Friday, December 31, 2010

Welcome to the year 0+1*2345*6/7-8+9




2011 is a Prime number and is the sum of 11 consecutive primes.

The next prime date is 2/2/2011


Here are a few 80 year old predictions that were accurate:

Physicist and Nobel laureate Arthur Compton's prediction from 1931 was pretty dead on:
With better communication national boundaries will gradually cease to have their present importance. Because of racial differences a world union cannot be expected within eighty years. The best adjustment that we can hope for to this certain change would seem to be the voluntary union of neighboring nations under a centralized government of continental size.
It's not quite there yet, but there certainly has been some movement in that direction. There is much better communication, and more widespread travel between countries. Europe and the EU certainly demonstrates -- to a limited extent -- his prediction of a voluntary union of neighboring nations with a centralized government of continental size.


Sociologist William F. Ogburn,  prediction froms 1931 were also impressive.
Technological progress, with its exponential law of increase, holds the key to the future. Labor displacement will proceed even to automatic factories. The magic of remote control will be commonplace. Humanity’s most versatile servant will be the electron tube. The communication and transportation inventions will smooth out regional differences and level us in some respects to uniformity. But the heterogeneity of material culture will mean specialists and languages that only specialists can understand. The countryside will be transformed by technology and farmers will be more like city folk. There will be fewer farmers, more wooded land with wild life. Personal property in mechanical conveniences will be greatly extended. Some of these will be needed to prop up the weak who will survive.

Inevitable technological progress and abundant natural resources yield a higher standard of living. Poverty will be eliminated and hunger as a driving force of revolution will not be a danger. Inequality of income and problems of social justice will remain. Crises of life will be met by insurance.

The role of government is bound to grow. Technicians and special interest groups will leave only a shell of democracy. The family cannot be destroyed but will be less stable in the early years of married life, divorce being greater than now. The lives of woman will be more like those of men, spent more outside the home. The principle of expediency will be the dominating one in law and ethics.

Thanks to Jonathan Vos Post for the Math parts of this post.

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