This foolish idea of shooting at the moon is an example of the absurd length to which vicious specialization will carry scientists working in thought-tight compartments. Let us critically examine the proposal. For a projectile entirely to escape the gravitation of the earth, it needs a velocity of 7 miles a second. The thermal energy of a gramme at this speed is 15,180 calories. ... The energy of our most violent explosive—nitroglycerine—is less than 1,500 calories per gramme. Consequently, even had the explosive nothing to carry, it has only one-tenth of the energy necessary to escape the earth. ... Hence the proposition appears to be basically impossible. ...
During the last few months of World War II, the Germans surprised the world with a V-2 rocket, which they fired from the Continent to England. This naturally raised the possibility that an intercontinental missile might be built which could he fired in Europe to destroy American cities. Dr. Vannevar Bush, who was head of the United States scientific war effort, testified before a Senate Committee on December 3, 1945:
There has been a great deal said about a 3,000 miles high-angle rocket. In my opinion such a thing is impossible for many years. The people who have been writing these things that annoy me, have been talking about a 3,000 mile high-angle rocket shot from one continent to another, carrying an atomic bomb and so directed as to be a precise weapon which would land exactly on a certain target, such as a city.
I say, technically, I don’t think anyone in the world knows how to do such a thing, and I feel confident that it will not be done for a very long period of time to come. ... I think we can leave that out of our thinking. I wish the American public would leave that out of their thinking.
Slightly over a decade after this expert delivered his words of wisdom, there were intercontinental missiles in actual production, and the Russians had Sputnik I orbiting the earth!
Arthur C. Clarke in his excellent book Profiles of the Future (and to whom we are indebted for the examples of predictions given in this chapter) wrote:
Too great a burden of knowledge can clog the wheels of imagination; I have tried to embody this fact of observation in Clarke’s Law, which may be formulated as follows:
When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.
Perhaps the adjective “elderly” requires definition. In physics, mathematics, and astronautics it means over thirty; in the other disciplines, senile decay is sometimes postponed to the forties. There are, of course, glorious exceptions; but as every researcher just out of college knows, scientists of over fifty are good for nothing but board meetings, and should at all costs be kept out of the laboratory!
Arthur C. Clarke, Profiles of the Future (New York: Harper & Row 1964), p. 14.
Men Who Scored
There have been many men who have been successful in making remarkably accurate predictions of the future. Leonardo da Vinci possessed the necessary combination of imagination and nerve. Jules Verne, in the last century, gave us fantastic predictions, almost all of which have become present-day realities. Thorsten Veblen was able to foresee economic and social trends far in advance of their occurrence. H. G. Wells encompassed, at least in outline, the inevitability of a world society essentially based upon scientific, rather than political, orientation.
Anyone who doubts the possibility of long-range prediction might well consider the statements of Friar Roger Bacon, who lived between 1214 and 1294. These words were written at a time when science and technology as we know them were non-existent:
Instruments may be made by which the largest ships, with only one man guiding them, will be carried with greater velocity than if they were full of sailors. Chariots may be constructed that will move with incredible rapidity without the help of animals. Instruments of flying may be formed in which a man, sitting at his ease and meditating in any subject, may beat the air with his artificial wings after the manner of birds ... as also machines which will enable men to walk at the bottom of the seas. ...
Perhaps the only thing we can be sure about when predicting the future is that it will sound utterly fantastic. It will be enormously different from anything that we regard as “natural” or “right.” If our predictions in this book seem plausible to you, we have probably failed to see far enough ahead. If our projection of the future seems completely impossible and utterly fantastic, there is a possibility that we may be on the right track.
How We Predict the Future
As we pointed out in the first chapter, we have not been able to find a crystal ball we consider reliable for predicting the future. We have, instead, developed a method of analysis which we wish to set forth clearly. If you agree with the method by which we will attempt to predict some of the features of our twenty-first century civilization, perhaps you will then find some of the revolutionary conclusions more acceptable.
It is our hypothesis that there are three important factors that will greatly influence the evolution of our civilization. They are:
The values, purposes, and ideals toward which man is striving.
The method of thinking that we use to select our courses of action.
The state of technology, or, what sort of tools are available to help us do what we want to do.
In the next three chapters we are going to discuss each of these three factors that we believe will generate the future shape of our civilization.
