Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.
Albert Einstein
Saturday Evening Post
1929
Artists, novelists, and scientists give themselves over to free play of the imagination. Their products—beautiful paintings, unforgettable literature, and technologies that have changed the world—are possible because they can still bring childlike wonder to their work. “What’s next?” is the world’s most provocative question.
High-octane minds
Toys transport us, sometimes literally. Muscles power us. But imagination is the fuel that takes us farther than we can see. Rocket pedal cars of the 1950s, heavy with surplus wartime steel, allowed kids to lose themselves in extraterrestrial fantasy. Within a few years, scientists who had played with toy missiles as kids sent real astronauts into space.
Flights of the imagination
No era can match the last half century for richness of imagery, wealth of storylines, or range of characters. We have the time and permission to muse, as surely our forebears did not. We also take in the products of a vast entertainment industry. Television, film, and a popular literature that includes comic books fill us with thoughts and pictures that we recombine in our own playful ways.
To boldly go where no car has gone before
Nothing ages quicker than yesterday’s future. The General Motors pavilion at the 1964–1965 New York World’s Fair entertained millions with a playful futuristic vision. It featured a moonscape with commuter vehicles, a sub-oceanic resort, and a gigantic machine that lasered its way heedlessly through a rainforest, digested the debris, and left in its wake a perfect four-lane highway.
