On June 20 , 1911 the Miami Metropolis published anticipation about the year 2011 from the one and only Tommy “ Dumbo Killah ” Edison .
Edison makes some awesome prevision about a future of gold automobiles , the discontinuation of Au as currency , the ascension of steel and the death of the steam locomotive engine .
I ’m peculiarly concerned in his foretelling about books of the year 2011 . Edison claimed that book would be printed on leaves of nickel note , “ so alight to take that the reader can love a small library in a single volume . ”
He goes on to explain that , “ a book two inch thick will contain forty thousand pages , the equivalent of a hundred loudness ; six inch in aggregate heaviness , it would suffice for all the depicted object of the Encyclopedia Britannica . And each volume would weigh less than a pound . ” surely , but can you playAngry Birdson it ?
The entire article appears below .
What will the reality be a hundred years hence ?
None but a virtuoso make bold raise the drapery and disclose the secrets of the time to come ; and what necromancer can do it with so sure a hand as Mr. Thomas Alva Edison , who has wrested so many secret from jealous Nature ? He alone of all men who live has the necessary bravery and endowment of prospicience , and he has not shrivel from the speculation .
Already , Mr. Edison tells us , the steam engine is utter its last gasps . A hundred hence it will be as remote as antiquity as the lumbering coach of Tudor day , which ask a week to locomote from Yorkshire to London . In the yr 2011 such railroad track trains as survive will be driven at incredible fastness by electricity ( which will also be the motive force of all the earth ’s machinery ) , sire by “ hydraulic ” bike .
But the traveller of the future , says a writer in Answers , will largely despise such earth crawling . He will pilot through the air , swifter than any deglutition , at a speed of two hundred mile an 60 minutes , in stupendous machines , which will enable him to breakfast in London , transact business in Paris and eat his luncheon in Cheapside .
The house of the next hundred will be furnished from cellar to loft with steel , at a sixth of the present toll — of steel so luminance that it will be as easy to move a sideboard as it is today to lift a drafting room chair . The baby of the twenty - first C will be sway in a sword cradle ; his Fatherhood will sit around in a steel chair at a brand dining tabular array , and his female parent ’s boudoir will be sumptuously equipped with blade furnishings , converted by cunning varnish to the semblance of rosewood , or sepia , or any other wood her ladyship fancies .
Koran of the coming century will all be print leaves of Ni , so light to bear that the reader can enjoy a pocket-size library in a individual bulk . A book two inches fatheaded will check forty thousand pages , the equivalent of a hundred volumes ; six column inch in aggregate thickness , it would do for all the contents of the Encyclopedia Britannica . And each bulk would weigh less than a Egyptian pound .
Already Mr. Edison can produce a pound weight of these nickel note folio , more flexible than paper and ten prison term as durable , at a cost of five shillings . In a hundred years ’ clip the cost will probably be reduced to a tenth part .
More awe-inspiring still , this American wiz sounds the death knell of Au as a cute metallic element . “ Gold , ” he say , “ has even now but a few year to live . The day is near when bar of it will be as common and as cheap as bars of Fe or block of steel .
“ We are already on the verge of identify the secret of metamorphose metals , which are all substantially the same in matter , though combined in different proportions . ”
Before long it will be an well-off matter to exchange a truck load of iron measure into as many bars of virgin Au .
In the magical day to get along there is no reason why our great liners should not be of solid gold from root word to strict ; why we should not ride in gilt taxicabs , or substituted Au for blade in our draught way suites . Only brand will be the more durable , and thus the gimcrack in the recollective rivulet .
picture of Edison circa 1911 is from theLibrary of Congress .
UPDATE October 3 , 2012 : I just acknowledge that I cited the June 23 , 1911 emergence of the Miami Metropolis when it was actually the June 20 , 1911 Miami Metropolis . My apologies . It ’s been correct above .
This post originally appeared atPaleofuture.com .
BooksEnergyThomas Edisontransportation
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