Predictions - Failed or Realized?

There have been many future predictions which never really panned out - some by well-known people. The Disovery Channel gathers together a few of these famous mistakes.

• "Man will not fly for 50 years." - Wilbur Wright, co-inventor of the airplane, 1901
• "The more important fundamental laws and facts of physical science have all been discovered, and these are now so firmly established that the possibility of their ever being supplanted in consequence of new discoveries is exceedingly remote." - Physicist Albert A. Michelson, 1894
• "By 2000, politics will simply fade away. We will not see any political parties." - Inventor R. Buckminster Fuller, 1966
• "By the turn of this century, we will live in a paperless society." - General Motors chairman Roger Smith, 1986
• ...read more

But despite past failures, we keep predicting.The latest Discovery Channel series NextWorld reveals the science, the inventions and the innovations that seem impossible now, but will be a reality in our lifetimes. Imagine cities under the oceans, bionic suits, space tourism, superspeed trains, cyborg moths, windships, hoverbikes, somatic sensors, virtual reality, people living to 150 years old -- these may be just the dreams of today but they will shape the NextWorld.