Top 50 Failed Technology Predictions of All Time

    Wrong predictions are said very often.  In hindsight, however, the speaker who said these things may have good argument for giving this idea.
Top 50 Failed Technology Predictions of All Time:

1. “The wireless music box has no imaginable commercial value. Who would pay for a message sent to no one in particular?” — Associates of David Sarnoff responding to the latter’s call for investment in the radio in 1921.

2. “Television won’t last. It’s a flash in the pan.” — Mary Somerville, pioneer of radio educational broadcasts, 1948.

3. “X-rays will prove to be a hoax.” — Lord Kelvin, President of the Royal Society, 1883.

4. “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, Horace Rackham, not to invest in the Ford Motor Co., 1903

5. “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.

6. “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 DeForest, American radio pioneer and inventor of the vacuum tube, in 1926

7. “Rail travel at high speed is not possible because passengers, unable to breathe, would die of asphyxia.” — Dr Dionysys Larder (1793-1859), professor of Natural Philosophy and Astronomy, University College London.

8. “Home Taping Is Killing Music” — A 1980s campaign by the BPI, claiming that people recording music off the radio onto cassette would destroy the music industry.

9. “I must confess that my imagination refuses to see any sort of submarine doing anything but suffocating its crew and floundering at sea.” — HG Wells, British novelist, in 1901.

10. “The cinema is little more than a fad. It’s canned drama. What audiences really want to see is flesh and blood on the stage.” -– Charlie Chaplin, actor, producer, director, and studio founder, 1916

11. “There will never be a bigger plane built.” — A Boeing engineer, after the first flight of the 247, a twin engine plane that holds ten people

12. “There is practically no chance communications space satellites will be used to provide better telephone, telegraph, television, or radio service inside the United States.” — T. Craven, FCC Commissioner, in 1961 (the first commercial communications satellite went into service in 1965).

13. “Dear Mr. President: The canal system of this country is being threatened by a new form of transportation known as ‘railroads’ … As you may well know, Mr. President, ‘railroad’ carriages are pulled at the enormous speed of 15 miles per hour by ‘engines’ which, in addition to endangering life and limb of passengers, roar and snort their way through the countryside, setting fire to crops, scaring the livestock and frightening women and children. The Almighty certainly never intended that people should travel at such breakneck speed.” — Martin Van Buren, Governor of New York, 1830(?).

14. “Fooling around with alternating current is just a waste of time. Nobody will use it, ever.” — Thomas Edison, American inventor, 1889 (Edison often ridiculed the arguments of competitor George Westinghouse for AC power).

15. “The world potential market for copying machines is 5000 at most.” — IBM, to the eventual founders of Xerox, saying the photocopier had no market large enough to justify production, 1959.

16. “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

17. “Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible.” — Lord Kelvin, British mathematician and physicist, president of the British Royal Society, 1895.

18. “Lee DeForest has said in many newspapers and over his signature that it would be possible to transmit the human voice across the Atlantic before many years. Based on these absurd and deliberately misleading statements, the misguided public … has been persuaded to purchase stock in his company …” — a U.S. District Attorney, prosecuting American inventor Lee DeForest for selling stock fraudulently through the mail for his Radio Telephone Company in 1913.

19. “When the Paris Exhibition [of 1878] closes, electric light will close with it and no more will be heard of it.” – Oxford professor Erasmus Wilson

20. “How, sir, would you make a ship sail against the wind and currents by lighting a bonfire under her deck? I pray you, excuse me, I have not the time to listen to such nonsense.” — Napoleon Bonaparte, when told of Robert Fulton’s steamboat, 1800s.

21. “This ‘telephone’ has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us.” — A memo at Western Union, 1878 (or 1876).

22. “The energy produced by the breaking down of the atom is a very poor kind of thing. Anyone who expects a source of power from the transformation of these atoms is talking moonshine.” — Ernest Rutherford, shortly after splitting the atom for the first time.

23. Atomic energy might be as good as our present-day explosives, but it is unlikely to produce anything very much more dangerous. Winston Churchill, First Lord of the Admiralty, then soon-to-be British Prime Minister, 1939.

24. “Flight by machines heavier than air is unpractical (sic) and insignificant, if not utterly impossible.” – Simon Newcomb; The Wright Brothers flew at Kittyhawk 18 months later.

25. “We will never make a 32 bit operating system.” — Bill Gates

26. “[Television] won’t be able to hold on to any market it captures after the first six months. People will soon get tired of staring at a plywood box every night.” — Darryl Zanuck, movie producer, 20th Century Fox, 1946.

27. “The idea that cavalry will be replaced by these iron coaches is absurd. It is little short of treasonous.” — Comment of Aide-de-camp to Field Marshal Haig, at tank demonstration, 1916.

28. “The Americans have need of the telephone, but we do not. We have plenty of messenger boys.” — Sir William Preece, Chief Engineer, British Post Office, 1878.

29. “This 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 D. Leahy, Chief of Staff to the Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy during World War II, advising President Truman on the atomic bomb, 1945.[6] Leahy admitted the error five years later in his memoirs

30. “A rocket will never be able to leave the Earth’s atmosphere.” — New York Times, 1936.

31. “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.

32. "I have traveled the length and breadth of this country and talked with the best people, and I can assure you that data processing is a fad that won't last out the year." The editor in charge of business books for Prentice Hall, 1957.

33. "[By 1985], machines [computers] will be capable of doing any work Man can do." Herbert A. Simon, of Carnegie Mellon University, one of the founders of the field of artificial intelligence – speaking in 1965.

34." I would sooner believe that two Yankee professors lied, than that stones fell from the sky." Thomas Jefferson, U.S. President, on hearing reports of meteorites, 1790s(?).

35." There is nothing new to be discovered in physics now; All that remains is more and more precise measurement. "Lord Kelvin, allegedly speaking to the w:British Association for the Advancement of Science in 1900. The veracity of this attribution is disputed, and no contemporaneous documentation of the statement is known.

36." The more important fundamental laws and facts of physical science have all been discovered, and these are so firmly established that the possibility of their ever being supplanted in consequence of new discoveries is exceedingly remote. Nevertheless, it has been found that there are apparent exceptions to most of these laws, and this is particularly true when the observations are pushed to a limit, i.e., whenever the circumstances of experiment are such that extreme cases can be examined. Such examination almost surely leads, not to the overthrow of the law, but to the discovery of other facts and laws whose action produces the apparent exceptions." Albert Abraham Michelson, Light waves and their uses, University of Chicago Press, 1903. The first sentence is often quoted out of context, completely misrepresenting his intent.

37.' We are probably nearing the limit of all we can know about astronomy". Simon Newcomb, Canadian-born American astronomer, 1888.

38." I would sooner believe that two Yankee professors lied, than that stones fell from the sky". Thomas Jefferson, U.S. President, on hearing reports of meteorites, 1790s(?).

39." The world potential market for copying machines is 5000 at most." IBM, to the eventual founders of Xerox, saying the photocopier had no market large enough to justify production, 1959.

40. "The idea that cavalry will be replaced by these iron coaches is absurd. It is little short of treasonous." Comment of Aide-de-camp to Field Marshal Haig, at tank demonstration, 1916.

41." I must confess that my imagination refuses to see any sort of submarine doing anything but suffocating its crew and floundering at sea." H.G. Wells, British novelist, in 1901.

42. "There is practically no chance communications space satellites will be used to provide better telephone, telegraph, television, or radio service inside the United States." T. Craven, FCC Commissioner (USA), in 1961 (the first commercial communications satellite went into service in 1965).

43. "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, American radio pioneer and inventor of the vacuum tube, in 1926

44." The basic questions of design, material and shielding, in combining a nuclear reactor with a home boiler and cooling unit, no longer are problems... The system would heat and cool a home, provide unlimited household hot water, and melt the snow from sidewalks and driveways. All that could be done for six years on a single charge of fissionable material costing about $300." Robert Ferry, executive of the U.S. Institute of Boiler and Radiator Manufacturers, 1955.

45." That is the biggest fool thing we have ever done [research on]... The bomb will never go off, and I speak as an expert in explosives. Admiral William Leahy, U.S." Admiral working in the U.S. Atomic Bomb Project, advising President Truman on atomic weaponry, 1944.

46." Television won't last. It's a flash in the pan." Mary Somerville, pioneer of radio educational broadcasts, 1948.

47." Transmission of documents via telephone wires is possible in principle, but the apparatus required is so expensive that it will never become a practical proposition." Dennis Gabor, British physicist and author of Inventing the Future, 1962.

48." 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.

49." The ordinary 'horseless carriage' is at present a luxury for the wealthy; and although its price will probably fall in the future, it will never, of course, come into as common use as the bicycle." Literary Digest, 1899.

50." It is apparent to me that the possibilities of the aeroplane, which two or three years ago were thought to hold the solution to the [flying machine] problem, have been exhausted, and that we must turn elsewhere." Thomas Edison, American inventor, 1895.