I read an article (CNN, I think) about how science fiction misled us about the future. We don't have flying cars and jet packs (thank goodness), we don't live in apartment buildings high in the sky on thin posts, etc...
What's odd is what the articles fail to point out. Who would have guessed the instant contact and wealth of information and processing power at our finger tips? In Heinlein's Spaceman Jones, Jones computes complex functions to travel hyperspace based on mathematical tables he has memorized. It confused me when I was younger why they didn't use a computer.
They didn't use a computer because it was inconceivable that a computer would be small enough to fit in a spaceship and fast enough to handle real-time calculations.
This happens in several science fiction stories all the way into the 1970's.
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