Archibald Montgomery Low made many accurate predictions about life in 2025, such as traveling by escalator or waking up with an alarm clock.
Archibald Low (right) lectured on the topic of science and the future in London in November 1948. Image: Findmypast
When English professor Archibald Montgomery Low predicted “a day in the life of future man” 100 years ago, some of his predictions were considered “too imaginative”. He listed such “horrors” as being awakened by a radio alarm clock, communicating using a personal radio set, having breakfast with news over loudspeakers and summaries of events on TV, going grocery shopping. Shopping by escalators and moving sidewalks.
The team from online service Findmypast unearthed material about Low’s predictions from its vast digital archive of newspapers. They included them in an online collection of other people’s predictions about 2025 a century ago.
Low was born in 1888. He was an engineer, research physicist, inventor and author. He pioneered in many fields, invented the first motorized drone, contributed to the development of television, and was known as the “father of radio navigation systems” thanks to his contributions to airplanes and fishing boats. torpedoes, guided missiles. It is even said that he was the target of at least two unsuccessful assassination plots by the Germans.
100 years after Low published the book The Futuremany of his predictions have come true. Others, including the prediction that people would use hats and one-piece synthetic fleece suits, were not so accurate. Some other outlandish fantasies include lighting the streets with herbs, using electrically charged water jets to replace cavalry, and electrical communication between brains.
In 1925, he predicted that home radio speakers and “TV sets” would replace “picture newspapers” – or traditional paper newspapers – to provide information and entertainment content on demand. He also predicted that in the future, people will be able to access global broadcasting with just the click of a button and use secret cameras and eavesdropping devices to catch criminals.
He predicted the use of sidewalks and moving stairs, essentially today’s escalators and walking carousels, as well as “automated telephones” with the benefit of always dialing the correct number, as opposed to rotary phones. numbers in the 1920s. The prediction that women wearing pants became the norm and that prenatal sex determination was also very accurate.
The massive investment in offshore wind and solar power in recent years appears to fulfill the prophecy that “wind and tides will be harnessed to serve humanity”. In addition, “life will be much easier thanks to the use of machines to do all the hard, unpleasant work” has also come true.
Low predicts that people will be woken up on time thanks to radio alarm clocks set to receive a specific signal at the time the person wants to wake up. Before automatic alarms, a “door knocker” would wake people up for work in the early morning. The door knocker went from house to house and knocked on the windows with a long wooden stick. This continued in Britain into the 1940s and 1950s.
Another prediction, that every morning people will enjoy a moment of radio light therapy or massage to stay fit and alert for work, also seems to hold true with today’s health and wellness trends. “It’s amazing that a century ago, a scientist with foresight could predict how new technologies – then in their infancy – would change the world by 2025,” said Jen Baldwin, Research expert at Findmypast, commented.