Everything that can be invented has been invented."
"Who in their right mind would ever need more than 640k of ram!?"
"Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons."
"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers."
"There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home."
"This 'telephone' has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered
"The wireless music box has no imaginable commercial value.
"We don't like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out."
"X rays are a hoax."
"While theoretically and technically television may be feasible, commercially and financially I consider it an impossibility."
"The Bomb will never go off, and I speak as an expert in explosives."
"Space travel is utter bilge."
"The cloning of mammals...is biologically impossible."
-Charles Duell, head of the U.S. Patent Office, 1899
- Bill Gates, 1981
- Popular Mechanics, forecasting the relentless march of science, 1949
- Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943
- Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977
as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us."
- Western Union internal memo, 1876
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.
- Decca Recording Co. rejecting the Beatles, 1962.
-Lord Kelvin, physicist, c. 1900
-Lee DeForest, inventor of the Audion tube, 1926
-Admiral William Daniel Leahy, advising President Truman on the U.S. atom-bomb project, 1945
-Richard van der Riet Wooley, on assuming the post of British Astronomer Royal, 1956
-James McGrath and Davor Solter, writing in Science, Dec. 14, 1984