They really ought to have known better.

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"Professor Goddard...does not know the relation of action to re-action,
and the need to have something better than a vacuum against which to
react....he only seems to lack the knowledge ladled out daily in high
schools." 
   -- 1920 New York Times editorial on Robert Goddard's rocket work. 
      [The New York Times printed a retraction to this---in 1969, when
       the Apollo 11 astronauts were on their way to the Moon.]


"Landing and moving about on the moon offers so many serious problems for
human beings that it may take science another 200 years to lick them." 
   -- Science Digest, 1948


"You'll never make it -- four groups are out."
   -- Anonymous record company executive to the Beatles, 1962

     
"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 De Forest, 1926


"Television won't matter in your lifetime or mine."
   -- R.S. Lambert, Canadian Broadcaster, 1936
     [Hey, give him credit: he was right!]

     
"The actual building of roads devoted to motor cars is not
for the near future, in spite of many rumours to that effect."
   -- Harper's Weekly, 1902

     
"The ordinary 'horseless carriage' is at present a luxury for the wealthy;
and although its price will probably fall in the future, it will never, of
course, come into as common use as the bicycle." 
   -- Literary Digest, 1899


"Rail travel at high speed is not possible because passengers, unable to
breathe, would die of asphyxia." 
   -- Dr. Dionysus Lardner, 1793-1859


"What can be more palpably absurd than the prospect held out of
locomotives travelling twice the speed of stagecoaches?" 
   -- Quarterly Review, 1825

     
"Railroad Carriages are pulled at the enormous speed of 15 mph by engines
which, in addition to endangering life and limb of passengers, roar and
snort their way through the countryside, setting fire to the crops,
scaring the livestock, and frightening women and children. The Almighty
certainly never intended that people should travel at such breakneck
speed." 
   -- Martin Van Buren


"Our future discoveries must be looked for in the sixth decimal place."
   -- A. A. Michelson, 1894
[On the occasion of the dedication of a physics laboratory in Chicago,
noting that all the more important physical laws had been discovered] 


"I can accept the theory of relativity as little as I can accept the
existence of atoms and other such dogmas."
   -- Ernst Mach (1838-1916)


"Physics, as we know it, will be over in six months." -- Max Born, 1928


"Even originally well-defined pencils of cathode rays from the Sun cannot
reach the Earth.  For Birkeland's theories to be correct, the existance of
such cathode rays is clearly presupposed to be necessary...and this
assumption is untenable."  
   -- Arthur Schuster, on Kristian Birkeland's theory of what causes 
      aurorae.  The "cathode rays" are now called the solar wind.


"It seems as if we may also be forced to conclude that the supposed
connexion between magnetic storms and sun-spots is unreal, and that the
seeming agreement between periods has been a mere coincidence."
   -- Lord Kelvin, 1892


"X-rays will prove to be a hoax."
   -- Lord Kelvin, president, Royal Society, 1895


"Radio has no future."
   -- Lord Kelvin


"Heavier than air flying machines are impossible."
   -- Lord Kelvin

     
"Flight by machines heavier than air is impractical and insignificant, if
not utterly impossible." 
   -- Simon Newcomb, Director, U.S. Naval Observatory, 1902


"Aerial flight is one of that class of problems with which man will never
be able to cope." 
   -- Simon Newcomb, 1903


"The resistance of air increases as the square of the speed and works as
the cube [of speed]....  It is clear that with our present devices there
is no hope of aircraft competing for racing speed with either our
locomotives or automobiles." 
   -- William H. Pickering, Director, Harvard College Observatory, 1910


"The popular mind often pictures gigantic flying machines speeding across
the Atlantic carrying innumerable passengers in a way analogous to our
modern steam ships. . . it seems safe to say that such ideas are wholly
visionary and even if the machine could get across with one or two
passengers the expense would be prohibitive to any but the capitalist who
could use his own yacht." 
   -- William Henry Pickering, Astronomer, 1910


"A popular fantasy is to suppose that flying machines could
be used to drop dynamite on the enemy in time of war."
   -- William H. Pickering, Director, Harvard College Observatory, 1908


"Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value." 
   -- Marechal Ferdinand Foch, Professor of Strategy, Ecole Superieure de
      Guerre


"The aeroplane is the invention of the devil and will never play any part
in such a serious business as the defence of a nation." 
   -- Sir Sam Hughes, Canadian Minister of Defence, 1914


"By no possibility can the carriage of freight or passengers through
mid-air compete with their carriage on the earth's surface. The field
for aerial navigation is then limited to military use and for sporting
purposes. The former is doubtful, the latter is fairly certain."
   -- Hugh Dryden, 1908


"The [flying] machines will eventually be fast; they will be used in
sport but they should not be thought of as commercial carriers."
   -- Octave Chanute, 1910


"The director of Military Aeronautics of France has decided to discontinue
the purchase of monoplanes, their place to be filled entirely with
bi-planes.  This decision practically sounds the death knell of the
monoplane as a military instrunent." 
   -- Scientific American, 1915

     
"As far as sinking a ship with a bomb is concerned, you just can't do it."
   -- Rear Admiral Clark Woodward, 1939


"Even considering the improvements possible...the gas turbine could hardly
be considered a feasible application to airplanes because of the
difficulties of complying with the stringent weight requirements." 
   -- U. S. National Academy Of Science, 1940

     
"Although we are living in what may be termed the steam era and our Navy
is a steam navy, I have in this work wholly excluded the consideration of
steam power, as, owing to the great cost of coal and the impossibility of
providing stowage for it except to a limited extent, the application of
steam power for ordinary purposes must be strictly auxiliary and
subordinate and its employment in general service the exception rather
than the rule." 
   -- Captain Alston, RN, Manual of Seamanship, 1859

     
"I do not believe in the commercial possibility of induced radioactivity." 
   -- J. B. S. Haldane


"The energy produced by the breaking down of the atom is a very poor kind
of thing.  Anyone who expects a source of power from the transformations
of these atoms is talking moonshine." 
   -- Ernest Rutherford, 1930


"There is not the slightest indication that nuclear energy will be
obtainable." 
   -- Albert Einstein, 1932


"It can be taken for granted that before 1980 ships, aircraft, locomotives
and even automobiles will be atomically fueled." 
   -- David Sarnoff, 1955

     
"They couldn't hit an elephant at this distance!"
   -- Major General John Sedgwick, Spotsylvania Courthouse, May 1864

     
"Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys which distract our attention
from serious things.  We are in great haste to construct a magnetic
telegraph from Maine to Texas; but Maine and Texas, it may be, have
nothing important to communicate." 
   -- Henry David Thoreau

     
"I must confess that my imagination, in spite even of spurring, refuses to
see any sort of submarine doing anything but suffocating its crew and
foundering at sea." 
   -- H. G. Wells, 1901

     
"People give ear to an upstart astrologer [Copernicus]...this fool wishes
to reverse the entire science of astronomy" 
  -- Martin Luther


"I think there should be a law of Nature to prevent a star from behaving
in this absurd way!" 
  -- Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington, on the Chandrasekhar limit


"[Of celestial bodies] We may determine their forms, their distances,
their sizes, and their motions---but we can never know anything of their
chemical composition; and much less, that of organized beings living on
their surface."  		-- Philosopher Auguste Comte, 1835


"Since the 40-inch objective of the Yerkes refractor and the 200-inch
mirror of the Palomar reflector have apparently reached the practical
construction limits for telescopes of their respective types, it is
extremely doubtful if a greater light-gathering eye of either kind will
ever again be built."  -- A. Frederick Collins, 1942


"This foolish idea of shooting at the moon is an example of the absurd
length to which vicious specialization will carry scientists.  To escape
the Earth's gravitation a projectile needs a velocity of 7 miles per
second.  The thermal energy at this speed is 15,180 calories [per gram].  
Hence the proposition appears to be basically impossible"
  -- A. W. Bickerton, 1926


"I am bold enough to say that a man-made Moon voyage will never occur 
regardless of all scientific advances."
   -- Lee De Forest, "the father of electronics"


"There is no hope for the fanciful idea of reaching the Moon because of 
insurmountable barriers to escaping the Earth's gravity."
  -- Forest Ray Moulton, astronomer, 1932


"Space travel is utter bilge."
   -- Richard Woolley, Astronomer Royal, 1956


"All this stuff about traveling around the universe in space 
suits---except for local exploration which I have not discussed---belongs
back where it came from, on the cereal box."  
  -- Edward Purcell, Harvard radio astronomer, 1960


Space is clearly the great breakthrough of human knowledge---for centuries
to come...We have a long and undistinguished record of America failing to
anticipate the promise and potential of each new age of science,
invention, and discovery...Even so far-sighted an American as Woodrow
Wilson spent time denouncing the automobile.  The steamboat, the
locomotive, the airplane, all brought prophecies of doom and gloom.  We
have learned a lesson we surely do not need to be be taught again. 
   -- Lyndon Baines Johnson, June 1963


"Fooling around with alternating currents is just a waste of time. Nobody
will use it, ever.  It's too dangerous. . . it could kill a man as quick
as a bolt of lightning.  Direct current is safe." 
   -- Thomas Edison


"Just as certain as death, [George] Westinghouse will kill a customer
within six months after he puts in a system of any size." 
   -- Thomas Edison


"Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons." 
   -- Popular Mechanics, forecasting the relentless march of science, 1949
     [This is actually right: computers these days usually do weigh no
      more than 1.5 tons.]


"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  [DEC went on to founder in the PC market.]


"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.]


"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


"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


"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


"Stocks have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau."   
   -- Irving Fisher, Professor of Economics, Yale University, 1929


"Louis Pasteur's theory of germs is ridiculous fiction". 
   -- Pierre Pachet, Professor of Physiology at Toulouse, 1872


"No one will ever be able to measure nerve impulse speed."
   -- Johannes Muller, German Physiologist, 1846


"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


"We are probably at the limit of what we can know about astronomy."     
   -- Simon Newcomb, 1888


"That the automobile has reached the limit of its development is suggested
by the fact that during the last year no improvements of a radical nature
have been introduced." 
   -- Scientific American, 1909


"Everything that can be invented has been invented." 
   -- Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, U.S. Office of Patents, 1899


"Inventions have long since reached their limit, and I see no hope for
future improvements." 
   -- Julius Frontenus, 10 A.D.

     
"640K ought to be enough for anybody." 
   -- Bill Gates, 1981