Predictions and other things
Prediction and Reality
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"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 travelled 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
"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."
"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.
"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.
"The bomb will never go off. I speak as an expert in explosives."
-- Admiral William Leahy, US Atomic Bomb Project.
"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.
"Louis Pasteur's theory of germs is ridiculous fiction".
-- Pierre Pachet, Professor of Physiology at Toulouse, 1872
"If excessive smoking actually plays a role in the production of lung
cancer, it seems to be a minor one."
-- Dr. W.C. Heuper of the National Cancer Institute, as quoted in the
New York Times on April 14, 1954.
"For the majority of People, smoking has a beneficial effect."
-- Dr. Ian G. Macdonald, Los Angeles surgeon, quoted in "Newsweek",
Nov.18th 1963.
. and finally
"640K ought to be enough for anybody."
-- Bill Gates, 1981
Muzaher Poonawala 07/13/1998Categories: Slightly Smutty