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HE past eighty years, which have been chronicled day by day during the lifetime of The New York Times, have been momentous in the history of the world. The past has been recorded. What will the

future be? Will the next eighty years be equally—or more—momentous? What will the world be like four-score years from now? Presented on this page are pictures of the world in the year 2011 as envisioned by scientists and leaders in other fields of experiment.

Not all of these predictions agree; their wide divergence upon some points is all the more stimulating. On the other hand, it is worthy of note that some workers in non-related fields arrive at somewhat similar con-clusions about the future. A surgeon such as Dr. W. J. Mayo sees the average span of life raised during the coming eighty years to the biblical three-score and ten. His opinion has echoed in other phrases by a great •physicist, Robert A. Millikan. Investigating and working continuously on the frontier of knowledge in the realm of physics, Dr. Millikan, the prophet of the cosmic ray, sees more advance during the next four-score years in biology than in his own field.

Another physicist and Nobel Prise winner, Dr. A. H. Compton, sees the world blessed with greater leisure than it has today. William F. Ogburn, sociologist, agrees with Dr. Mayo that there will be more old people in the world. He sees living conditions improved.

On the other hand, there is Henry Ford's statement that "perhaps our most progressive step will be the discovery that we have not made so much progress as the clatter of the times would suggest."

"THE RAPIDITY OF SOCIAL CHANGE WILL BE GREATER THAN IT IS NOW"

What Civilization May Have Achieved When The Times Is Twice as Old as It Is Now, as Envisioned by Leaders in Various Fields

And Hunger, Says Dr. Ogburn, Will Not Be a Danger as a

Revolutionary Force

William F. Ogburn.

THE OUTSTANDING INVENTIONS OF THE PAST EIGHTY YEARS

The prophecies on this page, describing the world as it may be eighty years hence, assume added significance in the light of man's record of invention in the past eighty—since the day when the first issue of The New York Times appeared. What follows is a compilation of the outstanding inventions since 1851:

1852—Elisha Gray Otis invents the elevator with automatic braking mechanism, later developed for office and building use.

1853—Gintl, an Austrian technician, shows how two messages can be sent over a single telegraph wire (duplex telegraphy).

1854—Henry D. Stone and Frederick W. Howe perfect the turret lathe so that a number of tools may cut metal mechanically. The general idea of the turret lathe goes back to Stephen Fitch (1845).

1855—Robert Wilhelm von Bunsen invents the burner now used in every gas stove.

1856—Sir Henry Bessemer devises the process for making Bessemer steel.

1860—Dr. Antonio Pacinotti conceives the first continuous-current dynamo but does nothing with it. It is independently re-invented by the Belgian Z. T. Gramme (1870-1872).

1861—Coleman Sellers of Philadelphia patents and demonstrates the first motion-picture machine of the modern type. Edison brings out the commercial apparatus in 1893.

Wilhelm Siemens invents the regenerative furnace. This, in the hands of two Frenchmen, Pierre and Emile Martin, is applied in making open-hearth steel (1864).

1865—William Bullock of Philadelphia builds the first press to print from a continuous roll or web of paper.

1867—Christopher L. Sholes invents the modern typewriter. Per-fected in 1873.

1868—George Westinghouse demonstrates his airbrake. 1869—J. H. Greathead designs the modern shield used in tunneling

under water. 1870—Sir William Siemens invents the electric furnace for melting

iron and steel. 1871—Charles Goodyear Jr. invents the welt-shoemaking machine. 1874—Thomas A. Edison devises the quadruplex telegraph, which

sends four messages over a single wire. Sir William Thompson (afterward Lord Kelvin) devises the

syphon recorder, which becomes indispensable in writing down cable messages.

1876—Alexander Graham Bell and Elisha Gray independently invent the telephone.

Dr. N. A. Otto of Cologne, Germany, invents the four-cycle internal-combustion engine now generally used in auto-mobiles.

1877—Thomas A. Edison demonstrates his phonograph. 1879—Thomas A. Edison produces the first practical incandescent

electric lamp.

1884—Sir Charles A. Parsons receives the first patent for his steam turbine.

The modern trolley car appears. Van Depoele invents the trolley wheel and Frank L. Sprague the multiple-unit system of control.

Gottlieb Daimler brings out the light compact gasoline engine of today and in 1885 drives a bicycle with it. Thus the automobile begins. Carl Benz of Karlsruhe is simultane-ously working on the automobile problem and turns out his first gasoline vehicle.

1886—Ottmar Mergenthaler perfects his linotype machine. Hall produces aluminum by an electrical process which

eventually becomes commercial. 1887—Tolbert Lanston patents the monotype.

The Rev. Hannibal Goodwin patents the celluloid film. George Eastman independently works out the same princi-ple.

The induction motor of Nikola Tesla appears. 1888—John Boyd Dunlop reinvents the double-tube pneumatic tire,

the original invention of Robert W. Thompson (1845) hav-ing been forgotten.

1890—Dr. Carl Auer von Welsbach produces his montle burner. 1893—Rudolf Diesel publishes a description of his proposed engine.

The first specimens are exhibited in 1898 at Munich. 1896—Guglielmo Marconi patents the first high frequency system of

wireless telegraphy. 1899—Francis Elmore first actually uses the oil-flotation process for

separating ores from waste. The germs of ore flotation are also found in a patent granted to Carry J. Everson of Denver, Col. (1886).

1900—Héroult devises his furnace for producing steel electrically. 1901—Frederick W. Taylor and Maunsel White develop the modern

high-speed alloy steels which have made the cheap produc-tion of automobiles and other machines possible.

1902—Professor Arthur Korn of Germany makes the first long-distance experiment in transmitting photographs by wire.

1903—The Wright brothers produce a motor-driven airplane and fly it successfully at Kitty Hawk, N. C.

Valdemar Poulsen and Reginald Fessenden independently de-vise successful experimental radio telephones.

1906—Dr. Lee De Forest invents the vacuum tube now indispensable in all electrical communication.

1926—J. L. Baird sends recognizable television images over a wire.

achievement of science during the lifetime of T H E N E W YORK TIMES. It has revealed a new view of the uni-verse. According to this view the universe is a vast electrical struc-ture, having no other mass than the electrical energy of the electrons and protons, the components of its atoms and molecules. Electricity, there-fore, is the fundamental substance of this universe; electrical energy is its fundamental energy; the diffusion

of this energy through the inter-stellar space by the radiation of the blazing stars is its fundamental process. These new concepts, cre-ated by electron physics, have al-ready produced a coalescence of physics and chemistry into one sci-ence. I venture to suggest that in another eighty years in the life of THE N E W YORK TIMES it will produce a similar coalescence between all natural sciences.

"WORLD WE HOPE FOR RUNS AWAY WITH THE PEN OF THE PROPHET"

Sir Arthur Keith Doubts if His Individualist Longings

Can Be Realized

average length of life of man has increased to fifty-eight years. The great causes of death in middle and later life are diseases of the heart, blood vessels and kidneys, diseases of the nervous system, and cancer. The progress that is being made would suggest that within the meas-ure of time for this forecast the aver-age lifetime of civilized man would be raised to the biblical term of three-score and ten. Modern educa-tion stresses the value of culture and leisure, but from contented industry springs human happiness. A plan

as general communism. The role of government is bound to grow. Technicians and special interest groups will leave only a shell of democracy. The family cannot be destroyed but will be less stable in the early years of married life, di-vorce being greater than now. The lives of women will be more like those of men, spent more outside the home. The principle of expediency will be the dominating one in law and ethics.

People will become more nervous and mental disorders will increase for a time, but by 2011 mental hy-gienists will probably have the upper hand. A slightly larger proportion of geniuses may be expected. Bio-logical inventions will be able to change some of the extreme types of personality, but the test tube or injection will hardly solve the prob-lems of conduct which religion has so long sought to solve.

The total amount of knowledge to be learned will be immense. Hence prolongation of education, adult edu-cation, and particularly specializa-tion. Common labor will be cultured. Rapidity and volume of social change will be much greater than now.

"THE AVERAGE LIFETIME OF MAN MAY RISE TO THE BIBLICAL 70"

Dr. Mayo Says Also That a Proper Use of Our Leisure

Will Be Evolved

for proper employment of leisure will come.

In all the vertebrates except the primates, the brain is an expansion of the olfactory ganglion. In man the cerebrum is a development of visual structures, and intellectual activities have their greatest stimu-lus through the visual sense. Al-though we may desire to believe only what we can see, our emotions will predominate when crises beyond hu-man understanding confront us, and some form of religion will continue to sustain people in time of stress.

"BIOLOGY RATHER THAN PHYSICS WILL BRING THE BIG CHANGES"

Also, Says Dr. Millikan, the Scientific Method Will

Aid in Government

By ROBERT A. MILLIKAN, Nobel Prize Winner, Measurer of the

Electron's Charge.

ALTHOUGH the roots of the scien-tific and industrial revolution stretch further back than the

life of THE NEW YORK TIMES , the bulk of the stupendous changes in human thought and life which this revolution has brought about has come within the past eighty years

I do not myself expect that the next eighty years will register any such list of changes in our physical environment. The task of learning to substitute stored solar energy for muscular energy—the great underly-ing cause of most of the changes in man's activities and living conditions —has been learned within the past eighty years and will never need to be learned over again. Also, no small fraction of the possible modes of application of that principle have already been made.

Among the natural sciences it is rather in the field of biology than in physics that I myself look for the big changes in the coming century. Also, the spread of the scientific

forward on the intellectual line that we have created a dangerous sahent. We must bring up the whole line, straighten out the whole line, else the gains of our forward push are in danger. I believe with Emerson that "talent sinks with character," that material increase is definitely checked by moral decrease.

Not that the future holds no promise to my mind; on the contrary, it is so full of promise as to make the present seem drab in comparison. But we shall enter the future through an ante-room, of self-searching and through something very like peni-tence for our past stupidity. I be-lieve we shall say less about social

consciousness and begin to show evi-dence of actually having that of which we have only talked. I believe the kitchen side of life will bulk less hugely and threateningly than it does. We shall go over our economic machine and redesign it. not for the purpose of making something dif-ferent than what we have, but to make the present machine do what we have said it could do. After all, the only profit of life is life itself, and I believe that the coming eighty years will see us more successful in passing around the real profit of life. The newest thing in the world is the human being. And the greatest changes are to be looked for in him.

Sir Arthur Keith.

acquainted with—medicine. Eighty years ago medicine was divided among three orders of specialists-physicians, surgeons and midwives. Now there are more than fifty dis-tinct special branches for the treat-ment of human ailments. It is this aspect of life—its ever growing spe-cialization—which frightens me. Ap-plying this law to T H E N E W YORK TIMES, I tremble when I think what its readers will find on their door-steps every Sunday morning.

When we seek to forecast the future of our race our greatest dif-ficulty is to eliminate the personal element; it is the world we hope for rather than that which materializes under the cold eye of logic which runs away with the prophet's pen. I hope that eighty years hence fam-ily life will still prevail and that there will be liberty and opportunity for every individual to develop the benefits which nature has bestowed on him or her. But as things are now shap-ing in most civilized communities, I doubt if these individualist longings of mine will come true.

"BETTER WORLD-WIDE EDUCATION WILL SERVE OUR EXPERIMENTS"

Self-Improvement Is Viewed by Dr. Whitney as the Great

Task Set for Mankind

Dr. Compton Envisions the Great Development of Our Communications

Dr. William J. Mayo.

"THE PROMISE OF THE FUTURE MAKES THE PRESENT SEEM DRAB"

can hardly be realized without a drastic reorganization of our eco-nomic system.

We may expect the present prob-lems of the structure of matter to be pretty well solved, and physical science will be turning its attention to cosmology and biology. Questions of life and health, including psy-chology and genetic selection, will probably be in the forefront. The United States and Germany will probably be the world leaders in science eighty years hence. The Orient, however, and especially China, with its virile manhood and great natural resources, will be tak-ing a more prominent part in world affairs, and science will no longer be a monopoly of the West.

By W. R. WHITNEY, Dean of American Directors of In-

dustrial Research.

THE pleasure of forecasting social and technical life eighty years hence is greatly enhanced by the

high improbability of such a predic-tion.

There exist two widely divergent paths by which mankind has ad vanced. One is Bacon's "variation in the efficient"—doing better in some ways what has already been done. It has become familiar to man, in eco-nomics, in work of general welfare, in the mere mechanics of time-sav-ing. The other path, extending be-yond specific conceptions, leads to random and bold experiment—to pure research, where discovery is often unexpected. The most remarkable discoveries of the next eighty years will be of that kind.

Any man can predict, for instance, an electrically heated, air conditioned home, with attached aircar hangar, under some side-hill flower garden, miles but only minutes from the of-fice. He is familiar with the air-plane, with its rising rate plotted against falling cost of gas, and he also knows that change and rest, richly deserved, may be one for him. He might have both, sleeping in a welded, stainless steel subterranean home, deaf to the ashcan, the milk-man, the roisterers and the roosters. He would not toss in bed sleepless with excessive heat or tormented by mosquitos and germs in the filtered, moistened atmosphere; nor would he fear moths, mice, or burglars. Sun-light need come to him only when he went to meet it, but he might have improved daylight at his command, giving him vitamins as yet unheard of. He already knows the joy of electrically supplied home entertain-

ment and can picture its extensions. And it would not be difficult to vis-ualize tea and toddy in the big pent-house roofgarden at sunset:

But all these are "variations in the efficient"—mere contiguous exten-sions. They are inevitable, for indus-try, fully sensing the eagerness of the masses for greater convenience and comfort, will not ignore the of-ferings of science, but rather lend in-creasing ai pure research. And pure research, the handmaiden of contiguous advance, itself constitutes the second pathway of mankind's progression. So will our material well-being be assured, for pure re-search is a function as much of gov-ernments, and of all departments of life, as of laboratories.

An experimental moratorium on war for eighty years, for instance, might be a less expensive venture than some we have attempted. But better and more widely disseminated education will be necessary for that. And better world-wide education I predict, serving international experi-ments undertaken in the belief that mutual self-improvement may be the greatest task set for the men of our earth.

THE year 1851 found the United States in the midst of a period of rapid expansion.

The Mexican War, in 1847 and 1848, had added the Southwest and California to the Union; the gold rush of 1849 had made the nation conscious of these great new territories.

The total railway mileage in

10,800, or about one twenty-fourth of what it is today. There were 11,607 miles of telegraph lines in the country, less than one two-hundredth of the telegraph lines now in existence.

The population of the United States in 1850 was 23,191,876, about one-fifth the present-day population and only a little morethan three times the present pop-ulation of the city of New York alone.

In 1850 the total wealth of the

United States was estimated at $7,136,000,000. Recent estimates place it at about $360,000,000,000. Thus, while population has about quintupled, wealth, measured in money, has increased about fifty-fold. In 1850 the total import and export trade amounted to about $250,000,000; in a normal year it now reaches above $10,000,000,000, or forty times as much.

The abolition of slavery, the opening of the West to settle-ment, the admission of seventeen new States, the acquisition of a colonial empire, the prodigious development of industries, the rush to the cities, the almost uni-versal adoption of the automobile, the prohibition and equal suffrage amendments—all these events, combined with the vast growth in population and wealth, make the United States of 1931 a nation which the people of 1851 would hardly recognize as their own.

Mr. Ford Foresees a Better Division of the Profits to

Be Found in Life

B y H E N R Y FORD, Industrial Experimenter.

T an eighty-year forecast may be an interesting exercise, first of the imagination and

then of pur sense of humility, but its principal interest will probably be for the people eighty years on, who will measure our estimates against the accomplished fact. No doubt the seeds of 1931 were planted and pos-sibly germinating in 1851, but did any one forecast the harvest? And likewise the seeds of 2011 are with us now, but who discerns them?

It is a question whether there has been any real change during the past eighty years, or whether such a period is not too brief to definitely record a change, for it may well be that if something began to change, say, in 1851, it may require until 2011 for it to become discernible. Per-haps our most progressive step will be the discovery that we have not made so much progress as the clatter of the times would suggest. Cer-tainly there is today a wider and more intelligent recognition of the shortcomings of our civilization than

Henry Ford.

at any previous period in this coun-try, and that is a big step toward something better.

A mechanics and science, we cannot base our claims to progress upon them. The increase of knowl-edge means little without a cor-responding increase of conscience. It is only man that progresses. His accomplishments to this present are those of a being plainly possessed

possibilities, but as plainly stultifying them. What we have done is this: we have shot so far

"OUR CIVILIZATION WILL CREATE A NEW INDUSTRIAL DEMOCRACY"

It Will Give the Workers a Fair Share in Wealth,

Says Michael Pupin

Dr. Michael I. Pupin.

will guarantee to the worker an equitable share in the wealth pro-duced by his work.

Electron physics is the other great

NEW YORK in 1851 seemed a large city to its inhabitants, but it was a small one com-

pared with the metropolis of to-day. It had, by the census of 1850, 515,000 inhabitants as against the 6,981,927 which the Federal count of 1930 gave it. Instead of the five present boroughs it con-sisted of a settlement on the southern half of Manhattan Island. The greater part of the city lay south of Union Square.

Present-day New York City has more than 600 miles of rapid transit lines, operated by elec-tricity at high speeds. Rapid transit in 1851 was operated by horse power, unless the New York Central Railway, which came part way into the city by steam; is considered. It was rapid only by comparison with standing still. Omnibus lines ran up Broadway; there were a few horse cars. Cabs charged 25 cents a person for the

first mile, or 5 cents less than a single passenger in a taxicab pays for his first mile today.

Living conditions for the aver-age man were considerably worse than they are today, as evidenced by the fact that the death rate for the city was 30 per thousand per annum, as against 12 or less in 1931.

The skyline of 1851 was low, ex-tending at most to seven or eight stories, with the steeples of Trin-ity and St. Paul's looming high. No one imagined that New York in 1931 would have a building shooting nearly a quarter of a mile into the air.

In 1851 fire alarms were given by a watcher in the cupola of the City Hall; there was no paid fire department. Many people were still drinking water from wells. New York City now uses about 1.000,000,000 gallons of water a day.

By WILLIAM F. OGBURN, Chairman of the President's Commis-

sion on Social Trends.

THE population of the United States eighty years hence will be 160,000,000 and either stationary

or declining, and will have a larger percentage of old people than there is today. Technological progress, with its exponential law of increase, holds the key to the future. Labor displace-ment will proceed even to automatic factories. The magic of remote con-trol will be commonplace. Humanity's most versatile servant will be the electron tube. The communication and transportation inventions will smooth out regional differences and level us in some respects to uniform-ity. But the heterogeneity of ma-terial culture will mean specialists and languages that only specialists can understand. The countryside will be transformed by technology and farmers will be more like city folk. There will be fewer farmers, more wooded land with wild life. Personal property in mechanical con-veniences will be greatly extended. Pome of these will be needed to prop up the weak who will survive.

Inevitable technological progress and abundant natural resources yield a higher standard of living. Poverty will be eliminated and hunger as a driving force of revolution will not

be a danger. Inequality of income and problems of social justice will remain. Crises of life will be met by insurance.

The socio-industrial organization may be greatly disorganized some time within eighty years, and, if so, bring lower living levels for a time. But civilization will not be destroyed even by wars. Almost surely the principle of social utility will be greatly extended in economic organization, but possibly not as far

By W. J. MAYO, Leader in American Medicine.

IT has been well said that the three great urges of life are hunger, reproduction and fear. Food is

the most serious consideration. In-sects, which inhabited the world for millions of years before the verte-brates, achieved stability of struc-ture and economy of food supply which has made them man's most serious enemy. Through the work of entomologists and agriculturists the loss from insects, which now amounts to well above 25 per cent of food supply, will be largely eliminated.

The question of reproduction is tied up with changing social con-ditions. We point the finder of scorn at Russia, but tolerate Reno and kindred subterfuges. The emo-tions of man which are the out-growth of instincts of the vertebrate have implanted a love for progeny which will find its proper expres-sion.

Fear concerning diminishing food gupply, overpopulation and racial

prejudice may lead peoples to ag-gression. Preparedness to protect our particular civilization and insure peace is a sacred obligation to those who have gone before and those who are to follow. To talk of disarma-ment while we continue to lock up our homes for fear of our neigh-bors does not encourage the belief that peoples of other races whom we do not know will be pacific.

Contagious and infectious diseases have been largely overcome, and the

Times Wide World Photo.

Dr. Robert A. Millikan.

"WHOLE OF THE EARTH WILL BE BUT ONE GREAT NEIGHBORHOOD"

By MICHAEL PUPIN,

Distinguished for His Work in Elec-trical Communications.

THE great inventions which laid the foundation of our modern industries and of the resulting

industrial civilization were all born during the last eighty years, the life-time of T H E N E W YORK TIMES. This civilization is the greatest material achievement of applied science dur-ing this memorable period. Its power for creating wealth was never equaled in human history. But it lacks the wisdom of distributing equitably the wealth which it creates. One can safely prophesy that during the next eighty years this civilization will correct this deficiency by cre-ating an industrial democracy which

Times Wide World Photo. Professor Arthur H. Compton.

Dr. Willis R. Whitney.

By SIR ARTHUR KEITH, F. R. S., Anthropologist; Ex-President of the

British Association.

EIGHTY years hence the men and women who will drink informa-tion and guidance from The

N E W YORK TIMES will be the grand children of boys and girls now at school. They will be our great-grand children, with feelings, appetites passions and intelligences much like our own, for human nature does not alter perceptibly in four generations. The innate nature of our great-grand-

children will be the same as ours, but seeing that our ways of thinking and acting depend so largely on the environment and civilization with which we have surrounded ourselves we may be certain that their reac-tions will be modified according to the direction in which our present civilization develops.

Science has become the pacemaker of modern civilization. The form which this great newspaper will have taken eighty years hence and the manner in which its readers will con-duct their lives will depend very largely on the direction in which knowledge grows and the success with which it is applied to the affairs of life.

Just eighty years ago the English philosopher Herbert Spencer began to search for a basis on which he could forecast the direction in which civilization would develop or "pro-gress." He found that civilization, in its "progress," obeyed the same laws as regulated the evolution of living things. Progress always implied greater specialization. The law is particularly well exemplified by that branch of knowledge I am best

By A. H. COMPTON, Nobel Prize Winner, Who Proved

That X-Rays Act Like Corpuscles.

DURING the next eighty years we may confidently expect power to become cheaper and

more widely distributed, and motors and fuel less bulky. Possibly this may mean the development of atomic power. We should at least know by that time whether we may look toward atomic destruction as a source of power that man may use. Following this power development, transportation should become faster and cheaper, and communication by printed and spoken word and tele-vision much more common than at present, so that the whole earth will be one great neighborhood. With bet-ter communication, national bound-aries will gradually cease to have their present importance. Because of racial differences a world union cannot be expected within eighty years. The best adjustment that we can hope for to this certain change would seem to be the voluntary union of neighboring nations under a cen-tralized government of continental size.

Nothing can stay the. rapid mech-anization of industry and the arts, for this is in the direction of easier living. Along with this must come greater leisure, though, as we are already aware, this increased leisure

method, which has been so profound-ly significant for physics, to the solu-tion of our social problems is almost certain to come. The enormous pos-sibilities inherent in the extension of that method, especially to govern-mental problems, has already ap-parently been grasped by Mr. Hoover as by no man who has here-tofore presided over our national destinies, and I anticipate great ad-vances from moving in the directions in which he is now leading.

1851 in the entire country was

of infinite

o make

T

THE NATION—IN 1851 AND TODAY

XX 3

THE CITY—IN 1851 AND TODAY

TH E WORL D EIGHTY YEARS HENCE: A FORECAST THE NEW YORK TIMES, SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 13, 1931. EIGHTIETH ANNIVERSARY EIGHTIETH ANNIVERSARY