12 August 2013

 Birthdays
Jane Wyatt b. 1910, died 10/20/2006 (Star Trek: The Original Series)
Oliver Ford Davies b. 1939 (Star Wars)
Bruce Greenwood b. 1956 (Star Trek [reboot], I, Robot)

For me as a kid watching Star Trek, the strangest two pieces of casting were Jane Wyatt from Father Knows Best as Spock's mom and Ed Reimers from the Allstate commercials as a Starfleet admiral on the Tribble episode.

Mr. Davies played Governor Sio Bibble of Naboo in all three of the most recent (and clearly inferior) Star Wars  movies. Mr. Greenwood plays Captain Pike in the new version of Star Trek.

Many happy returns to the living.

Predictor: OMNI Future Almanac, published 1982

Predictions (reality): World records in track and field by 2010 (actual record today)

Long jump: 29' 2½" (29' 4½")
High jump: 8'4"(8' ½")
Pole Vault: 20' (20' 1½")
Shot put: 83' (75' 10")
Discus: 260' (243' ½")
Javelin: 350' (316' 6")
Hammer throw: 325' (284' 7")

The first three predictions are in the ballpark, but the actual records for the throwing sports have only moved up a little since the early 1980s instead of the huge advances predicted.

Another small screw-up in this prediction is the long jump. OMNI assumed that Bob Beamon's amazing jump in the Mexico City Olympics which shattered the world record would never be matched, but Mike Powell beat it in the early 1990s.

Another remarkable fact about records in track and field is how many of them have stood untouched since the late 1980s or early 1990s. While no sport does a perfect job of stopping the use of performance enhancing drugs (PEDs) and there have been many recent scandals among sprinters, the slowing rate of increase in the world records of the field events has two likely causes.

1) We are reaching the limits of human endurance in these events
or
2) Strong policing methods mean the best athletes of today are using less PEDs than their counterparts of twenty years ago did.

Looking one day ahead... INTO THE FUTURE!



Tuesday means Heinlein again, this time staying on Earth, but not any closer to accurate.

Join us then... IN THE FUTURE!