title: Predictions: Thirty Great Minds on the Future (Popular Science)
author: Sian Griffiths
description: The near future--viewed, in the instance of this 2000 book, as the rest of the 21st century--may turn out to be awful. Prognosticators well known and obscure have envisioned dark times of war, famine, plague, and want; of humans ruled by machines, in servitude to the global economy; of disappearing ecosystems and countless lost species.
zlib_text: 
  
  
  
  
  
  ![](images/00047.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![](images/00053.jpg)
  
    
  
  > [Cover](Physics_of_the_Future_How_Scien_split_000.html#filepos234)
  
  > [Title Page](Physics_of_the_Future_How_Scien_split_001.html#filepos357)
  
  > [Copyright](Physics_of_the_Future_How_Scien_split_002.html#filepos485)
  
  > [Dedication](Physics_of_the_Future_How_Scien_split_003.html#filepos2920)
  
  >
  > [ACKNOWLEDGMENTS](Physics_of_the_Future_How_Scien_split_005.html#filepos8314)
  
  > [INTRODUCTION:
  
  
  Predicting the Next
  
  
  100
  
  
  Years
  
  > ![](images/00055.jpg)[ FUTURE OF THE COMPUTER:
  
  
  Mind over Matter
  
  > ![](images/00058.jpg)[ FUTURE OF AI:
  
  
  Rise of the Machines
  
  > ![](images/00043.jpg)[ FUTURE OF MEDICINE:
  
  
  Perfection and Beyond
  
  > ![](images/00063.jpg)[ NANOTECHNOLOGY:
  
  
  Everything from Nothing?
  
  > ![](images/00008.jpg)[ FUTURE OF ENERGY:
  
  
  Energy from the Stars
  
  > ![](images/00012.jpg)[ FUTURE OF SPACE TRAVEL:
  
  
  To the Stars
  
  > ![](images/00019.jpg)[ FUTURE OF WEALTH:
  
  
  Winners and Losers
  
  > ![](images/00025.jpg)[ FUTUR