Who remembers this image from their school science book?

[lemec]

Hello, I was searching some public domain images, and I came across this!

-back from the days, when we all used to think we would all be living on other planets.

-or on cool space stations....



http://www.donaldedavis.com/PARTS/allyours.html

[Heiron]

I think it seems pretty much like Ringworld!
Yes,it's funny how people of the first 3 quarters of the 20th century were thinking of the 21st century.I recall a scene from a black and white movie(30s?) where it showed a typical futuristic city with flying cars etc and it said..."The year 2000!".They were amazed at how far technology would have gone by that age.And indeed technology has made some big steps but in certain fields we are way below expectations.
The main field that there hasn't been the expected progress is space.Man walked the moon in the sixties,and then...he didn't go anywhere else.
I have some predictions made by Arthur Clark.They are divided by decade and fields(space,society,biology,etc).In some of them we have surpassed expectations,but in most of them we are way back.

(How old is this picture anyway?)

[lemec]

I think it seems pretty much like Ringworld!
Yes,it's funny how people of the first 3 quarters of the 20th century were thinking of the 21st century.I recall a scene from a black and white movie(30s?) where it showed a typical futuristic city with flying cars etc and it said..."The year 2000!".They were amazed at how far technology would have gone by that age.And indeed technology has made some big steps but in certain fields we are way below expectations.
The main field that there hasn't been the expected progress is space.Man walked the moon in the sixties,and then...he didn't go anywhere else.
I have some predictions made by Arthur Clark.They are divided by decade and fields(space,society,biology,etc).In some of them we have surpassed expectations,but in most of them we are way back.

(How old is this picture anyway?)

Hi Heiron,

Ya, I know what ya mean! Was that in the movie, Metropolis? I never did see that, only clips. It is too bad that we are not further along in space. You would have thought we could have sent someone to Mars, but I guess they would not have enough oxygen,hehe,and they probably would not be able to move after being in 0g that long. I don't know how fast those ion drives go, or if they can power a regular capsule or whatever they use, I guess we have to wait until warp drive or artificial gravity.

I guess in 2012 or 2014, they will finally stop the space shuttle program and just focus on the space station.

The picture is from 1975,I think. If I read this right....

The 1975 NASA Ames/Stanford University Summer Study worked out the broad engineering requirements for a toroidal shaped space colony design. This painting used the design, but I refused to fill the interior with the 'shopping mall gone mad' clutter of other drawings. Again the challenge of sustaining something like a closed ecosystem was a theme I wanted to emphasize. This design became known as the 'Stanford Torus'. Oil on board for NASA Ames. 656K

All that tech we were supposed to have in Y2K went to PC's and Nintendo!

[voilodian ghagnasdiak]

I remember watching an H.G.Wells movie entitled (The Shape Of) Things to Come. Could this be the movie in question?



I have never seen such a science book either Lemec.

[Madrigal Rose]

Sorry lemec- must have been before my time- I don't remember it at all

[Hawksun]

I had a book at home - The Usborne Book of Space or some such title - that had lots of educational stuff about the solar system as well as some speculative stuff about space travel and space stations of the future. It had an illustration very similar to the one above.

[David Mosley]

Huh, what're you guys talking about? That's the view from my travel pod every morning.

Oh, right you mean in your parallel!

[Morgan Kane]

Physics are late on forecasts and medecine also ......

Computer science is much more advenced ......

Society is very late !

[lemec]

HahaHAhaHA!

Thank all!

VG, that H.G. Wells poster is great!

Madrigal Rose wrote:

Sorry lemec- must have been beefore my time- I don't remember it at all..

I only remember it because my school kept it's old books, and I don't think they bought new ones every year. Had to,because I remember reading things in my older brother's book, then when I had the class it was the same book, with that same picture!

Much to my surprise, we did have a small planetarium, though,hehe.
-again, no wonder I turned out so much into space and science fiction!

Hawksun wrote:

I had a book at home - The Usborne Book of Space or some such title - that had lots of educational stuff about the solar system as well as some speculative stuff about space travel and space stations of the future. It had an illustration very similar to the one above.

Very cool!, I thought there were others, I remember seeing alot of those things.

David, Fantastic icon! hehe,just be careful when you take a boat around the river loop, sometimes the gravity kicks off! I'd watch out for those escalators, looks like those a "runner" might use to run through to their escape!

Morgan Kane wrote:

Physics are late on forecasts and medecine also ......

Computer science is much more advenced ......

Society is very late !

Yep, all that alien technology is going into our entertainment systems,haha.

Do you think humans will evr really change? We adapt to the modern tools, but we are all pretty much the same,except that now, with modern communication, we have a better general knowledge of our world and it's people, information is faster to obtain and most of us make ourselves better people over knowing certain things, but for the most part we are the same, until we get some good genetic mutations going!

Seriously though, we do need to catch up, it would be nice to see some significant breakthroughs in science, before we get too far into the 21st Century.

Thanks!


-Lemec

[lemec]

I remember watching an H.G.Wells movie entitled (The Shape Of) Things to Come. Could this be the movie in question?



I have never seen such a science book either Lemec.

-about this poster, I do love it,but....


Why do we always regress to wearing togas in the future?

Pants are outlawed,perhaps?

Where are all the animals in these old "future" drawings?

Why is there always a dude who looks like Ming the Merciless from Flash Gordon? haha! (check out the guy wih the beard,sitting at the desk!)

Oh,and in the future,people are the most physically fit, they can be. It seems that everyone needs to conform in a future society, no tattoos, no piercings or jewelry.

Watch out! I think the Lords of Law rule the Future!


-Lemec

[Morgan Kane]

From Lemec :

Do you think humans will evr really change? We adapt to the modern tools, but we are all pretty much the same,except that now, with modern communication, we have a better general knowledge of our world and it's people, information is faster to obtain and most of us make ourselves better people over knowing certain things, but for the most part we are the same, until we get some good genetic mutations going!

Better knowledge of the world, faster information ...... only for the few who have the tools to understand it ........

In fact, the information is controlled by corporations and finance ...... and from looking too mutch at TV, people who are no more educated in history mix facts, legends and propaganda !

On the 11/09/2001, less than 10 % of american people believed Hussein was behind the attack .. one year after 75 % were sure he was .....

[Heiron]

I think it was Metropolis,but-yes-it was a clip,not the whole movie.
I think I had made a relevant question to Greg Bear in an interview...I will go check(actually I had sent him too many and then I had to make a "director's cut" interview),and post his answer if I find.
Also,I liked the introduction of Joe Haldeman's The Forever War.He said that it was a new version of the book but he decided not to change the silly dates he uses as the 90s he describes have passed and they were not as described.No interstellar travel,no aliens,no war with them.But he would have to rewrite the whole thing so he asks the readers to consider it as a parrarel universe of a kind.

Besides,in spite of all the high technology people expected,the everyday life is more hi tech than they thought.I mean,we may not have robots that look like men but we have internet and cell phones etc etc.I have never seen a hero there being able to talk with his favorite author like we do here,for example.Plus,we do have telephones that have a camera and too much weird hi tech stuff.

[voilodian ghagnasdiak]

This is a still from Metropolis (1927)



This still is from Things To Come (1936)



I really enjoyed both of these movies.
Do you remember which one you were referring to Heiron?

[Heiron]

The second one-"Things To Come".I am 99% sure now,since I remember these tubes and no early 20th century aeroplanes.It has a more futuristic style than Metropolis.
But was the plot situated at about 2000?

Oh,and as for meteorology,since I've studied a bit this subject(actually I got only 5 in the first course and failed at Climatology which was second...crap)... Well,with all the exact temperatures and pressures etc we have now,scientiss can predict the weather quite good.But in the long term it's almost impossible since Chaos steps in. We would need Meteorologists with Stormbringers to overcome tis obstacle!

[David Mosley]

The second one-"Things To Come".I am 99% sure now,since I remember these tubes and no early 20th century aeroplanes.It has a more futuristic style than Metropolis.
But was the plot situated at about 2000?

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Things_to_Come

The film begins in the fictional English town of 'Everytown' in 1940, as a global world war breaks out. The war lasts for decades, long enough for the remaining survivors to have forgotten the reasons for it in the first place. Strategic bombing is so successful that civilization on both sides is totally devastated. Humanity falls into a new dark age where the technology level is reduced to that of medieval times, symbolized by an automobile being drawn like a cart by a horse. There is even a medieval-type plague sweeping through the land known as "the wandering sickness."

In 1970, Everytown is run by a local warlord known as 'The Chief' (played by Ralph Richardson), who is at constant war with the "Hill People" and obsessed with fixing up the old remaining biplanes and capturing coal mines in order to convert the coal to fuel for the aircraft. The Chief consolidated his power over Everytown after having eradicated "the wandering sickness" by shooting all those infected with the disease.

Trivia: Released in 1936, the opening scenes of bomber planes flying over 1940 England is reputed to have been seen as somewhat fanciful by the contemporary audience, yet in 1940/41 Nazi planes were doing just that during the Blitz. Wells' reputation for 'prophecy' was entrenched.