Visions of Tomorrow: Science Fiction Predictions That Came True
Long before movies like Minority Report and The Matrix, the world’s writers have been recording the future as it might exist—and as it turns out, they were right. This bizarre anthology collects the most stunning predictions and imagined inventions here for the first time. Visions of Tomorrow includes “The Land Iron Clads” by H. G. Wells, who described a military tank in 1903—long before it was ever a possibility; “The Yesterday House” by Fritz Leiber, who writes about cloned humans; “Reason” by Isaac Asimov, who predicted solar power could be harnessed by satellites; and many more.
The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail — but Some Don't
Drawing on his own groundbreaking work, Silver examines the world of prediction, investigating how we can distinguish a true signal from a universe of noisy data. Most predictions fail, often at great cost to society, because most of us have a poor understanding of probability and uncertainty. Both experts and laypeople mistake more confident predictions for more accurate ones. But overconfidence is often the reason for failure. If our appreciation of uncertainty improves, our predictions can get better too. This is the “prediction paradox”: The more humility we have about our ability to make predictions, the more successful we can be in planning for the future.
“The Limits to Growth”generated unprecedented controversy with its predictions of the eventual collapse of the world's economies. First hailed as a great advance in science, “The Limits to Growth” was subsequently rejected and demonized.
However, with many national economies now at risk and global peak oil apparently a reality, the methods, scenarios, and predictions of “The Limits to Growth” are in great need of reappraisal.
Future Babble: Why Expert Predictions Fail - and Why We Believe Them Anyway
In Future Babble, award-winning journalist Dan Gardner presents landmark research debunking the whole expert prediction industry and explores our obsession with the future. In 2008, as the price of oil surged above $140 a barrel, experts said it would soon hit $200; it then plunged to $30. In 1967, they said the USSR would be the worlds fastest-growing economy by 2000; by 2000, the USSR no longer existed. In 1911, it was pronounced that there would be no more wars in Europe - we all know how that turned out.
Apocalypse When?: Calculating How Long the Human Race Will SurviveThis book will be a key trailblazer in a new and upcoming field. The author’s predictive approach relies on simple and intuitive probability formulations that will appeal to readers with a modest knowledge of astronomy, mathematics, and statistics. Wells’ carefully erected theory stands on a sure footing and thus should serve as the basis of many rational predictions of survival in the face of natural disasters such as hits by asteroids or comets in the coming years.
