Connect with us

Popular Science

These Future Predictions were WRONG

What happens when scientists and futurists predict the year 2000… in the 1960s? In Popular Science, Walter Cronkite chronicled the state of science and technology in 1967 to project what life might be like in the 21st century. Cronkite and the prognosticators actually got a lot of it right… and some of it they got…

Published

on

What happens when scientists and futurists predict the year 2000… in the 1960s? In Popular Science, Walter Cronkite chronicled the state of science and technology in 1967 to project what life might be like in the 21st century. Cronkite and the prognosticators actually got a lot of it right… and some of it they got very, very wrong.

Everyone knew the moon landing was imminent, but why didn’t we ever get networks of road magnets interfacing with our cars? And although Cronkite and Popular Science were eerily accurate on GPS and car navigation systems, why were we so misguided on the future of robots?

It turns out that the future we need isn’t necessarily the one we seem to want.

#science #Predictions #Innovation #popularscience #history

Continue Reading
Advertisement
55 Comments

55 Comments

  1. @EyesOfByes

    May 29, 2024 at 3:48 pm

    New voice, who dis? I’m joking, I recognise it from a mile away.

    • @kerim3008

      May 29, 2024 at 4:22 pm

      No, joke aside – whos that ?

    • @artyjnrii

      May 29, 2024 at 4:31 pm

      ​@kerim3008 it’s the guy from Vsauce4

    • @kerim3008

      May 29, 2024 at 4:40 pm

      @@artyjnrii Michael?

    • @popularscience

      May 29, 2024 at 4:58 pm

      Hey, it’s Matt — I’ve worked with Kevin on Vsauce2 for nearly a decade, and we’ve done The Create Unknown podcast together for 200 episodes or so. There are lots of stories like this we’ve talked about for years, so I’m pretty thrilled to narrate them. Plus, *someone* has to be ready to go when Kevin inevitably succumbs to a hot dog overdose.

    • @kerim3008

      May 29, 2024 at 5:03 pm

      @@popularscience sorry bro, doesnt ring any bell. Do you have any Video or so where I can see you.

  2. @Cats_Are_Scary

    May 29, 2024 at 3:55 pm

    You guys should have listened to Arthur C. Clarke in 1962. He was very accurate about the things to come in the 2,000s.

    • @MIKE_THE_BRUMMIE

      May 29, 2024 at 4:42 pm

      Pretty sure he invented geostationary orbit for satellite communications..the tool required to usher in the information age.

    • @popularscience

      May 29, 2024 at 4:58 pm

      Without Arthur C. Clarke, we probably WOULD have some weird magnet system in the roads.

    • @stickynorth

      May 29, 2024 at 5:22 pm

      @@popularscience Don’t worry those are still coming but they serve a different purpose… Induction charging strips for cars/trucks/buses… Some cities (including Oslo, I believe) have the loops installed at bus stops and taxi stands already and some are planning on doing that as on the go fast charge.. To me that’s the best way of killing two birds with one stone. When you need to rebuild your roadway, rebuild them with power strips added. Last time I checked the induction inverters for cars would only cost a couple hundred bucks to add on after market to pick up the capability… While it may not be as efficient (it’s still very close) the simplicity of not having to fumble with cords to me makes it superior in every way… Just think, would you like to recharge your iphone with the cable or the modern way by placing it on a charging mat…

  3. @stickynorth

    May 29, 2024 at 5:17 pm

    I think it’s pretty cool how some were spot on and others way off… I guess had we kept up with moon landings and electric car development at the time we’d have been closer to that alternate timeline. Good to know however that the computer processing revolution that did happen is leading us to those general purpose humanoid robots this year with the Chinese releasing the first one for about $16K, and hopefully WITHOUT 100% tariffs… Future people question: Will Chinese domestic humanoid labourers be subject to a new head tax like they were so shamelessly charged in the past? I think with both B and T’s posturing the answer is quite apparent… At least from the now 100% tax on Chinese EV’s introduced by B and of course T’s pledge to ban all EV’s if elected…

    • @popularscience

      May 29, 2024 at 5:22 pm

      That’s really the eternal battle — the march of technological progress vs. the people who want to regulate the pace of it

  4. @Delahunt1080

    May 29, 2024 at 5:56 pm

    Really well done
    Thanks for sharing

    • @popularscience

      May 29, 2024 at 6:17 pm

      Thanks! It’s always fascinating to go back and look at how tech predictions actually turned out

  5. @aarong9378

    May 29, 2024 at 6:39 pm

    The 1960s! When we eradicated polio and measles. 2024? When anti-vaxxers bring them back. Technology isn’t holding us back, it’s humans.

  6. @empmachine

    May 29, 2024 at 7:03 pm

    Why does this channel get such crummy stats? (like views/subs/etc)..
    This content is great! They should be 250k subs at least.. (I shake my fist at you youtube-algorithm).

    • @MrMash-mh9dy

      May 29, 2024 at 7:45 pm

      It was a dead channel that the people who work on Vsauce2 decided to bring back to life a couple months ago. Spread the word, Vsauce2 is always greatness and it seems they are bringing that energy over to this. I really like the format of looking back on past editions of PS and picking apart the science and relating it to today.

    • @GeoffCostanza

      May 31, 2024 at 5:13 am

      I like the content of this video, but the delivery feels disjointed to me. It would benefit by being a few minutes longer, and explaining a few ideas more in-depth, rearranging some content, or cutting some things out.

      For example, the narrator said Cronkite went to the future, but then the next thing mentioned was that Cronkite fired a gun on a B-17, which doesn’t add to the overall message of predicting the future. They talked about how he was spot-on with his 6 billion population prediction, but then he “completely blew it” by “being right way too slow.” They set it up as if the rest of the video would be about his bad predictions, but then it was a mix of predictions he got right and wrong (really, I thought the video would be about Popular Science’s predictions, not Walter Cronkite’s, based on the title), and Cronkite wasn’t even wrong about MOLAB. They predicted we would have a high-tech, climate-controlled mobile lab, flown to the moon on a fully-automated second Saturn V rocket, that could drive a few hundred miles on a single battery charge. Instead, we got a short-range golf cart. I’m not putting down the incredible engineering of the lunar rover, but the “distant future” of the Grumman MOLAB Cronkite predicted has still not come to pass 55 years later. His prediction about income was also correct, saying that it would be at least $15-25k after taxes. The average income after taxes in 2000 was about $35k, which is at least $15-25k.

      I loved reading Popular Science when I was a kid, especially Bill Sweetman’s articles about groundbreaking military technology. Nowadays they are usually months to years late on technology reporting, and their articles and videos feel like they were hastily written and produced by interns or newly-graduated journalists using PopSci as a stepping stone. There are hundreds, if not thousands of successful educational YouTube channels that figured it out, and PopSci should just use their template. But I still follow them because they were a big part of my upbringing, and I hope they make a comeback.

    • @spleenky

      June 2, 2024 at 3:43 pm

      I honestly would’ve not known about this channel had I not seen the article for this on Apple News

  7. @ChillinWithTheCapuchins

    May 29, 2024 at 7:06 pm

    Great video, as usual. Keep it up! =)

  8. @thespicemelange.1

    May 29, 2024 at 9:03 pm

    In the year 2000! In the year 2000!!!

    • @unadomandaperte

      May 30, 2024 at 2:09 am

      Hey LaBamba!😂👍

  9. @FuchsDanin

    May 29, 2024 at 10:28 pm

    “You and your wife” feels pretty dated. Maybe “You and yours” instead?

    • @allanshpeley4284

      May 30, 2024 at 12:10 am

      Or for you, “You and your hand”.

    • @GappedWonder

      June 3, 2024 at 4:46 pm

      Never that deep pronoun warrior

    • @mj2672

      June 9, 2024 at 12:36 pm

      ROFL 🤣

  10. @chipshtpc2478

    May 29, 2024 at 10:59 pm

    Content of this video is great! The video of a tiny TV is super annoying to watch. Some feedback to make the video better for next time!

    • @RolandHazoto

      May 30, 2024 at 9:12 am

      I disagree

  11. @KryptonianAI

    May 30, 2024 at 3:31 am

    Basically a sponsored spokesperson. Kind of like sponsored ads today.

  12. @EvergreenLP

    May 30, 2024 at 7:49 am

    No “See you in the future” at the end? 😄

  13. @thanksfernuthin

    May 30, 2024 at 8:54 am

    I’m hoping the one thing we learned from those people making predictions in the past was… don’t bother.

  14. @AlanMGross

    May 30, 2024 at 8:59 am

    “Popular Science Predicted The Year 2000 (it went badly)” — Actually, this video is about Walter Cronkite’s predictions. Did Popular Science publish its own predictions? I don’t know.

    • @jefft7968

      June 9, 2024 at 2:51 pm

      You realize Popular Science’s content comes from writers, right? It isn’t a sentient entity. People write the articles. Walter Cronkite wrote the Popular Science article referenced in this video.

  15. @RolandHazoto

    May 30, 2024 at 9:07 am

    I’m Popular?
    My lifelong dream has finally come true!

  16. @RolandHazoto

    May 30, 2024 at 9:12 am

    Is this narrator Grady from Practical Engineering?
    They sound a lot like Grady.

  17. @kateapple1

    May 30, 2024 at 11:18 am

    Funny, how 30 years ago they’re bitching that there’s too many people on the planet.. and now they’re bitching that we’re not having enough sex, making enough babies. Like, This is ridiculous 😂

  18. @bob_._.

    May 30, 2024 at 11:58 am

    Just so today’s viewers don’t misunderstand, Walter Cronkite wasn’t the one making all these predictions, he was just reading scripts and interviewing the people making the predictions.

  19. @LarryBloom

    May 31, 2024 at 10:22 am

    So you actually produced a “Walter Cronkite Predicted” video, and named it for PopSci? That’s certainly bogus. 👎👎👎

  20. @LarryBinFL

    May 31, 2024 at 10:22 am

    So you actually produced a “Walter Cronkite Predicted” video, and named it for PopSci? That’s certainly bogus. 👎👎👎

  21. @scifriley

    June 2, 2024 at 5:24 pm

    The best way to predict the future is to invent it! -Alan Kay. He said it four years after the 1967 Cronkite special 😉 Kay is credited as the father of the GUI interface that the Mac used that debut in 1984.

  22. @JohnJones-oy3md

    June 7, 2024 at 6:29 pm

    I think they’re giving Cronkite way too much credit. He was no journalist – just a talking head with a distinctive voice reading lines on camera.

  23. @k.s.nichols4060

    June 7, 2024 at 10:21 pm

    To be fair, Cronkite didn’t foresee anything. The scientists/engineers figured things out.

  24. @EricHunting

    June 9, 2024 at 9:56 am

    The amazing part here is how the narrator manages to sound so much like the ‘father John’ character of the Carousel of Progress and Horizons.

  25. @NomadicNaturePhotographer

    June 10, 2024 at 3:55 pm

    Of course. That’s why absolutely all people crowning themselves as _”futurists”_ are blistering idiots. *No one* can _EVER_ successfully predict the Future – I mean sure, we can pretty easily get _some_ details right here and there, that’s easy!! But – getting *the entire picture* right, regarding what everyday life would be like 30, 40 or 50 years from now?? *Absolutely NO ONE* can *EVER* do that.

  26. @CitrianSnailBY

    June 10, 2024 at 3:55 pm

    Of course. That’s why absolutely all people crowning themselves as _”futurists”_ are blistering idiots. *No one* can _EVER_ successfully predict the Future – I mean sure, we can pretty easily get _some_ details right here and there, that’s easy!! But – getting *the entire picture* right, regarding what everyday life would be like 30, 40 or 50 years from now?? *Absolutely NO ONE* can *EVER* do that.

  27. @brettvalerybrett730

    June 12, 2024 at 9:27 am

    #futurlive ✨🌚

  28. @Derpy1969

    June 16, 2024 at 4:02 pm

    Cronkite didn’t predict anything. He just reported what others told him.

  29. @TSBII

    June 17, 2024 at 4:26 pm

    OK kids, up next, Edgar Cayce followed by Nostradamus!

    • @AnglophobiaIsevil7

      June 19, 2024 at 4:58 pm

      Ok but cayce did do some pretty spooky stuff.

    • @CoperliteConsumer

      June 19, 2024 at 4:58 pm

      Ok but cayce did do some pretty spooky stuff.

    • @TSBII

      June 19, 2024 at 5:32 pm

      @@AnglophobiaIsevil7 No bouta doubta it! The great lakes spilling over into the Gulf of Mexico when the polar reversal happens etc. etc.

    • @TSBII

      June 19, 2024 at 5:32 pm

      @@CoperliteConsumer No bouta doubta it! The great lakes spilling over into the Gulf of Mexico when the polar reversal happens etc. etc.

  30. @ManuFortis

    June 18, 2024 at 5:17 am

    Here’s a future prediction for you all.

    While there will be some ups and downs in the economy, making this progress difficult, in about 50 years from today, June 18th, 2024; it will be common place for every household to have power generating capabilities about about 48KWH per day via a mix of bifacial solar panels capable of 1.5KWH and 1KWH per face respective to the suns direction, and miniaturized impeller based wind turbine ‘air channels’ installed into roof tops as part of the ventilation and power generation systems for it as well. Between both of these systems, every home will generally be electrified via this method and battery backup included using improved upon solid state battery systems, likely using titanium and lithium, though other possibilities could occur. That one seems most promising though.

    This is all based on the current trajectory of our current technology, the progress we are currently making technologically both in improvisations, and efficiency increases. Households that use gas use it mostly only because electric would be too expensive otherwise. Or something in that ball park. But with the cost of solar constantly keeping on a downward trend while increasing in power production capability via some method or another thus far, it’s not unreasonable to expect the current maximums available for industrial use (the good stuff) to eventually become available to the mass public, and we already can achieve 750wh and about 560-600 per face of bifacial style roughly speaking. There are caveats, like effeciency at certain heat loads, etc and so forth. But the amount of power we can produce has been going up every single year this past 15 years or so. Wasn’t long ago the max was hitting about 400w.

    Meanwhile for wind power, there are a bunch of new methods coming around for making wind generation more feasible on roof tops of homes and other buildings. Even if these loads are smaller, if they can keep the lights running to let the solar and any other power production be used for everything else, that’s a win. If you can power more, all the better. Once again, methods will progress in making this more viable for the typical consumer.

    And with battery tech constantly being worked on, it’s only a matter of time before the best solutions available and nearly scaleable become available to the mass market as well. Once the danger of most lithium based solutions is dealt with via solid state batteries, and the power issue is solved with ideas like using titanium (apparently) with lithium; we will likely see an energy revolution with most homes having the ability to collect their months power requirements in about as little as 1 days worth of sunshine if the sun shined all day.

    And I’m basing that off my power usage when I have all my toys going, to help account for families where there might be similar levels of usage. Perhaps more. Maybe less.

    The major barrier to this coming true as said, is finding reliable sources of the resources needed for these materials, so that global trade isn’t required, because like it or not, working with other countries sometimes means putting up with stuff you don’t like; unless you can change that. And that has consequences too. So finding reliable local sources will be paramount, along with building the industries to supply the infrastructure and products required to make it happen.

    That’s not going to take just one or two decades. That’s gonna be a 50+ year project.

    Why this matters? Well, not to toot the horn of the people who proclaim our doom at the hands of climate and such; but there is a benefit to making their preferred change. Self reliance. With all this becoming easier to put into smaller and smaller devices as well, like those portable solar charging units, it makes it much easier for people to spread out into the rest of the world, removing a lot of the harm that comes from people all being in the same place. That ranges from the psychological, to physical, to ecological, and more. Most of the reason we tend to stick to singular locations like cities, is because that’s where all the infrastructure for the ‘good life’ is at.

    But if you can take most of that with you?

    What then?

    My secondary prediction based off this one: We will see a resurgence in the pioneering spirit once again, as the previous tundra regions and otherwise ‘too north to live’ areas of places like Canada, or even Russia as a whole for instance, will become more liveable and able to made into homes for the many more people that will come over the decades, whether through birth, or immigration.

    Land is cheap, if you don’t mind being in the sticks. If you can bring easy power generation, access to internet maybe, and have ways to filter water and store it for use later; you have all the things you need to start a homestead. Just build the house, the barn, the garage/shop; start a garden and get raising some animals. From there, it’s all about what you want to do and what you need to do for your given locale. No more being tied to pipes and power lines.

    This can technically be done today, though at great cost and inconvenience if you want to actually have real power producing capability. But in 10 years, 20, 30?

    I imagine in 30 it will be reasonably feasible. In 50, everyone will have this as an option somehow, if they don’t already have it setup a decade prior. Gas usage will become industrial use mostly only, with rare use case scenarios where it still just doesn’t make sense to switch over yet. Whatever those might be, where ever they might be.

  31. @AnglophobiaIsevil7

    June 19, 2024 at 4:55 pm

    Did he predict the collapse of America’s economy due insane real estate laws and the absolute vampirism of Wall Street on the middle class? Or rather what was the middle class. (There basically isn’t a middle class anymore since home ownership doesn’t exist now).

  32. @CoperliteConsumer

    June 19, 2024 at 4:55 pm

    Did he predict the collapse of America’s economy due insane real estate laws and the absolute vampirism of Wall Street on the middle class? Or rather what was the middle class. (There basically isn’t a middle class anymore since home ownership doesn’t exist now).

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Popular Science

I Traveled 8,000 Miles For The Camera That Killed Polaroid

Nearly 50 years ago, the Polavision camera blended Polaroid’s revolutionary instant film with on-demand home video – and the result was a landmark advance in analog technology that would become a mystery of science and a winding international journey into vintage tech. Because now, generations after Edwin Land bet his half-century legacy of innovation and…

Published

on

Nearly 50 years ago, the Polavision camera blended Polaroid’s revolutionary instant film with on-demand home video – and the result was a landmark advance in analog technology that would become a mystery of science and a winding international journey into vintage tech.

Because now, generations after Edwin Land bet his half-century legacy of innovation and the company he founded on the success of the Polavision, I need to figure out how to get the thing to work… and only one man in the world could help me.

I traveled to Vienna, Austria to meet Florian “Doc” Kaps – the man behind ‘The Impossible Project’ that saved Polaroid from the dustbin of history. With his guidance and his private store of old Polaroid video tapes, perhaps I would be able to record a modern YouTube video with my vintage Polavision camera.

Through it all, Doc immersed me into his world of analog technology and the philosophy behind his mission to re-integrate analog into our daily lives. We cut lacquer records, we felt the fires of an analog restaurant, and we spent too much time trying to resurrect a relic of the past – because technology, vintage and modern, is all about people.

#polaroid #analog #vintagetech #history #cameras #documentary

Continue Reading

Popular Science

We Mapped a Fly’s BRAIN

A global team of 287 researchers have combined over 100 terabytes of data to create a full map of a fruit fly’s brain, which includes 139,255 individual neurons and 50 million connections. Popular Science, “Scientists mapped every neuron of an adult animal’s brain for the first time”: #science #sciencefacts #weirdscience #biology #research

Published

on

A global team of 287 researchers have combined over 100 terabytes of data to create a full map of a fruit fly’s brain, which includes 139,255 individual neurons and 50 million connections.

Popular Science, “Scientists mapped every neuron of an adult animal’s brain for the first time”:

#science #sciencefacts #weirdscience #biology #research

Continue Reading

Popular Science

What if you CAN’T BURP?!

Some people can’t burp… at all. It’s called Retrograde Cricopharyngeus Dysfunction, and RCD makes life seriously uncomfortable — both physically and socially. There’s an easy, increasingly popular medical fix that unlocks the power of the belch, and it’s actually changing lives. Popular Science: #medical #sciencefacts #science #scienceandtechnology

Published

on

Some people can’t burp… at all. It’s called Retrograde Cricopharyngeus Dysfunction, and RCD makes life seriously uncomfortable — both physically and socially.

There’s an easy, increasingly popular medical fix that unlocks the power of the belch, and it’s actually changing lives.

Popular Science:

#medical #sciencefacts #science #scienceandtechnology

Continue Reading

Trending