The next sixty years

It has been said that `Seers do better the further they gaze¿ but the scope for error in looking out over the next sixty years suggests that another saying might be more apposite: that `the one certain thing about future predictions is that they will be wrong¿. To add credibility to his projections the author takes a backward look to remind us of what has been achieved over the sixty years that have passed since the Institution was founded, with incidental reminders of what has not been achieved. The extrapolation of what will be seen, from the vantage point of A.D. 2047, as our primitive forms of telecommunication, data processing, image technology, transportation and navigation, attempts to clarify the image and let us glimpse the benefits, dubious or otherwise, of what is in store.