Word: futurist
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...years of the century, the seems as obsolete as the hand crank. In 1909 the poet Filippo Tommaso Marinetti decided that "the world's magnificence has been enriched by a new beauty: the beauty of speed. A racing car is more beautiful than the Victory of Samothrace." Fellow Futurist Antonio Sant'Elia drew plans for a Utopia of skyscrapers pierced by freeway ramps built of concrete and gleaming steel...
Herman Kahn, who died last week at his home in Chappaqua, N.Y., of a heart attack at 61, was a mathematician, physicist, economist, weapons analyst and historian. But above all he was a provocateur in the sedate world of ideas, a futurist who attempted, in his own words, "to cope with history before it happens." He was a pioneer in using scientific and mathematical tools to project the future. With his 300-lb. bulk and a florid face framed by a tailored white beard, Kahn had a commanding presence that seemed to complement a mental and verbal vigor bordering...
DIED. Anne Hewlett Fuller, 87, widow of Futurist Inventor R. Buckminster Fuller, who suffered a fatal heart attack while visiting his comatose wife's bedside; after an intestinal operation; in Los Angeles. Although she did not learn of his death, Mrs. Fuller died 36 hours after her husband. They were buried together last week in Cambridge, Mass...
...lines and transporting containers of plutonium without being harmed by radiation. Because a computerized robot is so easy to reprogram, some experts foresee drastic changes in the way manufacturing work is done: toward customization, away from assembly-line standards. When the citizen of tomorrow wants a new suit, one futurist scenario suggests, his personal computer will take his measurements and pass them on to a robot that will cut his choice of cloth with a laser beam and provide him with a perfectly tailored garment. In the home too, computer enthusiasts delight in imagining machines performing the domestic chores...
...great megalopolis, the marketplace of information, about to be doomed by the new technology? Another futurist, Alvin Toffler, suggests at least a trend in that direction. In his 1980 book, The Third Wave, he portrays a 21st century world in which the computer revolution has canceled out many of the fundamental changes wrought by the Industrial Revolution: the centralization and standardization of work in the factory, the office, the assembly line. These changes may seem eternal, but they are less than two centuries old. Instead, Toffler imagines a revived version of pre-industrial life in what he has named...