The future of yesterday

Ancient Greece used water to transmit messages with a simple but effective system that was a prelude to modern telecommunications

Leonardo Da Vinci and his (fictitious) radio: how advanced Renaissance technology could have altered the future of global communication.

The 13-month calendar conceived by Comte and revisited by Cotsworth came close to adoption: it would have changed the way we measure the year.

The great philosopher and scientist offers us a "kit" against hoaxes and manipulations. How to apply it in everyday life

Between ultrasonic dishwashers and Formica worktops, Monsanto had a House of the Future inside Disneyland. What happened to that vision?

An archaeological discovery proves it without any doubt: Pythagoras did not invent the famous theorem that today bears his name.

In his prelude to Animal Farm, Orwell addressed censorship and intellectual hypocrisy.

From the Trinity test to the Bomba Tsar. Oppenheimer brings with him a question: How destructive can a nuclear bomb become? The answer may surprise you.

Were the works of Nikola Tesla, the leading inventor of his time, really stolen by the American government? Here's how things went.

From Ballmer predicting the failure of the iPhone to Metcalfe predicting the collapse of the Internet: 5 stories of failed tech prophecies

Not only scientific discoveries: Newton also delighted in predicting the end of the world, inspired by passages in the Bible.

Steam cars have been a truly fascinating chapter in automotive history. Could they be experiencing a "back to the future"?

Without the asteroid, would dinosaurs drive cars today, or would they have skyscrapers? And we, would we have ever evolved? From suggestive hypotheses to serious (and interesting) answers.

Not just energy and GPS: Tesla anticipated everyone even on X-rays. The X-ray of his foot could be the first ever

With great power comes great responsibility. This also applies to software: if it's a flop it ruins the company and the customer too.

The genesis and history of Morse code, and how this mode of communication has changed the history of man forever.

Joint efforts, scientific transparency and cooperation: 1957 was a magical year for the future, and until now never repeated.

Science fiction does not foresee the future but inspires it, indeed: it influences it. And these three works contain unambiguous evidence.

The future of the world seen a hundred years ago: not so different, not so exciting. Can we sincerely blame our ancestors?

Orwell and Huxley perhaps wrote the two greatest dystopian novels in history. They were pupils and teachers, but which of them has better predicted the future we live in today?

This concept tells best of all the "future of yesterday" we imagined in 1990: the Nissan Cocoon is not a (ugly) car, it is an amarcord.