In-Famous Quotes | |
Television and Radio | |
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, American radio pioneer, 1926. | |
Television won't be able to hold on to any market it captures after the first six months. People will soon get tired of staring at a plywood box every night. | |
- Darryl F. Zanuck, Head of 20th Century-Fox, 1946. | |
Radio has no future. |
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- Lord Kelvin, British mathematician and physicist. | |
Communication | |
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 | |
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. |
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- Editorial in the Boston Post, 1865 | |
Transport | |
...no possible combination of known substances, known forms of machinery, and known forms of force, can be united in a practical machine by which man shall fly long distances through the air... | |
- Simon Newcomb (1835-1909), astronomer, head of the U.S. Naval Observatory |
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What can be more palpably absurd than the prospect held
out of locomotives travelling twice as fast as stagecoaches? |
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- The Quarterly Review, England (March 1825) | |
Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible. |
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- Lord Kelvin (1824-1907) British mathematician and physicist |
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Rail travel at high speed is not possible because passengers,
unable to breathe, would die of asphyxia. |
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- Dr. Dionysus Lardner (1793-1859) Professor of Natural Philosophy and Astronomy |
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Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value. | |
- Marshal Ferdinand Foch, French military strategist and World War I commander. |
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It is an idle dream to imagine that automobiles will take the place of railways in the long distance movement of passengers. | |
- American Railroad Congress, 1913 | |
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 (1793-1859) Professor of Natural Philosophy and Astronomy |
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Computers | |
There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in their home. | |
- Ken Olson, President of Digital Corporation, 1977 | |
The Internet will catastrophically collapse in 1996. | |
- Robert Metcalfe, internet inventor | |
Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons. | |
- Popular Mechanics, 1949 | |
We have reached the limits of what is possible with computers. | |
- John Von Neumann, 1949 | |
I think there is a world market for maybe five computers. | |
- Thomas J. Watson Snr., IBM Chairman, 1943 | |
Space Exploration | |
There is no hope for the fanciful idea of reaching the Moon because of insurmountable barriers to escaping the Earth's gravity. | |
- Dr. Forest Ray Moulton, University of Chicago astronomer, 1932. |
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To place a man in a multi-stage rocket and project him into the controlling gravitational field of the moon where the passengers can make scientific observations, perhaps land alive, and then return to earth--all that constitutes a wild dream worthy of Jules Verne. I am bold enough to say that such a man-made voyage will never occur regardless of all future advances. | |
- Lee DeForest, American radio pioneer, 1926. |
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Medicine and Health | |
‘The abdomen, the chest and the brain will forever be shut from the intrusion of the wise and humane surgeon.’ | |
- Sir John Eric Ericson, Surgeon to Queen Victoria, 1873 | |
Louis Pasteur’s theory of germs is a ridiculous fiction. | |
- Pierre Pachet Professor Physiology, Toulouse, 1872 |
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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 | |
There is growing evidence that smoking has pharmacological effects that are of real value to smokers. | |
- President of Philip Morris, Inc., 1962 | |
Your cigarettes will never become popular. | |
- F. G. Alton, 1870 cigar maker, turning down Mr. John Player |
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Nuclear Power | |
...any one who expects a source of power from the transformation of these atoms is talking moonshine... | |
- Ernest Rutherford (1933) | |
There is no likelihood man can ever tap the power of the atom. The glib supposition of utilizing atomic energy when our coal has run out is a completely unscientific Utopian dream, a childish bug-a-boo. Nature has introduced a few fool-proof devices into the great majority of elements that constitute the bulk of the world, and they have no energy to give up in the process of disintegration. | |
- Robert A. Millikan (1863-1953) speech to the Chemists' Club (New York) |
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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. | |
All the waste in a year from a nuclear power plant can be stored under a desk. | |
- Ronald Reagan, 1980 | |
General Science | |
‘With regard to the electric light, much has been said for and against it, but I think I may say without contradiction that when the Paris Exhibition closes, electric light will close with it, and no more will be heard of it.’ | |
- Erasmus Wilson Oxford University professor, 1878 |
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I am tired of all this thing called science.... We have spent millions in that sort of thing for the last few years, and it is time it should be stopped. | |
- Simon Cameron, U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania, 1861 demanding the funding of the Smithsonian Institution be cut off |
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The so-called theories of Einstein are merely the ravings of a mind polluted with liberal, democratic nonsense which is utterly unacceptable to German men of science. | |
- Dr. Walter Gross, 1940 | |
There is a young madman proposing to light the streets of London - with what do you suppose - with smoke! | |
- Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832) On a proposal to light cities with gaslight |
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Approximately 80% of our air pollution stems from hydrocarbons released by vegetation. So let's not go overboard in setting and enforcing tough emissions standards for man-made sources. | |
- Ronald Reagan, 1980 | |
I see no good reasons why the views given in this volume should shock the religious feelings of anyone. | |
- Darwin (writing in Origin of Species), 1859 | |
The machine gun is a much overrated weapon; two per battalion is more than sufficient. | |
- General Douglas Haig, 1915 | |
X-rays are a hoax. | |
- Lord Kelvin, ca. 1900 | |