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The future is an obsession of industrial age. For it could help to anticipate competition in economics or world politics to be one step ahead. If forecasts of future were particularly marked by fascination at beginning of 20th century, y turned into a field with scientific aspirations after Second World War. As early as end of 1940s, Rand Corporation, great US Thinktank for future research, developed all important methods that are still in use today: Expert, Delphi Studies, creating scenarios, and extending Trends.
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At same time, genre of science fiction matured to full bloom. While future researchers were soberly arguing with data, science fiction authors had to invent comprehensible future living worlds to captivate ir audiences. An astonishing feedback was developed between vision and research. Futuristic ideas inspired young engineers to explore wher y might not be feasible. The hinged communication device of Star Trek crew, “communicator”, was inspired 30 years later, when Motorola brought a surprisingly similar designed clamshell phone to market – and called it “Startac” as well.
The mobile phone, on or hand, is a device that was surprisingly long overlooked apart from Star Trek series and John Brunner’s novel The Shock Schockwellenreiter by science fiction writers. Even future researchers were often wrong with ir predictions, but sometimes also surprisingly correct. One can draw wise conclusions from present.
In age of onset of climate change and dwindling resources, employment with future gets a different explosiveness. A “So it could come” is becoming more and more often a “so it should come” if a sustainable civilization is to succeed. Time knowledge has asked three experts to look at future: one who makes m, one who researches m, and one who designs m.
