Thursday Thirteen

13 Worst Predictions

1. Theoretically, television may be feasible, but I consider it an impossibility--a development which we should waste little time dreaming about.
- Lee de Forest, 1926, inventor of the cathode ray tube

2. It doesn't matter what he does, he will never amount to anything.
- Albert Einstein's teacher to his father, 1895

3. We don't like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out.
- Decca Recording Co. rejecting the Beatles, 1962

4. King George II said in 1773 that the American colonies had little stomach for revolution.

5. An English astronomy professor said in the early 19th century that air travel at high speed would be impossible because passengers would suffocate.

6. Everything that can be invented has been invented.
-Charles H Duell, an official at the US patent office, 1899

7. I see no reason why the views given in this volume should shock the religious sensibilities of anyone.
-Charles Darwin in the foreword to his book, The Origin of Species, 1869

8. If anything remains more or less unchanged, it will be the role of women.
-David Riesman, conservative American social scientist, 1967

9. X-rays will prove to be a hoax.
-Lord Kelvin, President of the Royal Society, 1883

10. Television won't last because people will soon get tired of staring at a plywood box every night.
-Darryl Zanuck, movie producer, 20th Century Fox, 1946

11. The horse is here to stay but the automobile is only a novelty, a fad.
-The president of the Michigan Savings Bank advising Henry Ford's lawyer not to invest in the Ford Motor Co., 1903

12. It will be gone by June.
Variety, passing judgment on rock 'n roll in 1955

13. There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home.
-Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp. (DEC), maker of big business mainframe computers, arguing against the PC in 1977

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