bluiev 0 #1 November 9, 2007 Might be a repost, but I still found some of them an interesting read b ------------------------------------------------------------ Top 87 Bad Predictions about the Future Published on 3/28/2006 Events Nikita Krushchev, Soviet Premier, predicting Soviet communism will win over U.S. capitalism, 1958. Charles H. Duell, an official at the US patent office, 1899. Charles Darwin, in the foreword to his book, The Origin of Species, 1869. Irving Fisher, economics professor at Yale University, 1929. David Riesman, conservative American social scientist, 1967. Variety, passing judgement on rock 'n roll in 1955. John Langdon-Davies, A Short History of The Future, 1936. TIME, writing off Mad magazine in 1956. Newsweek, predicting popular holidays for the late 1960s. -? British prime minister Lord North, on dealing with the rebellious American colonies, 1774. International Monetary Fund Ceo, 1959. Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft. TIME, 1966, in one sentence writing off e-commerce long before anyone had ever heard of it. Last words of Gen. John Sedgwick, spoken as he looked out over the parapet at enemy lines during the Battle of Spotsylvania in 1864. Margaret Thatcher, future Prime Minister, October 26th, 1969. George Bush, 1988. -? Kaiser Wilhelm, to the German troops, August 1914. -? Neville Chamberlain, British Prime Minister, September 30th, 1938. -? Dr. Peter Duesberg, molecular-biology professor at U.C. Berkeley, on HIV, 1988. -? Johnnie Cochran, on soon-to-be client O.J.'s chances of winning, 1994. -? United Artists Executive, rejecting Reagan as lead in 1964 film The Best Man. Karl Marx. Grover Cleveland, U.S. President, 1905. Wilbur Wright, American aviation pioneer, to brother Orville, after a disappointing flying experiment, 1901 (their first successful flight was in 1903). Simon Cameron, U.S. Senator, on the Smithsonian Institute, 1901. Hermann Goering, Commander-in-Chief of the Luftwaffe, 1942. Business Week, August 2, 1968. Martin Luther, German Reformation leader, Table Talk, 1530s(?). Lt. Joseph Ives, after visiting the Grand Canyon in 1861. General Tommy Franks, March 22nd, 2003. Light Bulb <... good enough for our transatlantic friends ... but unworthy of the attention of practical or scientific men.> British Parliamentary Committee, referring to Edison's light bulb, 1878. Sir William Siemens, on Edison's light bulb, 1880. Henry Morton, president of the Stevens Institute of Technology, on Edison's light bulb, 1880. Automobiles The president of the Michigan Savings Bank advising Henry Ford's lawyer not to invest in the Ford Motor Co., 1903. Scientific American, Jan. 2 edition, 1909. Literary Digest, 1899. Airplanes - Simon Newcomb; The Wright Brothers flew at Kittyhawk 18 months later. Newcomb was not impressed. Lord Kelvin, British mathematician and physicist, president of the British Royal Society, 1895. Thomas Edison, American inventor, 1895. Marechal Ferdinand Foch, Professor of Strategy, Ecole Superieure de Guerre, 1904. A Boeing engineer, after the first flight of the 247, a twin engine plane that holds ten people. Computers Popular Mechanics, March 1949. Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp. (DEC), maker of big business mainframe computers, arguing against the PC in 1977. The editor in charge of business books for Prentice Hall, 1957. IBM executive Robert Lloyd, speaking in 1968 microprocessor, the heart of today's computers. Radio Lord Kelvin, Scottish mathematician and physicist, former president of the Royal Society, 1897. Associates of David Sarnoff responding to the latter's call for investment in the radio in 1921. a U.S. District Attorney, prosecuting American inventor Lee DeForest for selling stock fraudulently through the mail for his Radio Telephone Company in 1913. Space Travel T. Craven, FCC Commissioner, in 1961 (the first commercial communications satellite went into service in 1965). Richard Van Der Riet Woolley, upon assuming the post of Astronomer Royal in 1956. Sir Harold Spencer Jones, Astronomer Royal of the UK, 1957 (two weeks later Sputnik orbited the Earth). Lee DeForest, American radio pioneer and inventor of the vacuum tube, in 1926 Rockets -? U.S. postmaster general Arthur Summerfield, in 1959. <... too far-fetched to be considered.> Editor of Scientific American, in a letter to Robert Goddard about Goddard's idea of a rocket-accelerated airplane bomb, 1940 (German V2 missiles came down on London 3 years later). New York Times, 1936. Atomic and Nuclear Power ?- Robert Ferry, executive of the U.S. Institute of Boiler and Radiator Manufacturers, 1955. -? Alex Lewyt, president of vacuum cleaner company Lewyt Corp., in the New York Times in 1955. Admiral William D. Leahy, U.S. Admiral working in the U.S. Atomic Bomb Project, advising President Truman on atomic weaponry, 1944. Winston Churchill, British Prime Minister, 1939. Ernest Rutherford, shortly after splitting the atom for the first time. Albert Einstein, 1932. Robert Millikan, American physicist and Nobel Prize winner, 1923. Films H. M. Warner, co-founder of Warner Brothers, 1927. Telephone/Telegraph A memo at Western Union, 1878 (or 1876). Sir William Preece, Chief Engineer, British Post Office, 1878. Rutherford B. Hayes, U.S. President, after a demonstration of Alexander Bell's telephone, 1876. News item in a New York newspaper, 1868. Television Mary Somerville, pioneer of radio educational broadcasts, 1948. Darryl Zanuck, movie producer, 20th Century Fox, 1946. Lee DeForest, American radio pioneer and inventor of the vacuum tube, 1926. Railroads Martin Van Buren, Governor of New York, 1830(?). The Quarterly Review, March edition, 1825. Dr Dionysys Larder (1793-1859), professor of Natural Philosophy and Astronomy, University College London. Other Technology Dennis Gabor, British physicist and author of Inventing the Future, 1962. <[By 1985], machines will be capable of doing any work Man can do.> Herbert A. Simon, of Carnegie Mellon University - considered to be a founder of the field of artificial intelligence - speaking in 1965. IBM, to the eventual founders of Xerox, saying the photocopier had no market large enough to justify production, 1959. HG Wells, British novelist, in 1901. Lord Kelvin, President of the Royal Society, 1883. Cambridge Aeronautics Professor, when shown Frank Whittle's plan for the jet engine. Comment of Aide-de-camp to Field Marshal Haig, at tank demonstration, 1916. Fourth Lord of the British Admiralty, 1915. Napoleon Bonaparte, when told of Robert Fulton's steamboat, 1800s. Thomas Edison, American inventor, 1880s. Spencer Silver on the work that led to the unique adhesives for 3-M "Post-It" Notepads. Thomas Edison, American inventor, 1889 (Edison often ridiculed the arguments of competitor George Westinghouse for AC power). Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
kallend 2,106 #2 November 10, 2007 Funny thing is, most of the people quoted (Einstein, Edison, Kelvin, Millikan, Olson etc.) got to positions of prominence by being right much more often than other people.... The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Mark24688m 0 #3 November 10, 2007 General Tommy Franks, March 22nd, 2003. Thats more of a lie than a bad prediction. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
SpeedRacer 1 #4 November 10, 2007 /speedracer <> Speed Racer -------------------------------------------------- Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
