Which of Robert Boyle’s predictions did NOT come true?

Talk about scientific and technological developments in the future
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Maximum7
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Which of Robert Boyle’s predictions did NOT come true?

Post by Maximum7 »

Robert Boyle was a famous chemist and perhaps the first real futurist! He made a list of things he hoped science would one day achieve and I think most of what he wanted came true. He writes in Old English so some of what he says, however, may be interpreted differently by someone in the 21st century and his view of things is also largely different. Could somebody help me identify which ones did not come true?



Here is the list, in Boyle's writing



The Prolongation of Life.

The Recovery of Youth, or at least some of the Marks of it, as new Teeth, new Hair colour’d as in youth.

The Art of Flying.

The Art of Continuing long under water, and exercising functions freely there.

The Cure of Wounds at a Distance.

The Cure of Diseases at a distance or at least by Transplantation.

The Attaining Gigantick Dimensions.

The Emulating of Fish without Engines by Custome and Education only.

The Acceleration of the Production of things out of Seed.

The Transmutation of Metalls.

The makeing of Glass Malleable.

The Transmutation of Species in Mineralls, Animals, and Vegetables.

The Liquid Alkaest and Other dissolving Menstruums.

The making of Parabolicall and Hyperbolicall Glasses.

The making Armor light and extremely hard.

The practicable and certain way of finding Longitudes.

The use of Pendulums at Sea and in Journeys, and the Application of it to watches.

Potent Druggs to alter or Exalt Imagination, Waking, Memory, and other functions, and appease pain, procure innocent sleep, harmless dreams, etc.

A Ship to saile with All Winds, and A Ship not to be Sunk.

Freedom from Necessity of much Sleeping exemplify’d by the Operations of Tea and what happens in Mad-Men.

Pleasing Dreams and physicall Exercises exemplify’d by the Egyptian Electuary and by the Fungus mentioned by the French Author.

Great Strength and Agility of Body exemplify’d by that of Frantick Epileptick and Hystericall persons.

A perpetuall Light.

Varnishes perfumable by Rubbing.
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funkervogt
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Re: Which of Robert Boyle’s predictions did NOT come true?

Post by funkervogt »

It's hard to judge many of these predictions because they're strangely worded.

Um...it doesn't seem like this one came true.
Pleasing Dreams and physicall Exercises exemplify’d by the Egyptian Electuary and by the Fungus mentioned by the French Author.
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Bird
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Re: Which of Robert Boyle’s predictions did NOT come true?

Post by Bird »

Maximum7 wrote: Fri Jun 24, 2022 2:19 am
My assessment of things:
"Came True, or mostly true" in bold
"Hasn't come true yet" in italics.
"I'm not sure/ have absolutely no idea what Boyle is talking about" in underline.

The Prolongation of Life.

The Recovery of Youth, or at least some of the Marks of it, as new Teeth, new Hair colour’d as in youth. (I initially wrote this as not true, then re-assessed. "Some of the Marks of it" is accurate. Decades down the track, "recovery of youth" will occur more in the sense Boyle probably imagines.)

The Art of Flying.

The Art of Continuing long under water, and exercising functions freely there.

The Cure of Wounds at a Distance.

The Cure of Diseases at a distance or at least by Transplantation. (The second part)

The Attaining Gigantick Dimensions. (Taken literally, this isn't true, though we have all gotten much taller on average. It's possible he wasn't referring to literal giant humans.)

The Emulating of Fish without Engines by Custome and Education only. (I have read this over and over and can't 100% figure it out. Breathing underwater unaided, maybe? Someone on the internet said Boyle may literally be referring to fish-like abilities. I think it's safe to say this one didn't come true, though, unless someone has a better reading of it)

The Acceleration of the Production of things out of Seed. (Probably not to the extent he was imagining)

The Transmutation of Metalls. (Probably not in the way he was imagining, but we can do this)

The makeing of Glass Malleable. (I wonder what he'd think of plastic.)

The Transmutation of Species in Mineralls, Animals, and Vegetables. (Turning one animal into another? One vegetable into another? I'd say this hasn't come true but not 100% sure on his meaning. If you count genetic modification, it's true, but it reads as if he literally means, like, "Turn a tomato into an apple")

The Liquid Alkaest and Other dissolving Menstruums. (Google helped: an "Alkahest" was the idea of a universal solvent. "Menstruum" referred to solvents more generally, I think. Either way, we don't have such a thing.)

The making of Parabolicall and Hyperbolicall Glasses.

The making Armor light and extremely hard. (Kevlar.)

The practicable and certain way of finding Longitudes. (GPS.)

The use of Pendulums at Sea and in Journeys, and the Application of it to watches.

Potent Druggs to alter or Exalt Imagination, Waking, Memory, and other functions, and appease pain, procure innocent sleep, harmless dreams, etc. (We have almost all of these in some way or another.)

A Ship to saile with All Winds, and A Ship not to be Sunk. (First part's true, second isn't technically. We have no ships truly immune to sinking.)

Freedom from Necessity of much Sleeping exemplify’d by the Operations of Tea and what happens in Mad-Men. (I'm not sure what he means with Tea and mad men. Maybe like how coffee keeps you awake and certain "mad men" can't sleep? Regardless, we do still need to sleep as much as we did 400 years ago. I'd say not true.)

Pleasing Dreams and physicall Exercises exemplify’d by the Egyptian Electuary and by the Fungus mentioned by the French Author. (Even with some googling, I really can't figure out this one. An electuary is a kind of paste medicine that usually has honey in it. What the "Egyptian" one was, or what the "fungus" was, I cannot figure out.)

Great Strength and Agility of Body exemplify’d by that of Frantick Epileptick and Hystericall persons. (I interpret this as "modifying humans to be super-strong and super-fast, like crazy people are sometimes". Hasn't happened. Ask again, decades down the track.)

A perpetuall Light. (Lightbulbs etc. probably count.)

Varnishes perfumable by Rubbing. (Scratch and Sniff. Lmao. I love that his entire list is "wild shit chemistry might figure out one day" and then at the end he's like "Yeah scratch and sniff would be cool, too")
A significant number of these - maybe 7 or thereabouts - I would judge as extremely open to debate. E.g I saw three different possible explanations for what "attaining gigantick dimensions" means, precisely.

Anyway, my assessment of the 24 predictions:

True: 14
Partially true: 2
I'm not 100% sure what he's talking about but I'm reasonably confident it didn't come true: 3
Didn't come true: 4
I genuinely can't figure out what he's talking about: 1

To answer the question posed, I'd say 7 of the 24 did not come true, plus 2 more are only half-true, and 1 I really, really don't know. Boyle did pretty damn great for a dude in the 1600s, though.
I'm just a bird who escapes his cage to post here sometimes.
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