Each soldier will have a flat panel display covering one eye, allowing him or her to see the electronic battlefield and the real one at the same time. Targets eliminated in real space will automatically be registered in Battlespace. In addition, Battlespace will identify high-value targets and automatically direct weapons to destroy them in the most economical way.

However, Cullather said, the Battlespace concept downplays one of the most essential elements of military strategy. "What is not visible in Battlespace is politics," he said. "No Chinese embassies, refugees, Muslims, Christians, U.N. peacekeepers, congressmen or presidents are visible. The realities of a war like Kosovo, Timor or Haiti would be invisible in Battlespace, since the human element is missing."

Cullather said the Pentagon has been moving toward the Battlespace concept for a long time. However, rather than picturing the war the U.S. military wants to fight in the next millennium, Battlespace really shows the one it wants to avoid. "The war the Pentagon wants to fight is the Persian Gulf War -- a clean, precise war against enemy machines," he said.

The current decline in alcohol consumption is part of a cycle that will probably bring an increase in drinking by the year 2010, according to Ruth Engs, IU professor of applied health science.

"Historical research for the past 200 years shows an 80-year cycle in terms of acceptance of drinking, tobacco use and other health-related behavior," she said. "Right now, we are in a decline period that started around 1980 and should continue until 2010. Then the cycle will start to go up again, with drinking consumption peaking around 2040, before the next downturn."

Engs, a nationally known expert on addictive behaviors and the history of alcohol consumption, addresses these issues in her forthcoming book, Clean Living Movements: American Cycles of Health Reform.

She believes that by 2010, the legal drinking age will drop, and marijuana will be used increasingly for medicinal purposes as well as being legalized for recreational use in some states. There will be an upturn of chronic diseases before 2020, when smoking will become fashionable again.

Engs also sees a connection between these cycles and religion. "Some New Age religions will become mainstream by 2030, with a new religious awakening around 2040 bringing a new clean living movement," she said.

"These recreational or health reform cycles seem to be triggered by religious awakenings," with anti-alcohol and anti-tobacco campaigns tending to last longer than crusades for exercise or dietary change. "After the reform surge of the movement has dissipated, laws made during the reform era often become ignored or repealed, as Prohibition was in the 1930s," she said.

Will humans eventually become an inferior species to computers? The answer depends on us, in the view of Gregory Rawlins, IU associate professor of computer science and author of the 1997 book Slaves of the Machine.

"Today we're far, far more complex than any computer. We have nothing to fear from them intellectually for decades to come," Rawlins writes. However, "In the decades ahead, as we learn ever more about how we ourselves work, and as our computers become ever more complex and competent, the words 'computer' and 'think' will continue to warp ... In time, the boundaries between the born and the made, the grown and the built, the living and the dead, the evolved and the programmed, the biological and the artificial, will evaporate. They're already melting like candles in a firestorm."

The real test, he writes, will be how we behave after we have created a population of computerized robots.

"One day, perhaps soon, we'll create mobile, semi-intelligent beings to do our dull, dirty and dangerous work. Soon after that, they'll become so useful and so competent that we'll keep them as pets and as companions for our children ... How we treat them, how we employ them, even whether they live or die, all will be up to us. Yet for that very reason, how we use them ... will determine how the future judges us. It will tell us in the starkest possible terms what kind of people we are."

The Olympic Games are in danger because of their success, according to a professor in the IU Department of Kinesiology with firsthand knowledge of this international event. Phillip Henson was the track and field director for the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta.

"My concern is that the Olympics are getting so large that they will collapse upon themselves, which is exactly what happened to the ancient Olympics," Henson said. "The ancient Olympic Games existed for 1,200 to 1,400 years, before politics, professionalism and religion brought about their termination. Almost 2,775 years later, we are facing many of these same issues with the modern Olympic Games."

Henson, who has more than 20 years of experience with the Olympic movement, said host cities are struggling to provide the resources necessary to stage the games. "The way the Olympics are growing, no city will be large enough to provide the needed hotel space, infrastructure, transportation and venues," he said.

Steps that should be taken include eliminating sports that really don't belong, spreading out the time frame and locations (for example, holding the games in multiple cities over three months instead of one city over three weeks) and eliminating sports that place a greater significance on other competitions.

"The organizers seem to feel that any sport that does well on ESPN ought to be in the Olympics. The Olympics already has men's and women's volleyball, for example, and now they have added beach volleyball."

In addition, some sports do not consider the Olympics to be their most important event, such as soccer, which has the World Cup.

"The athletes have lost control of the games to bureaucrats who are more interested in perpetuating their positions. This has led to widespread corruption that will lead to revenue loss that will get worse, which the Olympics can ill afford. It's really time for new Olympic leadership," he said.

The euro, Europe's new common currency, is a rousing success, which bodes well for European companies early in the new millennium, according to William Sartoris, professor of finance in IU's Kelley School of Business.

"The growing size of the euro market is increasing the liquidity of euro-dominated securities. This should, in turn, enhance the willingness of investors to hold euro-dominated securities," Sartoris said.

In July 2002, the national securities of 11 European nations will disappear and the euro, launched in January of this year, will be their only common currency.

"There is some evidence that use of the euro will have an impact well beyond the borders of 'euroland.' Several countries surrounding the euro countries, particularly smaller ones, may start accepting the euro as a viable currency for local transactions and pricing," he said. "A similar approach was seen in some former Soviet countries in Eastern Europe, where large-ticket items were priced in (German) deutsche marks while the local economies were being restructured."

Marriage in the next millennium will differ considerably from current practices, according to Robert Billingham, IU associate professor of applied health science, who has studied this field for the past 20 years.

"I believe we will see more legalization of alternative marriage forms, such as having multiple spouses at one time, and more same-sex marriages," Billingham said. "We will probably see a decline in the number of individuals who get married for life. Serial marriages -- that is, a cycle of marriage, divorce, marriage, divorce -- will become more prevalent. The whole institution of marriage will become optional in the future."

Billingham, whose research interests include interpersonal relationships, parent/child interactions, divorce, and domestic violence, said more senior citizens will choose co-habitation instead of marriage in their later years. In addition, he believes the decline in domestic violence in recent years will continue.

However, adults won't be the only ones affected by the changing face of marriage. "In the last century, children spent most of their formative years with their parents. In the next century, they will spend most of those years with someone other than their parents. Also, women in our society worked very hard in the last century inside the home industry. We will continue to see this evolve as most women now are working very hard in the business world, which may have some harmful effects on their children that have yet to be adequately researched."

W.B. Yeats' vision in his poem "The Second Coming" seems all too prophetic when we think of communism, Nazism and fascism, according to IU English professor and department chair Kenneth Johnston, who teaches a class that studies novels, poems, films, plays, paintings and songs dealing with the end of the world.

The Yeats poem, written in 1919 -- the period of World War I and the Russian Revolution -- depicts a different version of the second coming.

"Rather than creating a picture of the second coming of a loving and kind Jesus, Yeats expands his horizons and imagines the second coming of an anti-Christ," Johnston said. Yeats describes a mixture of Sphinx and bestiality "slouching toward Bethlehem to be born." This "rough beast," Johnston said, is usually interpreted as referring to the totalitarian movements of the 20th century.

He added that Western civilization is captivated by interpretations of the end of the world, whether it is a literary spin on the subject, such as H.G. Wells' War of the Worlds, or a musical one, such as R.E.M.'s "It's the End of the World as We Know It (and I Feel Fine)."

However, Johnston said, it takes true talent to turn the end of the world into something creative and new. "Some writers -- like Yeats -- have created interesting and significant ideas out of these dreadful scenarios rather than just retelling horror stories. In fact, the idea of the end of the world is so overwhelming that it takes a very good artist to do anything good and significant with it."

Licensing for fitness instructors will become a significant issue as Americans continue their pursuit of an active lifestyle into the next century, according to Janet Wallace, IU associate professor of kinesiology.

"Right now, there are too many unhealthy programs where people are getting hurt. Only one state (Louisiana) requires licensing of fitness instructors, but within a decade I think you will find most states with licensing requirements as a way to protect the public," said Wallace, who developed a fitness program at IU 15 years ago.

"Because the 1996 Report of the Surgeon General stated that physical inactivity is bad for your health, more funding will be created for fitness programs. More people are working in the field, and many of these individuals lack proper training, hence the need for licensing," she said.

Health clubs have become a booming business, and probably many of these also will face licensing requirements in the coming years, she said.

"We now realize the importance of a healthy lifestyle, but many people don't know how to get there. Americans generally aren't fit because they try the easiest, fastest way to get there, which usually isn't the right way. That's human nature," she said.

She predicted that the interest in fitness will bring physical education back into the schools, so that more states than just Illinois will have mandatory high school physical education courses by the end of the next decade.

The death of a professional athlete from violent contact in football or hockey is only a matter of time, according to Bill Brechue, a professor in the IU Department of Kinesiology.

"I'm sorry to say that the death of an athlete in these sports from a vicious hit is inevitable in the next century," Brechue said. "It would already have happened if it weren't for such sophisticated equipment."

Brechue, who has 18 years of experience in muscle physiology and strength training, said the equipment worn by players in the National Football League contains many safety advances to reduce and prevent injury, but there is only so much that can be done.

He said there really are no size limits in athletes, and the key will be training these individuals to still be flexible and agile while maintaining a heavy weight and strength.

"There is a 600-pound Sumo wrestler in Japan, so we know we can build people to 600 pounds, but can you train them to be athletic at that weight? Our expectations have certainly changed with big people, as they are able to do more than many experts previously believed possible."

Rock music will probably never see performers like the Beatles or Elvis Presley again, according to Glenn Gass, an IU School of Music professor with extensive research interests in rock music.

"It just couldn't happen, the way rock music has evolved," said Gass, who has taught rock music history classes at IU for 16 years. The rock music industry is so huge and diverse that it would be almost impossible for someone to influence the popular music scene as Elvis did in the 1950s and the Beatles did in the 1960s, he explained.

He predicted that rock will continue to evolve in the next century, with rap here to stay, the Latin influence increasing, and a continued blending of country into rock. "The influence of rock is what made country music take off, and I think the line between these two forms will become even less noticeable in the years ahead."

"What's hard to predict is how technology will change popular music. With Web-based music technology now just emerging, record stores as we know them may become obsolete," he said.

"Go global" will take on even greater meaning as we move into the 21st century, according to Greg Kitzmiller, a faculty member in marketing in IU's Kelley School of Business.

"It's time for some new thinking," Kitzmiller said. "While there are certainly some situations where local leaders and local preferences cannot be ignored, this must be incorporated into global action following global trends and global preferences."

Successful companies likely will recognize opportunities in seeing how similar markets are, while appreciating their differences.

"More and more in a global economy, the balance will fall on the side of products providing similarities," he said. For example, a pizza company may provide different toppings in Japan and in Great Britain, but still sell pizza under one logo and brand name.

Public school funding for disadvantaged students will get increased attention in the next century, according to an IU School of Education expert on school finance.

Neil Theobald, associate professor of educational finance, believes there will be considerably more emphasis on funding for disadvantaged students in the K-12 area, particularly in urban regions. "This situation, along with a huge concern for parental involvement, will continue to strain a public school system that is being asked to do more without additional funding," Theobald said.

He added that he doesn't see any revenue source to replace the obviously very unpopular property tax as a funding mechanism for public education.

"On a national scale, state support probably peaked in the late 1980s at a level exceeding 50 percent. But now the public seems comfortable with a 50-50 split between the state and local property taxes, even though there is a tremendous range from New Hampshire at 10 percent to Hawaii at 100 percent," he said.