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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Science
Caroline Davies

FORGOTTEN HISTORY: Scientist s ruthlessly imaginative 1925 predictions for the future come true mostly - The Untold Story

Findmypast
Archibald Low gives a lecture on the topic of science and the future for the visitors to a London pub in November 1948.
Archibald Low (right) gives a lecture on the topic of science and the future for the visitors to a London pub in November 1948. Photograph: Findmypast

When the scientist and inventor Prof Archibald Montgomery Low predicted “a day in the life of a man of the future” one century ago, his prophecies were sometimes dismissed as “ruthlessly imaginative”.

They included, reported the London Daily News in 1925, “such horrors” as being woken by radio alarm clock; communications “by personal radio set”; breakfasting “with loudspeaker news and television glimpses of events”; shopping by moving stairways and moving pavements.

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