Scientist’s ‘ruthlessly imaginative’ 1925 predictions for the future come true – mostly • Prof Low anticipated home speakers and gender neutral clothing, but missed his mark on herb-based street lighting

Submission statement:

This is about a bunch of predictions made in the 1920s, one hundred years ago, by scientist and inventor Prof Archibald Montgomery Low. I’m making a list of them for your convenience here:

* being woken by radio alarm clock
* communications “by personal radio set”
* “automatic telephones” with the benefit of getting the right number every time
* breakfasting “with loudspeaker news and television glimpses of events”
* home loudspeakers and “a television machine” would replace newspapers – for information and on demand entertainment
* shopping by moving stairways and moving pavements.
* women in trousers becoming the norm
* sex determination before birth
* wind and tide are also to be harnessed to the service of man
* each morning people would enjoy a few moments radio light treatment or massage in order to keep fit and alert for the day’s business
* life is to be made far easier by the use of machinery that will do all the heavy and disagreeable work
* illuminating streets by herbs
* jets of electrically charged water to replace cavalry
* mind-to-mind electrical communication
* everyone would be wearing synthetic felt one-piece suits and hats
* it would be centuries before women approach men in intelligence and then only when they take on men’s physical characteristics.