2010: Living in the Future, a Children's Picture Book from 1972

On twitter, Maud linked to 2010: Living in the Future, a children's book about what life might be like today, originally published in 1972. It's fantastic, in more ways than one. For instance, I wish the idea featured on these two pages were true:

It is very easy and cheap to travel by air. The airplanes are very small and very fast. They seat thirty people and fly them through the sky at over 4,000 miles per hour.

Seats are not reserved in advance. You just climb aboard. It is just like the town bus service.

And I'll be first in line to install a kitchen like this one:

Now you are up and dressed it is time to go to the kitchen for breakfast. On one wall of the kitchen there is a cooking unit, made up of small ovens, refrigerators, deep freezers, and cold-storage compartments. All the cooking is done automatically. It is controlled electronically by a small built-in computer. There is a control panel to work the cooker. It looks like a typewriter, with rows of numbered and lettered keys. To order breakfast, you spell out what you want on the control panel.

All the cooking is done automatically! Where, oh where have we gone wrong? We're also more than a bit behind in the availability of electronic books although I think our flawed e-readers are already better than the giant ones featured in the book:

A very popular room is the library. There are no books. The floor is shaped into tables and benches. Built into these tables are hundreds of vision phones. The books, films, and newspapers are all stored in the library computer.

First you dial the library index. This file contains all the books that have ever been written. It does not matter whether they were first written in Chinese or French. They will be here, translated into English. There is also an index of films and newspapers. You could spend all day watching comics, but it wouldn’t be a good idea.

To select the book you wish to read, you dial the book’s number. The first page appears on your screen. You can turn the pages backward or forward by using buttons on the vision phone.

If you are halfway through a book and you have to leave, there is no reason why you can’t finish it when you get home. You can dial the library and the book number from home and go on with your reading.

Comments

[Kerry Clare]

I love that no one ever thought that there might be a vision phone you could take with you. Ursula Leguin mentions something similar in a recent interview in Room magazine-- that characters in old sci-fi books would seek out amazing payphones with screens built in, but nobody ever envisaged a world without payphones at all.

[Tonya Harmon]

How funny to read this now. In 1972 I remember imagining that one day travel would be by magnets - you would get on and off a track and be pulled along by magnetic forces.

I also came up with the idea of hot and cold water pills - just plop one in a cup and you would have instant hot or cold water.

And band aids of different skin colors. That one was invented years later.

[Steph]

I remember reading that comment, too, K. Wasn't she talking about the payphones in Blade Runner?

Well there's your next next business, T. Those hot and cold water pills.

I once thought I invented the dishwasher. Only it already existed. I just didn't know about it.