g-force_addict wrote:
Remember they once said 'Rail travel at high speed is not possible because passengers, unable to breathe, would die of asphyxia.' — Dr. Dionysus Lardner, 1830 ROFLMAO this beats Earth is flat ignorancy.
http://www.skygod.com/quotes/predictions.html
"Landing and moving about on the moon offers so many serious problems for
human beings that it may take science another 200 years to lick them."
-- Science Digest, 1948
"While theoretically and technically television may be feasible,
commercially and financially I consider it an impossibility, a development
of which we need waste little time dreaming."
-- Lee De Forest, 1926
"Television won't matter in your lifetime or mine."
-- R.S. Lambert, Canadian Broadcaster, 1936
"The actual building of roads devoted to motor cars is not
for the near future, in spite of many rumours to that effect."
-- Harper's Weekly, 1902
"The ordinary 'horseless carriage' is at present a luxury for the wealthy;
and although its price will probably fall in the future, it will never, of
course, come into as common use as the bicycle."
-- Literary Digest, 1899
"Railroad Carriages are pulled at the ENORMOUS SPEED OF 15 MPH by engines
which, in addition to endangering life and limb of passengers, roar and
snort their way through the countryside, setting fire to the crops,
scaring the livestock, and frightening women and children. The Almighty
certainly never intended that people should travel at such breakneck
speed."
-- Martin Van Buren
"X-rays will prove to be a hoax."
-- Lord Kelvin, president, Royal Society, 1895
"Radio has no future."
-- Lord Kelvin
"Heavier than air flying machines are impossible."
-- Lord Kelvin
"Flight by machines heavier than air is impractical and insignificant, if
not utterly impossible."
-- Simon Newcomb, Director, U.S. Naval Observatory, 1902
"Aerial flight is one of that class of problems with which man will never
be able to cope."
-- Simon Newcomb, 1903
"The popular mind often pictures gigantic flying machines speeding across
the Atlantic carrying innumerable passengers in a way analogous to our
modern steam ships. . . it seems safe to say that such ideas are wholly
visionary and even if the machine could get across with one or two
passengers the expense would be prohibitive to any but the capitalist who
could use his own yacht."
-- William Henry Pickering, Astronomer, 1910
"A popular fantasy is to suppose that flying machines could
be used to drop dynamite on the enemy in time of war."
-- William H. Pickering, Director, Harvard College Observatory, 1908
"Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value."
-- Marechal Ferdinand Foch, Professor of Strategy, Ecole Superieure de
Guerre
"The aeroplane is the invention of the devil and will never play any part
in such a serious business as the defence of a nation."
-- Sir Sam Hughes, Canadian Minister of Defence, 1914
"The [flying] machines will eventually be fast; they will be used in
sport but they should not be thought of as commercial carriers."
-- Octave Chanute, 1910
"The director of Military Aeronautics of France has decided to discontinue
the purchase of monoplanes, their place to be filled entirely with
bi-planes. This decision practically sounds the death knell of the
monoplane as a military instrunent."
-- Scientific American, 1915
"As far as sinking a ship with a bomb is concerned, you just can't do it."
-- Rear Admiral Clark Woodward, 1939
"Even considering the improvements possible...the gas turbine could hardly
be considered a feasible application to airplanes because of the
difficulties of complying with the stringent weight requirements."
-- U. S. National Academy Of Science, 1940
"There is not the slightest indication that nuclear energy will be
obtainable."
-- Albert Einstein, 1932
"Fooling around with alternating currents is just a waste of time. Nobody
will use it, ever. It's too dangerous. . . it could kill a man as quick
as a bolt of lightning. Direct current is safe."
-- Thomas Edison
"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers."
-- Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943
"There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home."
-- Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment
Corp., 1977 [DEC went on to founder in the PC market.]
"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
"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
"Louis Pasteur's theory of germs is ridiculous fiction".
-- Pierre Pachet, Professor of Physiology at Toulouse, 1872
"That the automobile has reached the limit of its development is suggested
by the fact that during the last year no improvements of a radical nature
have been introduced."
-- Scientific American, 1909
"Everything that can be invented has been invented."
-- Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, U.S. Office of Patents, 1899
"Inventions have long since reached their limit, and I see no hope for
future improvements."
-- Julius Frontenus, 10 A.D.
"640K ought to be enough for anybody."
-- Bill Gates, 1981
http://zimmer.csufresno.edu/~fringwal/stoopid.lis
