Those Who Didn't See the Future.

[N2NH]

A number of Failed Predictions of things that couldn't possibly happen.


"A rocket will never be able to leave the Earth's atmosphere."
The New York Times (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_York_Times), January 13, 1920. The Times offered a retraction on July 17, 1969, as Apollo 11 was on its way to the moon.

"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 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_American), January 2, 1909.

"There's no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share."
Steve Ballmer, USA Today (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USA_Today), April 30, 2007.

"We can close the books on infectious diseases."
Surgeon General of the United States (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surgeon_General_of_the_United_States)William H. Stewart (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_H._Stewart), 1969; speaking to the U.S. Congress – cited in The Killers Within: The Deadly Rise Of Drug-Resistant Bacteria by Mark J. Plotkin and Michael Shnayerson, 2003, ISBN 0316735663 (http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/0316735663).

"Democracy will be dead by 1950."
John Langdon-Davies, A Short History of The Future, 1936.

"With over fifteen types of foreign cars already on sale here, the Japanese auto industry isn't likely to carve out a big share of the market for itself."
Businessweek (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Week), August 2, 1968.

And more from the wilds of Wikiquote.

Incorrect predictions (http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Incorrect_predictions)

[X-Rated]

Obama will take away your guns.
A woman's body has a way to shut the whole thing down.

Some people cling to lies that we already know to be false, much less those who are trying to accurately predict the future.

[K7SGJ]

Islanders will never argue politics.

[kb2vxa]

There is no sense in trying to predict the future when there IS no future. When tomorrow comes it is today and today becomes yesterday. There is no tomorrow, only today and yesterday, tomorrow is an illusion. I may not always be right but I'm never wrong.

[X-Rated]

There is no sense in trying to predict the future when there IS no future. When tomorrow comes it is today and today becomes yesterday. There is no tomorrow, only today and yesterday, tomorrow is an illusion. I may not always be right but I'm never wrong.

That's what I thought yesterday, but it is so far away now, I can't remember.

[N2NH]

That have proven to be wrong.


"Animals, which move, have limbs and muscles. The earth does not have limbs and muscles; therefore it does not move."- Scipio Chiaramonti [Professor of philosophy and mathematics at University of Pisa, arguing against the heliocentrc system, 1633]
"Mathematics is inadequate to describe the universe, since mathematics is an abstraction from natural phenomena. Also, mathematics may predict things which don't exist, or are impossible in nature."- Ludovico delle Colombe [Criticizing Galileo (paraphrased).]

I. A Voyage to Asia would require three years.
II. The western Ocean is infinite and perhaps unnavigable.
III. If he reached the Antipodes he could not get back.
IV There are no Antipodes because the greater part of the globe is covered with water, and because St. Augustine said so.
V. Of the five zones, only three are habitable.
VI. So many centuries after the Creation, it is unlikely that anyone could find hitherto unknown lands of any value.- Report of the committee organized in 1486 by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain to study Columbus' plans to find a shorter route to India.

[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

They will never try to steal the phonograph because it has no `commercial value.'- Thomas Edison (1847-1931). (He later revised that opinion.)

This `telephone' has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a practical form of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us.- Western Union internal memo, 1878

What use could this company make of an electrical toy?- Western Union president William Orton, responding to an offer from Alexander Graham Bell to sell his telephone company to Western Union for $100,000.

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)

Radio has no future.- Lord Kelvin (1824-1907), British mathematician and physicist, ca. 1897

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.

Space travel is utter bilge.
- Dr. Richard van der Reit Wooley, Astronomer Royal, space advisor to the British government, 1956. (Sputnik orbited the earth the following year.)

If the world should blow itself up, the last audible voice would be that of an expert saying it can't be done.- Peter Ustinov

It is difficult to say what is impossible, for the dream of yesterday is the hope of today and the reality of tomorrow.- Robert Goddard (1882-1945)


Hindsight being 20/20 I wonder what many are saying now about something we'll take for granted in 20 to 50 years?

More stuff that ain't gonna happen... (http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/neverwrk.htm)

[n2ize]

That have proven to be wrong.




Hindsight being 20/20 I wonder what many are saying now about something we'll take for granted in 20 to 50 years?

More stuff that ain't gonna happen... (http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/neverwrk.htm)[/FONT][/COLOR][/FONT][/COLOR]

Most of the technologies listed were plausible and in retrospect its hard to imagine that people were that short sighted. The only times I am skeptical about new technologies are when someone claims to have invented something that openly defies the fundamental laws of nature/Physics. Otherwise, who knows what the future holds.

It's easy for people to be short sighted, or in some cases overly far sighted, when it comes to emerging technologies. Sometimes the technology goes far beyond it's initial expectations and sometimes not quite as far as people imagined. Case and point, when radium was first discovered many people considered it as a "magic bullet", a cure for all that ails us. Thus products came on the market such as "radium water" (to be taken internally), "radium toothpaste", "radium cosmetics", "radium patches to apply to the skin". All were marketed to cure our ills from sexual impotency to cancer and everything in between as well prolong life. Of course as time progressed the opposite turned out to be true. And, I kid you not about radium chocolate, toothpaste, etc.

http://mentalfloss.com/article/12732/9-ways-people-used-radium-we-understood-risks

[AE1PT]

Islanders will never argue politics.

You are right. They already have their minds made up...

http://ae1pt.com/photos/imh/Weed-smiley.gif

[N2RJ]

Obama will take away your guns.

True for now. Thankfully yesterday he wasn't given a chance.

[X-Rated]

True for now. Thankfully yesterday he wasn't given a chance.

Dude. I didn't realize you didn't own any already. The bill was about expanding background checks and not taking anything away. I can see with your background and not already owning any why you were edgy.

[N2NH]

You are right. They already have their minds made up...

Pretty much like the guys on that list...

[NQ6U]

"No wireless? Less space than a Nomad? Lame."

CmdrTaco, writing about the then-new iPod on Slashdot.org