100-year-old predictions come true

As usual on every occasion of the new year, the media makes many predictions about what will happen in the months ahead.

10 accurate predictions of Watkins

However, older predictions in 1900 by a fairly anonymous engineer have re-exported in the past few days.

In December 1990, American engineer John Elfreth Watkins wrote a magazine article for Ladies' Home Journal women entitled, 'What will happen in the next 100 years?' .

He opened the chapter article: 'These prophecies seem strange, almost impossible' and explained that he consulted the 'great scientific and research organizations'. most countries about 29 topics.

Watkins was the Saturday Evening Post journalist, the newspaper with the same owner as the Ladies' Home Journal.

The article was introduced to modern readers by the Saturday Evening Post last week when historical editor Jeff Nilsson wrote Watkins' accurate forecast.

It has been spread and attracted attention on Twitter. Here are Watkins predictions.

1. Take digital color photos

Watkins of course does not use the word 'digital' or exactly how computers and cameras work, but he correctly predicted how people would use new photography technology.

'Photos will be transmitted from any distance. If there is a battle in China in the next hundred years, photos of its most impressive events will be published in the newspaper an hour later . the photos will reproduce every natural color. '

This prediction represents a foresight, according to Nilsson. When Watkins made a prediction, it took a week for a photo of a Chinese event to appear on the face of Western newspapers.

The scene a hundred years ago might look like this through the iPhone camera - (Photo: The Sun)

2. Americans will be higher

'Americans will be one to two inches taller.'

Watkins was accurate with this forecast, according to Mr. Nilsson - the average height of American men in 1990 was about 1.68 - 1.70m (66 - 67 inches) and in 2000 the average height was 1.75m (69 inches).

3. Mobile phone

'Wireless phones and telegraph systems will connect the world. A husband in the middle of the Atlantic will be able to chat with his wife sitting in a room in Chicago. We can call China as easily as we call from New York to Brooklyn. '

International phone calls have not been heard at Watkins's time. It was only 15 years later that Alexander Bell made the first call from the East Coast to the West Coast of the United States. The idea of ​​wireless phones is a real revolution.

4. Meals available

The development of fast food at supermarkets and shopping malls on the highway suggested that Watkins was right, although he believed that meals would be displayed on plates that would be returned to the store. to wash.

5. Population growth will slow down

'There will definitely be 350 million to 500 million people in the US.'

This number is too high, according to Nilsson, but at least Watkins had the right direction, if the US population grew at the same rate as 1800 to 1900, it would exceed 1 billion people in 2000.

John Elfreth Watkins is seen as a man ahead of his time - (Photo: The Sun)

6. Vegetables grown in greenhouses

'Winter will become summer and the night will become the day thanks to the farmers. They will place underground wires to warm trees. They will also plant large gardens under the glass. At night fruits and vegetables will be illuminated with electric light to motivate them to grow. '

7. Television

'People will see around the world. People and all species will be highlighted with electric cameras connected to the screen at the end of the circuit, over a distance of thousands of miles'.

Watkins predicted cameras and monitors connected by electrical circuits, a realistic scenario realized in the 20th century by live television and later webcams.

8. Tank

'Huge wheeled forts will rush to open space at the speed of today's high-speed trains'.

Leonardo da Vinci once talked about this, according to Nilsson, but Watkins brought it further. Not many people have such a vision.

9. Bigger fruit

'Grandchildren we will eat big berries with apples'.

Many larger fruits were developed in the last century, but Watkins is a bit too optimistic to take the example of strawberry.

10. Acela express train

'Trains will run two miles in a minute. Express trains have a speed of 150 miles per hour.

Exactly 100 years after Watkins wrote about this, the Acela Express express train route was opened to connect Boston and Washington DC. Its maximum speed is 150 miles per hour although the average speed is significantly less. Speedboats in other parts of the world are much faster.

11. Predict the Internet when no one has thought of it

Watkins had thoughts of nearly 100 years before his time. As early as 1900, he wanted something to connect people, no matter how far away.

12. Medical technology in imagination in 1900

At that time, it was difficult to standardize organ diseases. So Watkins had hoped that posterity could "look inside people without surgery."

13. Prediction of obesity

Just as he thought, people 100 years later became very lazy, which led to heart disease or obesity.

14. Vehicles will no longer run only on the ground

And yes, we now have the means to go high and underground.

15. Imagination of Instagram 100 years ago

With the development of the internet, image content has been transmitted easily. Not many people in the 19th century can imagine this.

Four miserable predictions of Watkins

1. No more letters C, X or Q

2. People will walk 10 miles every day

3. No cars in big cities

4. No flies, mosquitoes