President Lyndon B. Johnson, a practical joker, owned an Amphicar … an automobile that could float on water and be piloted like a boat. He loved to take guests for a ride around his Texas ranch then drive headlong into a lake. While his guests screamed and white-knuckled the dashboard, Johnson would shout about faulty brakes. The joke was on the unwitting victims. Johnson was one of the few proponents of the Amphicar, which was manufactured from 1961 to 1968 in West Germany. Demand for amphibious cars was limited. The Amphicar was discontinued, and the concept was relocated to Hollywood spy flicks and superhero movies.

Automated door technology appeared in 1931 and was considered one of the signs of the “modern” age. Yet, the world had already seen this technology back in 1 AD. So how did it work? If you wanted to open the door, a fire would need to be lit to generate heat, causing an atmospheric build-up in brass vessels. This vessel would then pump water in holding containers, and these functions would act as weights to open the door. Think of it as a hydraulic system. Unfortunately, the doors were not that practical and not as popular as the modern doors you have around your city. The ancient doors took hours to open, and the process was hard to stop once it started. So, this probably meant that you only opened your doors once a day.

Robot based on Leonardo da Vinci's drawing: Leonardo da Vinci was not only an artist and painter, but he was a master of every branch of studies including human anatomy, mathematics and engineering. This robot was built based on a drawing by Leonardo, who can be credited with having a vision far into the future. Robots were unheard of at his times, and also beyond human imagination.

No doubt, the spork – half fork, half spoon – has revolutionized the cafeteria and take-out experience for the last couple generations. The 16th century invention, the Runcible Spoon, outshined the spork even though it failed to become the newest, trendiest dining utensil. Textual references to the Runcible Spoon tell us that this utensil combined the fork, spoon, and knife into one handy tool for cutting, jabbing, and slurping one’s dinner. Some descriptions of the Runcible Spoon remind us of a grapefruit spoon because it had a sharp, serrated edge along one or both sides of the spoon. Why didn’t the Runcible Spoon take off? No one can say for sure, but it could be that the utensil caused injuries.

The Nimrud lens, a 3,000-year-old rock crystal discovered in 1850 at the Assyrian palace of Nimrud, is a fascinating ancient artifact. Roughly oval and with a focal length of 12 cm, it functions as a 3× magnifying glass, though its exact use is debated. Some believe it was a magnifying glass or burning-glass, while Italian scholar Giovanni Pettinato proposed it could have been part of an early telescope. This challenges the conventional belief that the telescope was invented by Hans Lippershey in 1608, suggesting that ancient civilizations may have had advanced knowledge of astronomy.

Why drive on four wheels where you can drive on one? In the early 1930s, Scottish engineer J.A. Purves created a zany monowheel vehicle called the Dynasphere. Purves viewed the monowheel as an alternative to traditional automobiles like the Model-T Ford. Imagine sitting inside a giant tire that rotates around you. That’s how the Dynasphere worked. Only the Dynasphere didn’t really work like it was supposed to. The vehicle has issues with stability and maneuverability. It looks like a clown car. No wonder it failed.

Remember that Jim Croce song about saving “time in a bottle?” The Ancient Greeks had something like this centuries before 1973. One of the earliest types of timekeeping device, the Ancient Greek clepsydra used the flow of water to measure the passage of time. Clepsydras used either intake or outtake methods … water filling a container or water emptying from a container … to measure time. Unfortunately, clepsydras were not portable. In fact, disturbing the clocks in any way messed up the timekeeping.

Leonardo da Vinci is well known for his various talents that included painting, sculpting, astronomy, botany and cartography as well as a flair for the sciences. He was also an inventor who crafted or conceptualised a multitude of designs for tech well beyond its time. Some of these concepts included things like the parachute and an early helicopter. Considering he was doing this back in the 16th century (he was born in April 1452) it was a staggering feat indeed. One of these visions of future tech included a fighting vehicle that was essentially a modern tank inspired by a turtle's shell. The design for this tank included a call for reinforced metal plates to protect the occupants, slanting sides to deflect enemy fire and an array of light cannons. It could barely be built at the time, but was an interesting vision of the future of warfare.