Autzoo.1654
net.sf-lovers
utzoo!henry
Mon May 10 19:23:46 1982
predictions
Something that has always interested me is cases of successful prediction
in SF. I am *not* talking about things like predicting that man would
someday land on the moon; my criteria for an interesting prediction are:
- It should be fairly specific.
- It should be non-trivial and non-obvious.
- It should be correct or very close.
Here is a moderately striking example. In "Rocket Jockey", by "Philip
St. John" (Lester del Rey), a Winston juvenile published in 1952, it was
predicted that the first man on the moon would land in the 1960's -- and
that his name would be Armstrong!!!!
Now, this prediction wasn't perfect. Del Rey picked 1965, missing by four
years (although in those pre-Sputnik days, a much more plausible guess would
have been 1995). And his "Major Armstrong" doesn't really match Neil
Armstrong all that well (for one thing, Neil Armstrong was a civilian).
Still fairly striking, though.
Before the net.psi types jump on me, I should observe that I find nothing
peculiar about a few successful predictions among thousands of failures.
I do find them interesting, though; anybody have any other good ones?
(Reply by mail, not news; I'll summarize the responses for the net.)
Henry Spencer
decvax!utzoo!henry
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