Past Predictions That Were Way Off
June 25th, 2008 Posted in Funny StuffA good friend of mine sent me a list of predictions, some which are several years old, that are quite off. I’ll say nothing further about but simply allow you to enjoy them as I did.
“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.
“There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home.”
Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977
“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
“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.
“Louis Pastueur’s theory of germs is ridiculous fiction.”
Pierre Pachet, Professor of Physiology at Toulouse, 1872
“The wireless music box has no imaginable commercial value. Who would payfor 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.
“Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?”
H.M. Warner, Warner Brothers, 1927.
“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.
“You want to have consistent and uniform muscle development across all of your muscles? It can’t be done. It’s just a fact of life. You just have to accept inconsistent muscle development as an unalterable condition of weight training.”
Response to Arthur Jones, who solved the “unsolvable” problem by inventing Nautilus.
“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.
“The bomb will never go off. I speak as an expert in explosives.”
Admiral William Leahy, US Atomic Bomb Project.
“This fellow Charles Lindbergh will never make it. He’s doomed.”
Harry Guggenheim, millionaire aviation enthusiast.
“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.
“Man will never reach the moon regardless of all future scientific advances.”
Dr. Lee De Forest, inventor of the vacuum tube and father of television.
“Everything that can be invented has been invented.”
Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, U.S. Office of Patents, 1899
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42 Responses to “Past Predictions That Were Way Off”
By anon on Jun 26, 2008
“US Atomic Bomb Project”
It’s called the Manhattan Project
By Photon on Jun 26, 2008
Funny, some of those “predictions” are so naive, and the people who made them must have known this just by thinking about it for 2 seconds.
By Joel on Jun 26, 2008
Technically, that first prediction came true, computers don’t weigh more than 1.5 tons, they weigh extraordinarily less.
By drew on Jun 26, 2008
Funny stuff. Most are not “predictions”, but opinions of the present.
By SaveOurSkyline on Jun 28, 2008
Some of these seem spurious. I wouldn’t be surprised if a good number of them were misquotes or made-up entirely.
By Wes Wilson on Jun 28, 2008
I get “atlas shrugged” flashbacks reading these.
By Notasheep on Jun 28, 2008
“Man will never reach the moon regardless of all future scientific advances.”
Well, to this point, this prediction is right.
That’s in spite of what NASA says.
By Ben on Jun 28, 2008
joel, ur an idiot..
do u realize that servers are immense and weights tens of tons…
the biggest computer that IBM is making as a server will weight over 10 tons
By john on Jun 28, 2008
I feel certain that Mr. Duell, the patent office commish, had his statement taken out of context. Surely he would have known that some other shit could have been invented.
By Pie on Jun 28, 2008
Reminds me of one of my favorite quotes (may actually have been Einstien, but i can’t remember)… “It’s amazing the things that can be accomplished when you don’t know what you’re attempting is impossible”
By anonymous_troy on Jun 28, 2008
16 GB of RAM should be enough for anyone.
*Waiting to be run down by the Moore’s Law train*
By Greg on Jun 29, 2008
The Fedex quote is oft-repeated, but not really accurate:
http://www.fedex.com/us/about/news/ontherecord/speaker/fredsmith.pdf?link=4 [PDF, p. 2, second column]
The “world market for maybe five computers” quote has always bugged me too. If at the time IBM was the only company who made computers (more-or-less true), and they only had 5 potential customers on the line, that would have been a perfectly reasonable statement. I don’t think it’s fair to put an implicit “and so it will be until the end of time” on the end.
The Bill Gates 640k quote (which isn’t here) bugs me for the same reason: it might have been perfectly true at the moment he said it (if he actually said it).
By Haddon on Jun 29, 2008
the first atomic bombs actually DIDNT work. for quite awhile, they didnt work. so he may have been referring to a specific prototype of the bomb that eventually did.
and many believe (including myself) that humans HAVENT made it to the moon.
By exar420 on Jun 29, 2008
Isn’t ignorance funny? lol
By Notanidiot on Jun 29, 2008
Notasheep: you’re daft if you actually believe that.
By Notanidiot on Jun 29, 2008
Suppose I should probably include Haddon in that comment, too.
By NASA Engineer on Jun 29, 2008
I knew there would be at least ONE idiot that insisted we never landed on the moon….I’ll be he also believes that 9-11 was entirely perpetrated by W, with FBI and CIA doing the leg work.
Next thing ya know, he’ll be saying the earth IS flat and it’s less that 10,000 years old!!! No to mention global warming has been brought about by man, and isn’t a naturally occuring event.
Hey chicken little, the sky is falling!
By greg on Jun 29, 2008
hey notasheep:
we did go to the moon, and anyone who says we didnt is retarded. and if your not from the USA, you just jealous and cant accept the fact that were better than you.
By Joanne on Jun 29, 2008
It is incredible that some people are so ignorant. The term Manhattan Project was a secret project – before that it was termed the Atomic Bomb Project. Even those in high places (Harry Truman, Vice President) did not know about the Manhattan Project.
Anyone who does not believe that the Apollo missions made it to the moon are rather ignorant of science and what is possible. Isn’t the space station rather sci-fi in your minds also. Really, learn a little more.
By Tonedead on Jun 29, 2008
Great quotes, although I agree about many of them being opinions of the present.
As for the moon, whether or not you believe Apollo 11 (Armstrong, Aldrin, and Collins) made it to the moon, it is undeniable that man eventually did make it there because of the presence of a civilian on Apollo 17, the final Apollo Mission. Normally astronauts are taken from the ranks of the Air Force, but when NASA realized that Apollo 17 would be the last mission, they stuck Harrison H. Schmitt, a civilian geologist in the crew. Surely by now Schmitt would have admitted that it was a Hollywood Studio instead of the moon. BTW, I believe Apollo 11 DID make it.
By Alec on Jun 30, 2008
Duell has, again, been unfairly quoted. He actually said, roughly, “Anybody who opposes my request for a budget increase must think that everything has already been invented”,
By lucasdigital on Jun 30, 2008
Thought provoking selection!
A resounding confirmation of Clarke’s first law:
When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.
By mikeriveraprod on Jun 30, 2008
Its means anything is possible!
By ilovestupidpeople on Jun 30, 2008
Wow. To the conspiracy theorists out there? You’re morons. To the guy who posted the comment about ‘us being better than [them]‘ just because we’re Americans? From the intelligence displayed their posts, it seems that it really doesn’t matter if they’re Americans or not; we’re still better than them. We’re not idiots.
By Nate on Jun 30, 2008
Love it. “but what… is it good for?” – priceless. Its amazing how far we can come with an open market of ideas. All it takes is someone to say… hey, I’ll make a better controller (like the wii). Its been tried tons of times before, and usually to little success… and now they dominate the gaming market.
As for those that don’t believe we landed on the moon… Everything that has been brought up as evidence has been refuted. The main reason other countries haven’t tried it is because it’s expensive and not extremely useful. The main reason we went is to prove we could (knowing it was expensive and not very useful didn’t mean much to us).
By Alan on Jun 30, 2008
In hindsight, it’s easy to criticize others for lacking vision. True visionaries like Steve Job’s are VERY rare, but fortunately in the USA entrepreneurs continue to drive innovation anyway. An example of the difficulty of having “the vision” would be Arthur C Clark, the author of “2001 A Space Odyssey” He is arguably one of the greatest science fiction writers ever, yet it is 2008 and we do not have regular commercial flights to low earth orbit or send manned flights to Jupiter’s moons.
By Joe Corgan on Jun 30, 2008
Hey, NASA Engineer!
You´re my buddy.
=)
By The Voice of Reason on Jul 1, 2008
NASA Engineer,
It’s funny that your name invokes an agency who has been among the leaders in establishing the existence of man-made global warming, yet you’re denying it is real.
Your tortured rhetorical trick of trying to discredit human-caused climate change by lumping it in with a bunch of crackpot theories is pretty week, and dangerous.
By Will on Jul 3, 2008
I dunno why, but the funniest one to me was the one about stocks reaching a permanent high. I freakin loved that.
By gus on Jul 6, 2008
a good reminder to keep your mouth shut when you’re not well informed but yet important enough to be heard…
By oo1jeff on Jul 12, 2008
Bravo & well put, NASA Engineer. And to you,the so called ‘voice of reason’, you are not only most unreasonable and an idiot, but you can’t spell, either.
By Paul on Jul 13, 2008
Dr. Lee De Forest – inventor of a vacuum tube, not the “father of television”. TV was invented by a German, a Russian and a Scot.
By Jizzle on Jul 13, 2008
oo1jeff,
Actually, the voice of reason was right (even if weak was spelled incorrectly). The scientific evidence for global warming has been overwhelming…that is a far cry from conspiracy theories that are not widely held by the most knowledgeable in their respective fields. It looks like NASA engineer thinks that whoever believes something foolish must be a liberal, so he lumped together a bunch of liberal beliefs with conspiracy theories to try to discredit both at the same time. To his credit, it was a nice attempt…but no.
By hsh on Jul 13, 2008
There is only one comment for Americans:
So little to say, so much space…
By Mick Jagger on Jul 14, 2008
Honestly…
oo1jeff?
Great job criticizing The Voice of Reason. I bet your grammar usage really taught him a lesson. How many times did you go over your comment before you posted it to make sure you had no spelling mistakes yourself? I can spot at least five grammatical errors in those two sentences you typed. Your response to him was extremely childish. If I didn’t know any better (and I don’t), I would guess you have had some problems with spelling yourself, which is probably the reason you are so quick to use that as an insult. Either that or you couldn’t think of anything better to say, which is believable.
I thought that NASA was supposed to employ the most intellectual people possible? At least that is what I have been led to believe up until now. The whole 9-11 conspiracy theory is debatable, and I don’t criticize your position towards that. The same goes for your 10,000 years comment. But in regards to global warming, I have to say you are the finest example of an ignorant American. And I can say that being an American myself. I find it funny that you actually call yourself ‘NASA Engineer’ in your comment. It’s almost as if you did that to try to make your statements seem irrefutable, like if you had put your real name no one would have taken you seriously. Come on down from your cloud and help the rest of us solve the problem instead of being part of it.
Oh, and ‘greg’?
I hope you realize how foolish you have made yourself look. People like you are the reason that so many other countries hate America and the people that inhabit it.
By Ray on Jul 14, 2008
“Technically, that first prediction came true, computers don’t weigh more than 1.5 tons, they weigh extraordinarily less.” – Joel on Jun 26, 2008
I think it was the fact that he gave a really large number, I believe it would be the equivalent of telling a pregnant woman that her baby will come out weighing no more than an Elephant.
By Frogsmasher on Jul 15, 2008
I would just like to say on the subject of Global warming that anyone who thinks that a creature as miserable and low as man could actually hurt something like the Earth on anything more than a temporary basis is and imbecile.
The Earth has been around for MILLIONS of years and somehow man can manage to permanently damage it in less than a thousand? I don’t think so. Look at the geological evidence global warming ,a lot like the ice age, is a naturally occurring event repeated over and over throughout the life of the Earth.
By Chris on Jul 16, 2008
@ Frogsmasher
I don’t think the issue of global warming is humans permanently harming the Earth. I think the issue is humans permanently harming humans. And as far as I’m concerned, getting us to reduce air pollution, for whatever reason (even if the reason is made up), is a good thing.
By Karl on Jul 16, 2008
Yes we contributed to global warming. And maybe we can completely close up the ozone layer therefore stopping it (i might have it bit wrong) but if we do that we do not get some necessary things and we die anyway. So either way WE DIE but the earth lives (except it doesnt live)
By Tim on Jul 19, 2008
“Nobody will pay money to wash their own clothes.”
This is what a banker told my father in 1952 when he attempted to get a loan for a coin operated laundromat outside the gate of Camp Lejeune, North Carolina.
Gee,sounded like a good idea.
By Justin J. on Jul 20, 2008
Interesting, though as stated before, probably taken out of context.
On another note, for those that do not believe in human activity in global warming, even if it is a natural process and we are spending money on things that we should find better possibilites for it, is it not better to be prepared against all possible threats that could wipe out all life on the planet, no matter how small of a percentage it is that it could actually happen?
By The Baldchemist on May 8, 2009
Experts! Why on Earth do we give them the time of the day?
The more things change the more they remain the same.
No we have experts in Economics telling us how to get out the mess they created and getting bonuses for their expertise!