"Everything that can be invented has been invented."
-
Charles Duell, head of the U.S. Patent Office,
1899
"
X rays are a hoax."
-
Lord Kelvin, physicist, c.
1900
MARTIANS BUILD TWO IMMENSE CANALS IN TWO YEARS
-
New York Times headline, Aug. 27,
1911
"The chemical purity of the air is of no importance."
-
L. Erskine Hill, lecturer in physiology at
London Hospital,
1912
"The radio craze... will die out in time."
-
Thomas Edison,
1922
"While theorietically and technically
television may be feasible, commercially and financially I consider it an impossibility."
-
Lee DeForest, inventor of the
Audion tube,
1926
"(
By 1940) the relativity theory will be considered a joke."
-
George Francis Gilette, American engineer,
1929
"50 years hence... (
we) shall escape the absurdity of growing a whole chicken in order to eat the breast or wing by growing these parts separately under a suitable medium."
-
Winston Churchill,
1932
"I think there is a world market for about 5 computers."
-
Thomas Watson, chairman of
IBM,
1943
"The bomb will never go off, and I speak as an expert in explosives."
-
Admiral William Daniel Leahy, advising President
Truman on the U.S.
atom-bomb project,
1945
"Space travel is utter bilge."
-
Richard van der Riet Wooley, on assuming the post of
British Astronomer Royal,
1956
"There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in their home."
-
Ken Olson, president of
Digital Equipment Corp.,
1977
"640K
of memory ought to be enough for anybody."
-
Bill Gates, CEO of
Microsoft,
1981
"The cloning of mammals... is biologically impossible."
-
James McGrath and
Davor Solter, writing in
Scence, Dec. 14,
1984
From
The Experts Speak by
Christopher Cerf and
Victor Navasky (
Villard)