Predicting the Future of Scholarly Publishing

When Orville Wright flew his airplane over a small stretch of rolling grassland in 1903, the managing editor of Scientific American predicted that thousands of planes would soon fly over every city, delivering patrons to theaters. On the eve of the First World War, two famous British aviators argued that planes would prevent wars in the future (because they brought people together). Scientists, engineers, and futurists have always conjectured the consequences of technology. In the case of planes, the experts were right in recognizing that they would profoundly affect our lives in the coming century ... but they were certainly wrong in foretelling what that effect would be.