'''Etorkizun''' edo '''geroa''' gauden momentuaz geroztik gertatzen den oro da. Denborarekin erlazio duen kontzeptua da. Gizakiak duen denboraren ikuspegi linealean etorkizuna oraindik gertatu ez diren ekintzek osatzen dute. Etorkizunaren aurkakoa iragana izango genuke oraina bien arteko muga delarik.

Fisikaren arabera ekintza baten etorkizuna ekintza horrek eragin ditzakeen espazio denborako gertakari guztiek osatzen dute. Mekanika klasikoarentzat etorkizunak ez du posizio espazialarekin zerikusirik koordenatu tenporalekin baizik, horrela, gertakari jakin batek baino koordenatu tenporal handiagoa duten puntuak gertakari horren etorkizuna lirateke.

== Erlatibitate berezia ==

thumb|right|200px|[[espazio denbora diagrama batean argi konoaren denboran aurrealdera proiektatzen erdia etorkizuna genuke]]

Erlatibitate bereziak dioenez espazio denborako gertakari baten etorkizuna gertakari horren eragina jasan dezaketen gertakariek osatzen dute eragin hori argiaren abiaduran eroaten delarik. Perturbazioak argiaren abiaduran eroaten direnez honek espazio denbora diagrama batean etorkizuna argi kono batera mugatzen du. A gertakaritik irten litezkeen argi izpiek hartzen dituzten puntu guztiek osatzen dute A gertakari horren etorkizuna.

== Etorkizuna igartzen ==

Gizakia asko kezkatu da historian zehar etorkizunaz, hots, bihar, etzi edo hurrengo urtean gertatuko zitzaizkion gauzez. Honen inguruan saiakera ugari egin ditu etorkizuna aurreikusi eta sor litezken arazoak ekiditearren hontarakoa batik bat hiru bide hartu dituelarik:

* Natura eta gizartean aurki daitezkeen prozesu eta fenomenoen erlijio eta mitoen bidezko azaltzea. Bide hauek aztertzeaz arduratzen dira teologia eta mitologia besteak beste.

* Natura eta gizartean aurki daitezkeen prozesu eta fenomenoen modeloak garatu, frogatu eta zuzenduz gertakarien ondorioak aurreikusten dituzten teoriak gauzatuz metodo zientifikoa erabiliz. Bide hau aztertzeaz arduratu dira zientziak fisika eta estatistika bereziki.

* Inongo azalpenik gabe etorkizuna aurreikusten dutela diotenak, hots igarleak. Iruzurlez beteriko mundu honetan psikologia eta abilidadea erabiliz etorkizuna igartzeko gai direlako inpresioa ematen duen kontakatilu ugari besteen kontura aberastu da. Gaurdaino ez da inor etorkizuna zehazki igartzeko gai izan dela frogatu.

right|175px|thumb|The [[Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come shows Scrooge his future in Dickens' ''A Christmas Carol''.]]
The '''future''' is commonly understood to contain all events that have yet to occur. It is the opposite of the predict or forecast the future may have derived from observations by early man of heavenly objects. In physics, which uses a linear conception of time, the future is the portion of the projected time line that is anticipated to occur. In special relativity the future is considered as absolute future or the future light cone. In physics, time is considered to be a fourth dimension.  

In the exists and the future and the unreal. Religions consider the future when they address issues such as life after death, and eschatologies that study what the end of time and the end of the world will be. Religious figures have claimed to see into the future, such as diviners.

Future studies or futurology is the science, art and practice of postulating possible futures. Modern practitioners stress the importance of alternative and plural futures, rather than one monolithic future, and the limitations of prediction and probability, versus the creation of possible and preferable futures.

In art and culture, the future was explored in several art movements and genres. The movement at the beginning of the 20th century explored every medium of art, including the scientific method."<ref name="heinlein def">{{cite conference
|title=Science Fiction: Its Nature, Faults and Virtues
|booktitle=The Science Fiction Novel: Imagination and Social Criticism
|publisher=Advent Publishers
|last=Heinlein
|first=Robert A.
|coauthors=Cyril Kornbluth, Alfred Bester, and Robert Bloch
|date=1959
|location=University of Chicago
}}</ref> More generally, science fiction is a broad genre of fiction that often involves speculations based on current or future science or technology. 

==Forecasting==

Organized efforts to predict or forecast the future may have derived from observations by early man of heavenly objects, which changed position in predictable patterns. The practice of cross-sectional or longitudinal data.

cross-sectional or longitudinal data.  Econometric forecasting methods use the assumption that it is possible to identify the underlying factors that might influence the variable that is being forecast. If the causes are understood, projections of the influencing variables can be made and used in the forecast.Judgemental forecasting methods incorporate intuitive judgements, opinions and probability estimates, as in the case of the Delphi method, scenario building, and simulations. Forecasting is applied in many areas, including weather forecasting, earthquake prediction,transport planning, and labour market planning.

Despite the development of cognitive instruments for the comprehension of future, the stochastic nature of many natural and social processes has made precise forecasting of the future elusive. Modern efforts such as scientific and causal modelling.

===Future studies===
Future studies or futurology is the science, art and practice of postulating possible, probable, and preferable futures and the worldviews and myths that underlie them. Futures studies seeks to understand what is likely to continue, what is likely to change, and what is novel. Part of the discipline thus seeks a systematic and pattern-based understanding of past and present, and to determine the likelihood of future events and trends.

Futures is an interdisciplinary field, studying yesterday's and today's changes, and aggregating and analyzing both lay and professional strategies, and opinions with respect to tomorrow. It includes analyzing the sources, patterns, and causes of change and stability in the attempt to develop foresight and to map possible futures. Modern practitioners stress the importance of alternative and plural futures, rather than one monolithic future, and the limitations of prediction and probability, versus the creation of possible and preferable futures.

Three factors usually distinguish futures studies from the research conducted by other disciplines (although all disciplines overlap, to differing degrees). First, futures studies often examines not only possible but also probable, preferable, and "wild card" futures. Second, futures studies typically attempts to gain a holistic or systemic view based on insights from a range of different disciplines. Third, futures studies challenges and unpacks the assumptions behind dominant and contending views of the future. The future thus is not empty but fraught with hidden assumptions.

Futures studies does not generally include the work of economists who forecast movements of interest rates over the next business cycle, or of managers or investors with short-term time horizons. Most strategic planning, which develops operational plans for preferred futures with time horizons of one to three years, is also not considered futures. But plans and strategies with longer time horizons that specifically attempt to anticipate and be robust to possible future events, are part of a major subdiscipline of futures studies called strategic foresight.

The futures field also excludes those who make future predictions through professed supernatural means. At the same time, it does seek to understand the models such groups use and the interpretations they give to these models.

==Physics==
250px|right|thumb|A visualisation of the future [[light cone (at top), the present, and the past light cone in 2D space.]]
In classical physics the future is just a half of the timeline. In special relativity the future is considered as absolute future or the future light cone. In physics, time is considered to be a fourth dimension. Physicists argue that space-time can be understood as a sort of stretchy fabric that can bend due to forces such as gravity. 
While a person can move backwards or forwards in the three spatial dimensions, many physicists argue you are only able to move forward in time. <ref name="autogenerated1">http://www.livescience.com/technology/070307_time_travel.html</ref>

The physicist who advised the makers of the fictional time-travel film  ''Déjà Vu'' claims that a person could hypothetically travel into the future if they had a spaceship that could travel at the speed of light. After a voyage on this ship, if a person returned to Earth, millions of years would have passed in Earth time. <ref name="autogenerated1" />
Some physicists claim that by using a wormhole to connect two regions of space-time a person could theoretically do time travel. Physicist Michio Kaku points out that to power this hypothetical time machine and "punch a hole into the fabric of space-time", it would require the energy of a star. Another theory is that a person could do time travel with cosmic strings, which are hypothetical "narrow tubes of energy stretched across the entire length of the ever-expanding universe." <ref name="autogenerated1" />

==Philosophy==

In the exists and the future and the unreal. Past and future "entities" are to be construed as fictions. The opposite of presentism is 'eternalism', which is the belief that things in the past and things yet to come exist eternally. One other view (that has not been held by very many philosophers) is sometimes called the 'growing block' theory of time, which is a theory that takes the past and present to exist but the future to be nonexistent.<ref></ref> 

Presentism is compatible with theses which many find uncontroversial. Saint Augustine proposed that the present is a knife edge between the past and the future and could not contain any extended period of time. 

Contrary to Saint Augustine, some philosophers propose that conscious experience is extended in time.  For instance, Buddhists (in the tradition of Stcherbatsky, who has written extensively on Buddhist presentism: "Everything past is unreal, everything future is unreal, everything imagined, absent, mental... is unreal... Ultimately real is only the present moment of physical efficiency [i.e., causation]."<ref>Vol.1 of ''Buddhist Logic'', 1962, Dover: New York. 70-71.</ref>

==Psychology==
right|thumb|Mother and child personify the [[optimism|optimistic "Spirit of Tomorrow" at Walt Disney World's Epcot.]]

While ethologists consider animal behavior to be largely based on fixed action patterns or other learned traits in an animal's past, human behavior is known to encompass an anticipation of the future. Anticipatory behavior can be the result of a psychological outlook toward the future, for examples optimism, pessimism, and hope.

Optimism is an outlook on life such that one maintains a view of the world as a positive place. People would say that optimism is seeing the glass "half full" of water as opposed to half empty. It is the philosophical opposite of pessimism. Optimists generally believe that people and events are inherently good, so that most situations work out in the end for the best.Hope is a belief in a positive outcome related to events and circumstances in one's life. Hope implies a certain amount of despair, wanting, wishing, suffering or perseverance — i.e., believing that a better or positive outcome is possible even when there is some evidence to the contrary. "Hopefulness" is somewhat different from optimism in that hope is an emotional state, whereas optimism is a conclusion reached through a deliberate thought pattern that leads to a positive attitude.