tea and personal jetpacks being standard issue alongside our wrist phones - the fabled jetpack was pioneered by the Buck Rogers comic strip and film series.
There were also plenty of robots in the predictions of the 1930s, although they tended to fall into two categories - maids and butlers. Of the latter breed there was a famous metal man called Elektro, who, if newspaper cuttings are to be believed, was the toast of New York courtesy of his two abilities - smoking cigars and conducting orchestras. Useful.
With the onset of World War II, however, forward thinkers were quick to imagine less friendly relatives of Elektro, 30m tall, "controlled by wireless", and fighting against rival machines from other nations.
What they got right: H.G. Wells 1936 book Things To Come predicted, among many other future inventions, flat-screen TVs and mobile phones. Still waiting for the underground cities though.
1900s
The turn of the century saw a boom in predictions of what life would be like in the year 2000. Among the heady ideas being touted by scientists of the day were weather control machines, roofed cities, and combined ship and railway locomotives.
However, the best insights into what people of this era expected a hundred years in the future can be found in the December 1900 issue of the Ladies Home Journal which, despite being wrong about there being no flies or giant peas, is surprisingly close with its other forecasts such as "ready cooked meals" which will be delivered by pneumatic tubes, "grand opera will be telephoned to private homes" and worldwide wireless telegraph circuits.
As for their idea that the letters C, Q and X will be abandoned from the alphabet - it's only a matter of time.
What they got right: The Paris Exposition of 1900 demonstrated a moving footpath exactly like those we see at airports today, except ladies sat on park benches while they travelled.
- OBSERVER
