Smart People Can Make Mistakes Too!

[Bryan Durio]

Smart People Can Make Mistakes Too

Predictions:

Man will never reach the moon regardless of all future scientific advances. - Dr. Lee Deforest, Inventor of TV

The bomb will never go off. I speak as an expert in explosives. - Admiral William Leahy, US Atomic Bomb Project

There is no likelihood man can ever tap the power of the atom. - Robert Milligan, Nobel Prize in Physics, 1923

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

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

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.

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.)

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

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.

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

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

The supercomputer is technologically impossible. It would take all of the water that flows over Niagara Falls to cool the heat generated by the number of vacuum tubes required. - Professor of Electrical Engineering, New York University

I don't know what use any one could find for a machine that would make copies of documents. It certainly couldn't be a feasible business by itself. - the head of IBM, refusing to back the idea, forcing the inventor to found Xerox

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

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

And last but not least...

There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home. - Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977

[milky]

All very funny and interesting stuff.

I'm finding a great deal of resistance from my learned peers as I try to find a neurological link between Tourette's Syndrome, OCD, Altzheimer's etc.

Who knows? I (or they) may be the subject of those quotes one day.

[Nikki Dees]

So, you think there may be, James? That is very interesting!

Some professionals stateside think that some of those things are connected to living in mining comunities...for instance, we have tunnels underneith most of the cities here, that were used for lead mining. Animals have died, large numbers of cases of ADD/ADHD, Autism, Alziemers, cancers.....etc.