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Why Be Creative? - Part 1

Late in 1957, a group of twenty-four working scientists were asked to predict what they thought our world would be like in twenty years. The scientists represented different industries and came from different parts of the country. They were, for all practical purposes, men who are actually shaping the "world of tomorrow" for us. Here are some of the predictions they agreed upon for the year 1977:

Any new house built will have an all-metal framing with a plas­tic exterior. Interior lighting in houses will be full-wall or full-ceiling. An interior color scheme will be changed by turning a dial. The house will require practically no upkeep, because it will be built and furnished with nearly indestructible materials. And it will be heated by an atomic-reactor furnace.

People in 1977 will be wearing clothes much different from what we are used to today. They will be either one-trip disposable garments or, for a permanent wardrobe, temperature-controlled year-round garments that can warm or cool the wearer as desired. And these permanent garments will be soil proofed.

Automobiles, said the scientists, will be crash proof, automatic-control models, powered by either wireless electricity or an exotic fuel—a thankful of which will last all year. Roads will be snow-proofed for year-round safer driving. Almost every family will have a second car that converts to either an airplane or a helicop­ter. However, if a person is really in a hurry to get somewhere, the prediction was that he will be able to take an atomic-reactor air­liner which will get him there at 2,500 miles an hour.

They predicted that by 1977 everyone will be making tele­phone calls over private-line TV sets, and that the family TV will have a screen covering one whole wall of the room and be in both color and 3D.

On the questions of diet and health, these predictions were made: individual diets will include fresh meat and vegetables which will be stored in cupboards—no refrigerators or freezers will be needed. A large portion of every person's diet will be made up of synthetic foods, grown in the mass-production version of test tubes. Every infant born will be vaccinated against the com­mon cold. However, they also pointed out, there is a good possi­bility that the atmosphere, at least in our cities, will be virus-free in the first place, so a person's chances of catching a cold will be greatly reduced. If anything goes wrong with an individual's heart, kidneys, or other vital organ, the organ can be replaced. Both heart disease and cancer will be eliminated as killers.

A few other predictions: a lawn will stay green even through the driest part of the summer. Grass will grow to a height of about 1% inches and will never need mowing. The droughts in some areas will no longer be problems, because we will be making fresh water out of the ocean. The newest military weapon in 1977, they predicted, will be a superray or disintegrating gun, and everyone will have more time to worry about the Russians using it first, because the thirty-hour work week will be universal.

It is important to remember that the men making these predic­tions were not science-fiction writers, nor were they the publicity men of giant corporations. They had all spent years acquiring knowledge and experience in research and product development and were actively engaged in those pursuits at that time. This, of course, made their predictions quite interesting. In retrospect, however, those scientific guesses become even more interesting. The predictions were all based on a future twenty years away. But less than fifteen months later, the following things had hap­pened:

A national magazine reported that four manufacturers were in production with "electroluminescent" lamps—metal panels that gave off light and could be made to glow "in any color of the rain­bow." One company, Sylvania, was reported to have produced over 300,000 of these panels for radio and telephone dials, bedside clocks, house numbers, thermometers, light switches, and airplane seat-belt signs.

Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company received na­tional publicity for their development of a 5-pound atomic reactor that could produce electricity directly from atomic energy, with a companion "heat pump" that operated from the electrical power so produced. The company admitted that they were probably ten years away from having a "commercially usable" product, but they had "high hopes" for their new development.

It was reported that a major airline had begun to treat all the uniforms worn by their stewardesses with a new chemical stain repellent and that, as a result, their monthly dry-cleaning bills were running only a sixth of what they had been previously.

General Motors introduced their new experimental car, "Fire­bird III," across the country, and made a great point of showing the equipment that would permit the car to be guided automati­cally on an "electronic highway" which was then being tested.

A large chemical-products company had a display board in their research center with packages of meat and vegetables that had been there for six months at room temperature without visible deterioration, because they had been irradiated with the gamma rays produced by spent nuclear materials.

And another chemical producer devoted a full summer to field testing a chemical grass inhibitor on one of our large Eastern turnpikes.

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