8 Eerily Accurate Predictions That Came True

2. H G Wells: Nuclear War, 1914

Although Wells is credited with coining the term "atomic bomb" more than 30 years before the Manhattan Project changed the world forever, he did get a couple of details wrong in terms of the actual function of nuclear weapons.

In his 1914 novel World Set Free, he imagined that atomic bombs would explode continually, for days, weeks or months as their radioactive components spewed their energy forth. Although their real-life equivalents don't do this, the effects of radiation following a nuclear explosion are arguably just as deadly.

Something that Wells also saw was the Mutually Assured Destruction afforded by nukes. He was similarly off about the consequences of this, however, and envisaged a peaceful utopian society arising from the situation:

They had to secure it universally from any fresh outbreak of atomic destruction, and they had to ensure a permanent and universal pacification.

This has so far failed to happen, as we are currently in a situation of global nuclear stalemate but, who know, perhaps Wells' utopian vision is still yet to come.