Top 10 Authors Who Predicted Future And Were Right

Science fiction writers undoubtedly have different kind of minds. They always try to think and write something that’s beyond imagination for an ordinary man. Predicting the future has always been a popular and favorite topic among them. Most of the writers were wrong but few of them were terribly accurate. They were so accurate that people sometimes called them modern day prophets. These are 10 authors who predicted future –

10. Mary Shelley

Novel: Frankenstein (1818)

Frankenstein is now considered as horrifying science fiction story. But it was actually based on the science of its time. There was rage among people during 1800s who were experimenting with human organs. Even a controversial Italian scientist known as Galvani believed that life force is identical to electricity. Mary Shelly‘s book literally predicted things like organs transplant that became reality many years after the book.

Her idea of passing current through a dead body to bring back to life was also pretty much accurate. That idea can still be found in today’s science, for example experiments with electrodes stimulating the spinal cord of paralyzed patients.

9. Jonathan Swift

Novel: Gulliver’s Travels (1726)

Swift is known for writing satires and his Gulliver’s Travels is among the most popular novels in literature. He is one of the several authors who predicted future. Unlike other writers in this list he was not a sci-fi lover.

But he may have unintentionally predicted one thing in his book, where Gulliver was on the island on Laputa and astronomers saw that mars has two moons in its orbit. Nearly a century later his one minute description turns out to be true in real life.

8. Douglas Adams

Novel: The hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (1979)

He perhaps predicted many things about galaxy which were not confirmed to be true when he wrote about it. One thing that he accurately predicted was a real-time translation between two different languages through a Babel fish. We might not have a fish to do that task but our Smartphone apps can do the same.

7. John Brunner

Novel: Stand On Zanzibar (1969)

He visualized the America of 2010 under the leadership of President Oboma. The world population reached to 7 billion and overpopulation has its own side effects. Major impact of enormous population is social stress, extremism and social division.

He also revealed many futuristic concepts, products and services. He accurately predicted the major innovation of this time include Electric cars, direct TV and Laser printers. Brunner rightfully stands at number six in our list of top 10 authors who predicted future.

6. Martin Caidin

Novel: Cyborg (1972)

This book tells the story of Steve Austin, who experiences a crash during flight. Leaving him with destroyed limb, blind in one eye and other minor injuries. A secret branch of government working on bionics field shows interest in him and replaces his body parts with mechanical prosthetic parts that were more powerful than original ones.

Now this concept has already become reality. People are even working on mechanical exoskeletons to enhance the human abilities that cannot be achieved by our organic body parts.

5. William Gibson

Novel: Neuromancer (1984)

Williams Gibson – one of the authors who predicted future, was a future visionary. He predicted Internet that has now become reality, obviously. But he also predicted things like virtual reality that’s maybe the next big thing going to happen in this decade. We already have seen VR headsets that are going to revolutionize the entertainment industries. He even predicted Google glass in 1980s.

4. Jules Verne

Novel: From Earth to the Moon (1865)

The major prediction was obviously the landing on the moon. But other than that he tried to do some rough calculations too. Considering the lack of any kind of data on the subject at his time, some of his figures are surprisingly close to reality. The material he chose to make capsule to launch human in space was aluminium, which is common now a days but it was pretty rare at that time.

The modern low cost process for producing aluminium was introduced 20 years after the book was written. He even accurately predicted the exact location of today’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida almost 100 years before.

3. C. Clarke

Novel: 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

This novel is absolute masterpiece; it deals with space exploration right before humanity landed on the moon. It tells about the human evolution from apes and the evolution that we might undergo in future. But the best predictions of this novel was HAL 9000, an artificially intelligent computer that’s quite similar to today’s SIRI, and an electrical newspaper which resembles the same features of today’s iPads and tablets. C. Clarke is one of the top 10 authors who predicted future.

2. H. G. Wells

Novel: The World Set Free (1913)

This man is believed to have brain of alien species. He is considered the father of science fiction for many reasons. Major reasons are his predictions and his thoughts about future that were incredibly accurate. Although many of his predictions are yet to become reality such as Invisible man, Time travel and Inter planetary warfare that he explained in different novels.

Predictions that already have become reality are Nuclear weapons, Moon landing, genetic engineering, lasers and World War II. His best known prediction is found in the book “The world set free” in which he described the destruction made by incredibly powerful bombs that now known as Atomic bombs. It’s scary to know, how these people predicted things so well. Were they some kind of time traveler or something? Who knows?

1. Hugo Gernsback

Novel: Ralph 124c 41+ (1911)

This masterpiece was written into 12 different parts and compelled into one novel in 1925. It is one of the most influential science fiction stories with horribly accurate predictions. Some successful predictions from this novel include television (and channel surfing), remote-control power transmission, the video phone, transcontinental air service , solar energy in practical use, sound movies, synthetic milk and foods, artificial cloth, voice printing, tape recorders, and spaceflight. It also contains the first accurate description of radar complete with diagram.