9. In 1946 it was claimed that in the future one might “trade your trouble for a bubble” and embark on a relaxing day inside a rolling pleasure ball
Among the most incredulous of these imaginations, in the February 1946 issue of Amazing Stories Magazine illustrator James Settles laid out a unique vision of the future: a leisure vehicle resembling what can only be described as a pinball. Harnessing the peaceful uses of atomic energy, these unfortunately named “huge rolling cross-country pleasure balls” would be used by humanity during their extensive leisure hours as part of the broad, if inaccurate, belief that the advent of the atomic age would see mankind give up work almost entirely. As the article claimed, humanity “will have most of the day to pursue as he pleases, either for pleasure, or in pursuit of a hobby, or in art, or in just plain being lazy.”
With the delightful catchphrase of “trade your trouble for a bubble”, these machines would be constructed from “transparent plastic” and “balanced by interior gyro stabilizers controlling a suspended core” as they traveled around a giant “track-ring”. The ring itself would be “magnetic” and “powered by the atom” allowing the ball to move both forwards or backward. With no motors, “just the simplest of gadgets”, these balls would house “pleasure palaces” consisting of “games, terraces, ramps, restful lounging places, dance floors” and “swimming pools” to provide the opportunity to “while away a day”. Suffice to say, this future did not occur and nothing in the slightest has been implemented in the decades that since followed.