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| Not the future, but mostly about past images and literature that depicted an imagined future. Short, but I read only two chapters; this is about the nature of fashion and fiction, not the difference between predictions and actual outcomes. | Not prognosticating the "future", but mostly about past images and literature that depicted an imagined future. Short, but I read only two chapters; this is about the nature of fashion and fiction, not the difference between predictions and actual outcomes. |
The Future
Nick Montfort Central, 303.49 M784f 2017
Not prognosticating the "future", but mostly about past images and literature that depicted an imagined future. Short, but I read only two chapters; this is about the nature of fashion and fiction, not the difference between predictions and actual outcomes.
At least it isn't the usual "Canonical Future" depicted in so many breathless prognostications today. Those mostly start with decades old pulp science fiction notion X and proclaim that lab result Y will fulfill it. I would like to read a book suggesting techniques for accurate technology/economics/psychology -based prognostication. That book may not been written yet, though Bob Seidensticker's Future Hype is a good start.
My guess is that startling new inventions will mostly emerge from low cost measurements of neglected phenomena. Not LHC and the Higgs, or HST and the cosmos, but benchtop experiments producing odd results. Not new physics, not extreme physics, just a reminder that many inexpensive measurements haven't yet been made, because we lack the imagination to make them. Such "new imagination" is where new technologies come from.