1. PREDICTIONS

We've all heard predictions about the future. Sure, sometimes
"experts" are right on target, but check out what they got wrong! Thanks, and
enjoy!

Predicting the Future ...
"Man will never reach the moon regardless of all future scientific
advances." -- Dr. Lee DeForest, Inventor of TV
"The bomb will never go off. I speak as an expert in explosive." --
Admiral William Leahy, U.S. Atomic Bomb Project
"There is no likehood 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 not to 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.
"So we went to Atari and said, 'Hey, we've got this amazing thing,
even built with some of your parts, and what do you think about
funding
us? Or we'll give it to you. We just want to do it. Pay our salary,
we'll come work for you.' And they said, 'No.' So then we went to
Hewlett-Packard, and they said, 'Hey, we don't need you. You
haven't got through college yet.'" -- Apple Computer Inc. founder
Steve Jobs on attempts to get Atari and H-P interested in his and
Steve Wozniak's personal computer.
"Professor Goddard does not know the relation between action and
reaction and the need to have something better than a vacuum against
which to react. He seems to lack the basic knowledge ladled out
daily in high schools." -- 1921 New York Times editorial about Robert
Goddard's revolutionary rocket work.
"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.
"Everything that can be invented has been invented." -- Charles H.
Duell, Commissioner, U.S. Office of Patents, 1899.
"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
Anything that seems impossible today is so simple tomorrow !