Here is prediction made in 1908, which is quoted today in TierneyLab:
http://tierneylab.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/12/31/2008-2108-prediction-contest/index.html?hp
"When the expectations of wireless experts are realized everyone will
have his own pocket telephone and may be called wherever he happens
to be. . . . The citizen of the wireless age will walk abroad with a
receiving apparatus compactly arranged in his hat and tuned to that
one of myriad vibrations by which he has chosen be called. . . . .
When that invention is perfected, we shall have a new series of daily
miracles."
In his book "How the World Was One" Arthur C. Clarke quoted a similar
statement:
"There is no doubt that the day will come, maybe when you and I are
forgotten, when copper wires, gutta-percha coverings, and iron
sheathings will be relegated to the Museum of Antiquities. Then, when
a person wants to telegraph to a friend, he knows not where, he will
call an electromagnetic voice, which will be heard loud by him who
has the electromagnetic ear, but will be silent to everyone else. He
will call 'Where are you?' and the reply will come, 'I am at the
bottom of the coal-mine' or 'Crossing the Andes' or 'In the middle of
the Pacific'; or perhaps no reply will come at all, and he may then
conclude that his friend is dead."
- Electrical engineer W. E. Ayrton, 1897
This is enchanting prose, but from the modern quotidian perspective
we would conclude that our friend is in the bathroom, or that we
forgot about he is another time zone, and asleep. When the fellow
doesn't answer his e-mail for a week, we might conclude he is dead.
- Jed
