|
Post by Matthew the Swordsman on May 6, 2017 15:36:41 GMT
Two classic incorrect predictions:
"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 De Forest, 1957
"With over fifteen types of foreign cars already on sale here, the Japanese auto industry isn't likely to carve out a big share of the market for itself." - Businessweek, 1968
What are some of your favourite incorrect predictions?
|
|
kaasa
Sophomore
@kaasa
Posts: 283
Likes: 72
|
Post by kaasa on May 7, 2017 6:42:57 GMT
"Everything that can be invented has been invented."
Allegedly said by Charles Duell, Commissioner of the US Patent Office at the turn of the 20th Century.
|
|
|
Post by JHA Durant on May 7, 2017 9:05:35 GMT
The Y2K bug. Hard to believe so many people believed it would happen.
|
|
kaasa
Sophomore
@kaasa
Posts: 283
Likes: 72
|
Post by kaasa on May 7, 2017 9:28:23 GMT
The Y2K bug. Hard to believe so many people believed it would happen. Apparently the United States spent $100 Billion in preparation for Y2K. It makes you wonder how much of that was needed to fix the infrastructure and how much of it was really just a waste.
|
|
|
Post by JHA Durant on May 7, 2017 11:39:46 GMT
The Y2K bug. Hard to believe so many people believed it would happen. Apparently the United States spent $100 Billion in preparation for Y2K. It makes you wonder how much of that was needed to fix the infrastructure and how much of it was really just a waste. Wonder if they wasted any money preparing for 2012?
|
|
|
Post by hi224 on May 9, 2017 17:36:02 GMT
we'd be living with synthetics.
|
|
gadolinium
Sophomore
@gadolinium
Posts: 282
Likes: 137
|
Post by gadolinium on May 11, 2017 19:25:06 GMT
"I give the talkies six months more. At the most, a year. Then they’re done" - Charles Chaplin, 1931
|
|
|
Post by general313 on May 12, 2017 19:07:49 GMT
Auguste Compte writing about stars: “We can never learn their internal constitution, nor, in regard to some of them, how heat is absorbed by their atmosphere.”
Lord Kelvin: "heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible"
And another one by Lee de Forest: "As a growing competitor to the tube amplifier comes now the Bell Laboratories’ transistor, a three-electrode germanium crystal of amazing amplification power, of wheat-grain size and low cost. Yet its frequency limitations, a few hundred kilocycles, and its strict power limitations will never permit its general replacement of the Audion amplifier."
|
|
|
Post by bonerxmas on May 13, 2017 6:53:13 GMT
marx predicted that class divisions would become sharper, leading to revolutionary class war which the working class would win, after which they would build a new classless society
"I don't think Madonna, whom I like, has any particular interest in music. She's going to end up a big movie star. There's nothing wrong with that." - Greil Marcus, Time Magazine, March 4, 1985
|
|
|
Post by koskiewicz on May 20, 2017 15:39:42 GMT
I agree with the Y2K thingy...I worked for IBM at the time and the hysteria was epic...after the fact, it was "business as usual"....
|
|
|
Post by vegalyra on May 23, 2017 18:56:42 GMT
This is a funny one:
Fooling around with alternating current (AC) is just a waste of time. Nobody will use it, ever.
- Thomas Edison
|
|
|
Post by koskiewicz on May 23, 2017 19:03:14 GMT
...tesla...tesla...where are you???
|
|
|
Post by bravomailer on May 23, 2017 23:56:59 GMT
"That is the biggest fool thing we have ever done. The bomb will never go off, and I speak as an expert in explosives."
- Admiral William Leahy, 1945, on the atomic bomb program
Someone in the 1950s, a corporate honcho or cabinet secretary, predicted that the baby-boomers would be docile and conservative.
|
|
camimac
Sophomore
@camimac
Posts: 915
Likes: 355
|
Post by camimac on May 24, 2017 2:10:52 GMT
Ironically my favorite incorrect prediction were the political pundits on election night predicting that Hillary was going to win. Don't get me wrong. I was crushed when she did not win, but it was a good wake up call on how little those talking heads on tv know. I thought I was a critical listener. I realized how much I wasn't and how much more I needed to be; and broaden my sources of information.
|
|
|
Post by bravomailer on May 24, 2017 2:30:12 GMT
“No enemy bomber can reach the Ruhr. If one reaches the Ruhr, my name is not Göring. You can call me Meyer.”
– Hermann Göring, 1939
|
|
|
Post by marsexplorer on May 24, 2017 2:31:35 GMT
This is a funny one: Fooling around with alternating current (AC) is just a waste of time. Nobody will use it, ever. - Thomas Edison That is a good one, but remember that Edison and his DC current were in direct competition with Tesla. He most likely said that to discourage people's interest. Besides, Edison was an asshole.
|
|
|
Post by koskiewicz on May 24, 2017 16:11:20 GMT
"hey, hold my beer and watch this!"
|
|
sheevshayhair
Freshman
"Truth is like poetry. And most people fucking hate poetry"
@sheevshayhair
Posts: 63
Likes: 28
|
Post by sheevshayhair on Jun 10, 2017 20:14:08 GMT
Al Gore predicting Florida would be underwater by the 2020s
|
|
|
Post by johnblutarsky on Jun 19, 2017 20:56:24 GMT
1995: "I predict the Internet will soon go spectacularly supernova and in 1996 catastrophically collapse." — Robert Metcalfe, founder of 3Com.
|
|
|
Post by deembastille on Jun 19, 2017 23:30:33 GMT
|
|