Profiles of the Future, a Daring Look at Tomorrow's Fantastic World [MM0048]

1967 MMBP Bantam Science and Mathematics edition of the the 1962 original, in amazingly nice clean condition. This book originally appeared in 1962, and was based on essays written during the period 1959 - 1961. It is a seminal work of non-fiction forecasting technological advancements, separating scientific possibility from science fiction. Clarke explores future tech-space colonization, AI, and energy-arguing that, while timelines are difficult to predict, many "impossible" technologies are inevitable. From the back of the book: "Extra-Terrestrials - Transmutation - Immortality. No! This is not science fiction. This is how we will actually live in the year 2100 A.D. when gravity will be controlled by man, when Mars will be colonized, when machines will be more intelligent than the most intelligent human beings! This is the wonder world of the future as seen by Arthur C. Clarke, the distinguished author and scientist. Here is a brilliant, fascinating prediction of the next one hundred and fifty years of Man. An amazing forecast of the most probable world of tomorrow, based on the most sophisticated concepts of modern science and technology!"

From recent-ish Amazon/GoodReads reviews: "There is nothing more interesting that reading about what people used to think the future would be like! Some stunning alignments (AI in the 2020s), and some equally stunning misalignments (we'll all be travelling on massive travelators). Brilliant stuff."; "Grounded and balanced view of what seemed possible in the 1960s - with some exaggerated hopes but also with many more prescient predictions (remote working, portable computers/smartphones, and social media ("the orbital newspaper, updated every few seconds") - all delivered in Clarke's beautiful, prophetic tone-of-voice."; "Clarke might be the author with the closest distance between his fiction and non-fiction books. In this book you can read that he was more visionary 50 years ago about our present and future than the so-called futurists of today who are more interested and even obsessed with technology than science."