Some of the predictions that Cohn made were remarkably accurate.  Others seem (from today's perspective) rather naive and far from the mark.  Below are a few of Cohn's forecasts, together with links to sites with information that bears on them.

Links:
= highly recommended

Monorails

"The near future could indeed see overhead single-rail systems [i.e., monorails] with streamlined hanging cars whipping from station to station without traffic danger."  (p. 45)  The monorail is a technology that has been just around the corner (so to speak) for years, but has never quite lived up to futurists' expectations.  The Monorail Society was founded by enthusiasts to "foster more awareness and promote this unique method of transit."  Just about anything you might want to know about monorails can be found here.

Nuclear-Powered Airplane

"By 1960 the first atom plane should be up.  It will be military, but airliners could follow, capable of flying around the world many times on one load of fuel." (p. 62-3)  Flying nuclear reactors are pretty hard to imagine today.  Physicist and arms control advocate Herbert York describes this technology and the reasons it has failed to take off in chapter 4 of his book, Race to Oblivion (full text online).

VCRs and Video Camcorders

". . . you will use your own TV camera like a movie camera, making tape movies to show on your own TV set.  You will record TV programs to replay when you please, and buy or rent tapes of Broadway musicals or great operas." (p. 68)  Cohn was being a little optimistic about the kinds of tapes we might rent, but this is certainly a prediction that has been borne out.  Here's the new top-of-the line Canon XL-1 Digital Video Camcorder for just $3,500 as well as some less pricey alternatives.  Also a site on how a video cassette recorder works.

Heart Transplants

"A surgeon approached a dying man of seventy-five in 1999 and said, 'Our studies show that a heart replacement should work in your case.  We have secured a new heart from a young man killed in an accident.  If our operation succeeds, and will believe that it will, you should be able to count on at least twenty more years.'" (p. 146)  The first heart transplant was performed in 1967.  The operation is now fairly routine; about 2,300 are performed each year in the U.S.  The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) of the U.S. National Institutes of Health has a site with facts about heart and heart-lung transplants.

Debit Cards

"Banks in 1999 had also begun to issue magnetic cards (replacing checkbooks) that you could present when buying something.  The store inserted your card into a charging machine that automatically deducted the proper amount from your account, indicated the new balance and signaled your bank the bad news." (p. 75)  Debit cards have been around for a while.  Personal money management guru Jane Bryant Quinn describes how they work in this 1996 article from Good Housekeeping.

Manned Lunar Exploration

"The President of the United States at 1:00 p.m. of January 15, 1999, slit open a wax-sealed [!] letter [describing] the first take-off of a manned vessel to a destination in outer space.  Destination:  the moon." (p. 157)  Cohn correctly predicts the launching of unmanned satellites in the late 1950s (though not by the Soviet Union!), but goes on to describe a space program proceeding at a leisurely pace, including launching of the first humans into orbit in 1996 and a lunar landing in 1999.  Here's the U.S. National Air and Space Museum's site on the Apollo Program that delivered the first humans to the moon in July 1969, as well as the Kennedy Space Center's site on Apollo 11, the first lunar landing mission.  Recently, the silly notion that NASA's lunar landing was a hoax has received a lot of attention, fed by idiotic sites like this one, and a program on the Fox Television network.  See, "NASA Debunks Moon Landing Hoax Conspiracy,"  CNN.com, February 19, 2001.

Computers and the Internet

"Order clerks [in factories]  will feed punch cards into electronic devices, and computers will then determine what raw materials must be purchased and when and where they must go. . . . At the office you will get filed letters and records by dialing an electronic storage system which delivers you printed copies or a voice report.  Electronic brains will keep accounts, sales records and payrolls; will compute and send bills; will schedule production." (p. 79)  Cohn also wrote of computer use in voting projections and in studies of human behavior.  Like most other forecasters, however, he missed the personal computer and the Internet and the impacts these technologies have had on virtually every aspect of modern life.  The Computer Museum History Center recounts the development of computers and the site for the PBS television program, "Life on the Internet," has a nice interactive timeline of its development.

Victor Cohn

Victor Cohn, "Predictions of 1999. . . in 1954," Minneapolis Star Tribune, January 1, 1999.  Cohn's own reflections on his predictions from nearly half a century earlier.

Victor Cohn Prize for Excellence in Medical Science Writing.  The Council for the Advancement of Science Writing (CASW), which Cohn co-founded, awards this $3,000 prize annually.  The site includes a brief biography of Cohn.