Here are some predictions quoted from Davos meetings:
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/24/AR2010012403399.html>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/24/AR2010012403399.html
I bring this up here because it demonstrates that so-called experts are often wrong. So it is not surprising they don't get cold fusion, and a lot of them don't even understand hybrid automobiles. To be more precise, I think these quotes demonstrate that:
1. Some subjects are beyond anyone's knowledge. There can be no experts in them. Predictions about the economy (2008, John Snow) probably fall in this category.
2. Some people who are considered experts do not deserve that title. In these examples, it turned out that Ken Lay (2001) was not a financial expert; he was a crook. And Colin Powell (2003) was no expert on political intelligence relating to Saddam Hussein. He probably is an expert on military intelligence, if anyone is, but that does not extend to politics or the intentions of leaders. Granted these are difficult subjects. Perhaps a leader's intention is an example of #1, because the leader himself does not know what he will do in the future.
By the way, I think Bill Gates (2004) was right and spam has been largely eliminated.
Out of all subjects, technology is the easiest thing to accurately predict the future, at least for the next 20 to 50 years. Things like politics, social trends, fundamental physics research, religion and so on are harder, because they are serendipitous and they largely depend on whimsey and imagination. The near-term limits to technology is mainly bounded by existing engineering limitations, which change only slowly. We already know what optimum hybrid automobile will be like, and approximately how much it will cost, even though hybrid technology is still in its early stages.
Very few people are good at predicting the future in any field. In my opinion, Arthur Clarke was the best in the last 150 years. Clarke said that Hugo Gernsback "thought of everything."
I have a book somewhere of predictions made in 1890 about a variety of subjects and how the future will be in 1990. The technical predictions made by Westinghouse and some other engineers were remarkably accurate. Ah, ha. Here is a paragraph about in a critique I wrote of Mark Mills (unrelated to Randell Mills):
. . . Mills tries to make George Westinghouse look foolish, by quoting him out of context. . . . Westinghouse wrote in 1893 that "a speed of 90 to 100 miles an hour could be secured with modern locomotives and with improvements which are sure to come." [D. Walter, Then And Now, (American and World Geographic Publishing, 1992)] He meant exactly what he said: locomotives in 1893 could go 100 mph. This was common knowledge. The point of his essay was that slower speeds are more economical and safer for various reasons, and he predicted that most trains would travel at 40 mph in the future. That turned out to be a little optimistic: most trains carry freight, and the national average speed is 30 mph. [Sources: CSX transportation, the Alaska Railroad, U.S. Department of Transportation.] It seems unlikely they will ever go faster. A few passenger trains in France and Japan have achieved straight track speeds as high as 160 mph. Their average speed in actual travel is much lower because of braking, the distance between stations, curves, and other factors that Westinghouse spelled out. They are powered by electricity, just as Westinghouse predicted.
. . . Mills says, "Westinghouse, in 1893, thought about travel in 1993 in terms of how fast trains might travel -- which he egregiously underestimated in any case. Others, not involved in the rail industry of 1893, foresaw a future enhanced by far faster and different forms of travel, including aviation, despite the fact that the Wright brothers' first historic flight was at that time a decade away." Westinghouse did not egregiously underestimate; he overestimated slightly. He was talking about ground-level locomotive drawn railroad trains, not aviation, automobiles, elevated trains, trolley cars or any other vehicle. He knew that lighter vehicles could safely attain faster speeds.
- Jed
