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May 23, 2013
Some Strange Predictions That Never Happened!
And maybe in some cases just as well???
"Man will never reach the moon regardless of all
future scientific advances."
-- Dr. Lee DeForest, "Father of
Radio&Grandfather of
Television." "The bomb will never go off. I
speak as an expert in explosives."
- - Admiral William Leahy , US Atomic Bomb
Project "There is no likelihood man can
ever tap the power of the atom."
-- Robert Millikan, Nobel Prize in Physics,
1923 "Computers in the future may
weigh no more than 1.5 tons."
-- Popular Mechanics, forecasting the relentless march
of science, 1949 "I think there
is a world market for maybe five computers."-- Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM,
1943
"I have
traveled the length and breadth of this country and talked with the best people,
and I can assure you that data processing is a fad that won't last out the
year."--The editor in charge of business books for Prentice
Hall, 1957 "But what is it good for?"
-- Engineer at
the Advanced Computing Systems Division of IBM, 1968, commenting on the
microchip. "640K ought to be enough for
anybody."
-- Bill Gates,
1981
This
'telephone'has too many shortcomings to be
seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no
value to us,"-- Western Union internal memo,
1876. "The wireless music box has no
imaginable commercial value. Who would pay for a message sent to nobody in
particular?"
-- David Sarnoff's associates in response to his
urgings for investment in the radio in the 1920s. "The concept is interesting and
well-formed, but in order to earn better than a 'C,' the idea must be
feasible,"
-- A Yale University management professor in response
to Fred Smith's paper proposing reliable overnight delivery service. (Smith went
on to found Federal Express Corp.) "I'm just glad
it'll be Clark Gable who's falling on his face and not Gary Cooper,"
--Gary Cooper on his decision notto take the leading role in "Gone With The
Wind."
"A cookie store is a bad idea.
Besides, the market research reports say America likes crispy cookies, not soft
and chewy cookies like you make,"
-- Response to Debbi Fields' idea of starting Mrs.
Fields' Cookies. "We don't like
their sound, and guitar music is on the way out,"
-- Decca Recording Co. rejecting the Beatles,
1962.
"Heavier-than-air flying
machines are impossible," -- Lord Kelvin, president, Royal Society,
1895. "If I had thought about it, I
wouldn't have done the experiment. The literature was full of examples that said
you can't do this,"
- - Spencer Silver on the work that led to the unique
adhesives for 3-M "Post-It" Notepads. "Drill for oil? You mean drill
into the ground to try and find oil? You're crazy," -- Drillers who Edwin L. Drake tried to enlist to his
project to drill for oil in 1859. "Stocks have
reached what looks like a permanently high plateau." - - Irving Fisher, Professor of Economics, Yale
University , 1929. "Airplanes are interesting toys
but of no military value," -- Marechal Ferdinand Foch, Professor of Strategy,
Ecole Superieure de Guerre , France . "Everything that can be invented
has been invented,"
-- Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, US Office of
Patents, 1899. "The super
computer is technologically impossible. It would take all of the water that
flows over Niagara Falls to cool the heat generated by the number of vacuum
tubes required." -- Professor of
Electrical Engineering, New York University "I don't know what use any one
could find for a machine that would make copies of documents. It certainly
couldn't be a feasible business by itself." -- the head of IBM, refusing to back the idea, forcing
the inventor to found Xerox. "Louis
Pasteur's theory of germs is ridiculous fiction."
-- Pierre Pachet, Professor of Physiology at Toulouse
, 1872 "The abdomen,
the chest, and the brain will forever be shut from the intrusion of the wise and
humane surgeon,"-- Sir John Eric
Ericksen, British surgeon, appointed Surgeon-Extraordinary to Queen Victoria
1873. And last but not
least... "There is no reason anyone
would want a computer in their home." -- Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of
Digital Equipment Corp., 1977