| What has SF NOT predicted?
It was recently brought to my attention that no SF author accurately predicted the live televising of our first Moon landing. (Supposedly Heinlein predicted it would be possible, but that the equipment would be too heavy to be brought on a Moon mission.)
It was then suggested that no SF author accurately predicted the reigning-in of our space program after the Moon landings, leaving us with unmanned probes, no lunar settlements, and no further human visitations to any other planets by 2000.
I've done some light research, and as far as I can determine, no SF author predicted the lowly transistor before its discovery at Bell Labs in 1947. Although its cousin, the semiconductor crystal, was demonstrated as early as 1906, no one made the "quantum leap" beyond the technology of vacuum tubes to solid-state transistors until Bell developed the first device out of numerous studies and patents, some of which had been around for decades. SF stories of incredibly-miniaturized "transistorized" electronics all appear to have come after that.
Does anyone know EITHER of any refutations to the above examples, OR of any other modern developments that were not predicted by SF writers? |