"It'll Never Work!"
In light of the claim that inflatable cars are set to become the vehicle of the future, the Null has found a long and distinguished list of inventions that were poo pooed by esteemed individuals, only for the product to become a raging success. Shame on you all.
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Television and Radio |
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| Radio has no future. - Lord Kelvin, British mathematician and physicist.
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Communication |
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| 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
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| 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. - Editorial in the Boston Post, 1865
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Transport |
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| ...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? - The Quarterly Review, England (March 1825)
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| Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible. - 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. - 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
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| 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 |
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| There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in their home. - Ken Olson, President of Digital Corporation, 1977
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| Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons. - Popular Mechanics, 1949
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| We have reached the limits of what is possible with computers. - John Von Neumann, 1949
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- Thomas J. Watson Snr., IBM Chairman, 1943
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Space Exploration |
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| 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 |
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| ‘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
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| 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
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| There is growing evidence that smoking has pharmacological effects that are of real value to smokers. - President of Philip Morris, Inc., 1962
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| Your cigarettes will never become popular. - F. G. Alton, 1870
cigar maker, turning down Mr. John Player |
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Nuclear Power |
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| ...any one who expects a source of power from the transformation of these atoms is talking moonshine... - Ernest Rutherford (1933)
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| 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.
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| All the waste in a year from a nuclear power plant can be stored under a desk. - Ronald Reagan, 1980
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General Science |
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| ‘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
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| 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
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| 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
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| The machine gun is a much overrated weapon; two per battalion is more than sufficient. - General Douglas Haig, 1915
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| X-rays are a hoax. - Lord Kelvin, ca. 1900
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Images - Main image: Enrico Corno; television: Gustavo Bueso Padgett; aerial: Rodolfo Belloli; train: Hazel Bregazzi; laptop: Jef Bettens; space: Agata Urbaniak; medic: Adam Ciesielski; fusion: Miroslav Kostic and microscope: Rodolfo Clix.
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