BAD SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY PREDICTIONS

‘Everything that can be invented has been invented’ – Charles H. Duell, an official at the US Patent Office, 1899.

‘Ours has been the first [expedition], and doubtless [will] be the last, to visit this profitless locality’ – Lt Joseph Ives, after visiting the Grand Canyon in 1861.

‘Such startling announcements as these should be deprecated as being unworthy of science and mischievous to its true progress’ – Sir William Siemens, on Edison’s light bulb, 1880.

‘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.

‘Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value’ – Maréchal Ferdinand Foch, Professor of Strategy, École Supérieure de Guerre, 1904.

‘Nuclear-powered vacuum cleaners will probably be a reality in 10 years’ – Alex Lewyt, president of vacuum cleaner company Lewyt Corp., in the New York Times in 1955.

‘The bomb will never go off. I speak as an expert in explosives’ – Admiral William Leahy (1875–1959), US Atomic Bomb Project.

‘Atomic energy might be as good as our present-day explosives, but it is unlikely to produce anything very much more dangerous’ – Winston Churchill, British Prime Minister, 1939.

‘Rail travel at high speed is not possible, because passengers, unable to breathe, would die of asphyxia’ – Dr Dionysius Lardner (1793–1859), Professor of Natural Philosophy and Astronomy, University College London.

‘The world potential market for copying machines is 5,000 at most’ – IBM, to the eventual founders of Xerox, saying the photocopier had no market large enough to justify production, 1959.

‘There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home’ – Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977.

‘This “telephone” has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us’ – Western Union internal memo, 1876.

‘Man will never reach the moon regardless of all future scientific advances’ – Dr Lee De Forest (1873–1961), inventor of the vacuum tube and father of television.

‘Louis Pasteur’s theory of germs is ridiculous fiction’ – Pierre Pachet, Professor of Physiology at Toulouse, 1872.

‘Submarine will do nothing’ – H. G. Wells (1866–1946).

‘The Americans have need of the telephone, but we do not. We have plenty of messenger boys’ – Sir William Preece, chief engineer of the British Post Office, 1876.

‘Radio has no future. Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible. X-rays will prove to be a hoax’ – William Thomson, Lord Kelvin, British scientist, 1899.

‘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.

‘The abdomen, the chest, and the brain will forever be shut from the intrusion of the wise and humane surgeon’ – Sir John Eric Ericksen, British surgeon, appointed Surgeon-Extraordinary to Queen Victoria 1873.

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AMUSING AND CONFUSING SENTENCES

Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.

Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.

Rose rose to put rose roes on her rows of roses.

James, while John had had ‘had’, had had ‘had had’. ‘Had had’ had had a better effect on the teacher.

That that is, is. That that is not, is not. Is that it? It is.

If the police police police police, who polices the police police? Police police police police police police.

But and and, and, and and and, and, and and so, are pairs of conjunctions.

It was ‘and’, I said, not ‘are’, and ‘and’ and ‘are’ are different.

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