Famous Predictions
 

The absurdity of supposed experts of their time...

What can be more palpably absurd than the prospect held out of locomotives traveling twice as fast as stagecoaches?
- The Quarterly Review, England (March 1825)

The abolishment of pain in surgery is a chimera. It is absurd to go on seeking it. . . . Knife and pain are two words in surgery that must forever be associated in the consciousness of the patient.
- Dr. Alfred Velpeau (1839) French surgeon

Men might as well project a voyage to the Moon as attempt to employ steam navigation against the stormy North Atlantic Ocean.
- Dr. Dionysus Lardner (1838) Professor of Natural Philosophy and Astronomy, University College, London

The foolish idea of shooting at the moon is an example of the absurd length to which vicious specialization will carry scientists working in thought-tight compartments.
- A.W. Bickerton (1926) Professor of Physics and Chemistry, Canterbury College, New Zealand

[W]hen the Paris Exhibition closes electric light will close with it and no more be heard of.
- Erasmus Wilson (1878) Professor at Oxford University

Well informed people know it is impossible to transmit the voice over wires and that were it possible to do so, the thing would be of no practical value.
- Editorial in the Boston Post (1865)

That the automobile has practically reached the limit of its development is suggested by the fact that during the past year no improvements of a radical nature have been introduced.
- Scientific American, Jan. 2, 1909

Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible.
- Lord Kelvin, ca. 1895, British mathematician and physicist

Radio has no future
- Lord Kelvin, ca. 1897.

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 DeForest, 1926 (American radio pioneer)

There is not the slightest indication that [nuclear energy] will ever be obtainable. It would mean that the atom would have to be shattered at will.
- Albert Einstein, 1932.

Where a calculator on the ENIAC is equipped with 19,000 vacuum tubes and weighs 30 tons, computers in the future may have only 1,000 vacuum tubes and perhaps only weigh 1.5 tons.
- Popular Mechanics, March 1949.

There is no need for any individual to have a computer in their home.
- Ken Olson, 1977, President, Digital Equipment Corp.

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 lastout 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.


Glad

Word.

Well, at least he didnt say out right it was impossible.

Just that at his time, there was no indication of it being possible.
Clearly the mark of a smart man.

Some of the others though, are hilarious. I wonder what people today are saying is impossible, that will become commonplace for the people of tomorrow...

No one will ever need more than 640KB of RAM.
-Bill Gates

"I predict that in the future, computers will be twice as big and so expensive that only the five richest kings of Europe will be able to afford one." -- Professor John Frink, 196- (pronounced nintey-sixty-something)

That Kelvin guy must have been a hoot at parties.

Oh it gets better

"X-rays will prove to be a hoax."
"In science there is only physics; all the rest is stamp collecting."

and my favorite:

"I accept no theory of gravitation. Present science has no right to attempt to explain gravitation. We know nothing about it. We simply know NOTHING about it."

I think thats where he bit the head off the puppy and took another shot ;)

while our technology advances, ought not our predictions also become more accurate? As such, modern predictions would tend to be true right?

The Pessimistic Induction:
Since in the past 150 years, many theories have been shown, at least technically, false. So, inductively, most of the theories currently accepted will be shown, at least technically, false in the next 150 years.

who was it that said if an old professor says something is possible, then he almost certainly is right, but if he says it's impossible, then he's almost certainly wrong?

very interesting

It's one of the most famous false predictions out there (other than Nostradamus), so I'm surprised this hasn't come up already:

"Everything that can be invented has been invented."
-Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, US Office of Patents, 1899

Re: Famous Predictions
 

Thank god for the transistor.

they're all eXpurrts

that is "640K ought to be enough for anybody"

If only theres a time machine. We'd go back in time, bring them to the present, and look at their STOKED FACEs. :lol:

Exactly.
This is the most ridiculous quote that seems to appear absolutely everywhere.

If I was talking to a friend about buying a new computer, and I say to him "2Gb of Ram ought to be enough for anybody", does it mean that I am to be a subject of ridicule 20 years down the line? (when 2Gb of ram is going to look exceedingly quaint, beside the latest 500Tb chips!)

Famous prediction/quote:

"We're a copier company, besides there will never be a market for these things"
- The CEO of Xerox, just before he sold off all Xerox's technologies to Apple Computer, which used them in the macintosh.

hadn't heard some of those before, great post

Isn't that the same guy that now does "Ding Fries Are Done?*

*With apologies to the thousands that work hard every day to serve us our Extra Value Meal.

This is one of the funniest things I've seen in a long time. I've had the song stuck in my head for a couple of months now.

a true eyeopener :D

Really good post - worthy of the reflections we often do. They all stand out - nothing is impossible I suppose.

wow, thats pretty cool