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This is a list of failed predictions. Psychics and would-be prophets often give exact details of what is about to happen and when the day passes, their followers conveniently forgot they ever said anything of the kind, remembering mainly those that happened to come true.

Science fiction is often set in the future, but is very rarely intended to be an actual prediction of events to come; a timeline of fictional future events is listed elsewhere.

The History of Unfulfilled Prophecy by Christians deals specifically with failed predictions by prophets or leaders within the Christian church, though not any contained within the Bible itself.

Many of the following quotes do truly describe predictions of the future, but description of then present circumstances which may sound either nonsensical or patently untrue given what is now known.

This is a dynamic list and may never be able to satisfy particular standards for completeness. You can help by adding missing items with reliable sources.

A History of doomsday prophecies

Many doomsday predictions, including ones predicting the end of the world, the return of a deity, or a cataclysmic event, have been conventionally vague. However, some people have come up with very specific predictions.

Past

Failed predictions made by people not claiming to be prophets, referring to history, art, science, etc.

By no means, however, are doomsday prophecies the only predictions that human beings ever make that turn out to be wrong. Many people- most, in fact- make predictions about the future not because they claim to be a prophet or such, but simply because they are basing their predictions on their own thoughts and feelings about history, the arts, science, etc. Scientists and economists, as well as any other professional in any business - not to mention any layperson - can make a failed prediction.

The following is a list of such failed predictions. The list is broken up into three main sections: Technology, Science/Medicine/Health, and Bad Predictions. The Technology and Bad Predictions sections are further divided into categories which fit under those sections.

Technology

Technology in this case refers to tools, machines, and other tangible devices that are used by humans for certain processes. All quotes in all categories of this section refer to these types of technology.

Computers

  • "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 minicomputers, arguing against the PC in 1977. (See [3] for historical context.)
  • "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.[1]
  • "640K ought to be enough for anybody." or "No one will need more than 637 kilobytes of memory for a personal computer." are two variants of the same quote, often misattributed to Bill Gates in 1981. Gates has repeatedly denied ever saying this, and he points out that it has never been attributed to him with a proper source. In fact, the memory limitation was due to the hardware architecture of the IBM PC.[2]
  • "We will never make a 32 bit operating system." -- Bill Gates[3]

Radio

  • "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.[1]
  • "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.[1]

Space travel

  • "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).[1]
  • "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[1]

Rockets

  • "... 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).[1]
  • "A rocket will never be able to leave the Earth's atmosphere." -- New York Times, 1936.[1]
  • "That Professor Goddard with his 'chair' in Clark College and the countenancing of the Smithsonian Institution does not know the relation of action to reaction, and of the need to have something better than a vacuum against which to react -- to say that would be absurd. Of course, he only seems to lack the knowledge ladled out daily in high schools." -- 1921 New York Times editorial about Robert Goddard's breakthrough work on rockets. The remark was retracted in the July 17, 1969 issue, in a humorous editorial - this was just before the historic moon landing of Neil Armstrong on July 20, 1969, so of course Goddard’s theory of rockets had been proven correct after all.

Aircraft

  • "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.[1]
  • "Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value." -- Marechal Ferdinand Foch, Professor of Strategy, Ecole Superieure de Guerre, 1904.[5]
  • "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.[citation needed]

Atomic power/nuclear power

  • "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.[citation needed]
  • "Self-operating [vacuum] cleaners powered by nuclear energy will probably be a reality a decade from now." -– Alex Lewyt, president of vacuum cleaner company Lewyt Corp., in the New York Times in 1955.[6]
  • "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.[7] Leahy admitted the error five years later in his memoirs.[8]
  • "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.[1]
  • "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.[1]
  • "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.[5] Einstein went on to propose development of the atom bomb in a famous letter to Franklin D. Roosevelt during World War 2.
  • "There is no likelihood man can ever tap the power of the atom." -- Robert Millikan, American physicist and Nobel Prize winner, 1923.[1]

Film/film technology

  • "Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?" -- H. M. Warner, co-founder of Warner Brothers, 1927.[1]
    • The quote above is partial, the full quote is "Who the hell wants to hear actors talk? The music — that's the big plus about this." Warner Bros. was investing in sound technology though Henry Warner was more excited about the potential of scoring over dialogue. [9]
  • "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.[citation needed]

Automobiles

  • "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]
  • "That the automobile has practically reached the limit of its development is suggested by the fact that during the past year no improvements of a radical nature have been introduced." -- Scientific American, Jan. 2 edition, 1909.[5]
  • "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.[citation needed]

(Although automobiles have become quite popular in industrialized countries, they are still considered a luxury good on a global scale. The current number of bicycles in the world is in question, but it appears to at least match the number of automobiles.)

Telephone/telegraph

  • "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).[5]
  • "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.[1]
  • "A man has been arrested in New York for attempting to extort funds from ignorant and superstitious people by exhibiting a device which he says will convey the human voice any distance over metallic wires so that it will be heard by the listener at the other end. He calls this instrument a telephone. Well-informed people know that it is impossible to transmit the human voice over wires." -- News item in a New York newspaper, 1868.[1]
  • "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.[1] In defence of Gabor, it should be noted that he also wrote: "The best way to predict the future is to invent it."[citation needed]

Miscellaneous technology

  • "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.[1]
  • "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.[citation needed] Submarines had been developed as early as the American Civil War, forty years prior.
  • "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.[1]
  • "Caterpillar landships are idiotic and useless. Those officers and men are wasting their time and are not pulling their proper weight in the war." -- Fourth Lord of the British Admiralty, 1915.[1]
  • "If I had thought about it, I wouldn't have done the experiment. The literature was full of examples that said 'you can't do this'." -- Spencer Silver on the work that led to the unique adhesives for 3M "Post-It" Notepads.[citation needed]
  • "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).[1]

Television

  • "[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.[5]
  • "While theoretically and technically television may be feasible, commercially and financially I consider it an impossibility, a development of which we need waste little time dreaming." -- Lee DeForest, American radio pioneer and inventor of the vacuum tube, 1926.[5]

Lightbulb

  • "... 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.[1]
  • "Such startling announcements as these should be depreciated as being unworthy of science and mischievous to its true progress." -- Sir William Siemens, on Edison's light bulb, 1880.[citation needed]
  • "Everyone acquainted with the subject will recognize it as a conspicuous failure." -- Henry Morton, president of the Stevens Institute of Technology, on Edison's light bulb, 1880.[1]
  • "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

Railroads

  • "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(?).[citation needed]
  • "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.[5]

Science/medicine/health

Science in this case refers to any of the diverse scientific fields of study, Medicine refers to the scientific study of the body and how it functions, and Health refers to the study of how to keep the body functioning well.[citation needed]

  • "Louis Pasteur's theory of germs is ridiculous fiction." --Pierre Pachet, British surgeon and Professor of Physiology at Toulouse, 1872.[1]
  • "The abolishment of pain in surgery is a chimera. It is absurd to go on seeking it...knife and pain are two words in surgery that must forever be associated in the consciousness of the patient." -- Dr. Alfred Velpeau, French surgeon, 1839.[1]
  • "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.[1]
  • "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(?).[1]
  • "The view that the sun stands motionless at the center of the universe is foolish, philosophically false, utterly heretical, because it is contrary to Holy Scripture. The view that the earth is not the center of the universe and even has a daily rotation is philosophically false, and at least an erroneous belief." -- Holy Office, Roman Catholic Church, ridiculing the scientific analysis that the Earth orbited the Sun in edict of March 5, 1616.[1]
  • "The more important fundamental laws and facts of physical science have all been discovered, and these are now so firmly established that the possibility of their ever being supplanted in consequence of new discoveries is exceedingly remote.... Our future discoveries must be looked for in the sixth place of decimals." -- Albert A. Michelson, German-born American physicist, 1894.[1]
  • "We are probably nearing the limit of all we can know about astronomy." -- Simon Newcomb, Canadian-born American astronomer, 1888.[1]
  • "The death rate will increase until at least 100-200 million people per year will be starving to death during the next ten years." -- Paul Ralph Ehrlich, in an interview with Peter Collier in Mademoiselle, 1970.[citation needed]

Bad predictions

Bad predictions in this case refers to predictions about future events, enterprises, careers, etc. that proved to be wrong later.

Future historical/social/pop cultural events

  • "By the year 1982 the graduated income tax will have practically abolished major differences in wealth." -- Irwin Edman, professor of philosophy Columbia University, 1932.[citation needed]
  • "If anything remains more or less unchanged, it will be the role of women." -- David Riesman, conservative American social scientist, 1967.[1]
  • "And for the tourist who really wants to get away from it all, safaris in Vietnam" -- Newsweek, predicting popular holidays for the late 1960s.[citation needed]
  • "Hawaii U.S.A. A world of happiness in an ocean of peace". -- The National Geographic Magazine, Vol. LXXX, No. 4, October, 1941. Advertisement sponsored during the initial years of the Second World War by the Hawaii Tourist Bureau, and published just two months before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor (possibly intended to attract tourists to the December season).[citation needed]
  • "Remote shopping, while entirely feasible, will flop - because women like to get out of the house, like to handle merchandise, like to be able to change their minds." -- TIME, 1966, in one sentence writing off e-commerce long before anyone had ever heard of it.[citation needed]
  • "This is the second time in our history that there has come back from Germany to Downing Street peace with honor. I believe it is peace for our time." -– Neville Chamberlain, British Prime Minister, September 30th, 1938 (after giving up Chechoslovakia to Hitler).[citation needed]
  • "Sensible and responsible women do not want to vote." -- Grover Cleveland, U.S. President, 1905.[1]
  • "Man will not fly for 50 years." -- Wilbur Wright, American aviation pioneer, to brother Orville, after a disappointing flying experiment, 1901 (their first successful flight was in 1903).[1]
  • "The Americans are good about making fancy cars and refrigerators, but that doesn’t mean they are any good at making aircraft. They are bluffing. They are excellent at bluffing." -- Hermann Göring, Commander-in-Chief of the Luftwaffe, 1942.[citation needed]
  • "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." -- Business Week, August 2, 1968.[citation needed]
  • "Ours has been the first [expedition], and doubtless to be the last, to visit this profitless locality." -- Lt. Joseph Ives, after visiting the Grand Canyon in 1861.[citation needed]

Celebrities/athletes/great artists and their work

  • "You better get secretarial work or get married." -- Emmeline Snively, director of the Blue Book Book Modelling Agency, advising would-be model Marilyn Monroe in 1944.[1]
  • "I'm sorry, Mr Kipling, but you just don't know how to use the English language." -- The San Francisco Examiner, rejecting a submission by Rudyard Kipling in 1889.[citation needed]

Entrepreneurs and their revolutionary ideas

  • "The concept is interesting and well-formed, but in order to earn better than a C, the idea must be feasible." -- A Yale University management professor in response to a college assignment by Fred Smith proposing a reliable overnight delivery service, in 1966. Smith would later go on to found Federal Express Corp.[citation needed]
  • "Drill for oil? You mean drill into the ground to try and find oil? You're crazy." -- Associates of Edwin L. Drake refusing his suggestion to drill for oil in 1859.[1]
  • "A cookie store is a bad idea. Besides, the market research reports say America likes crispy cookies, not soft and chewy cookies like you make." -- Response to Debbi Fields' idea of starting Mrs. Fields' Cookies.[citation needed]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa ab ac ad ae af ag ah ai aj ak al am an ao ap Prado, Mark. "Permanent - Quotes". Retrieved 2007-04-29.
  2. ^ "Gates Talks". U.S. News & World Report. Retrieved 2007-04-29. {{cite web}}: Text "date2001-08-20" ignored (help)
  3. ^ Ward, Laura (2003). Foolish Words: The Most Stupid Words Ever Spoken. New York: PRC Publishing Limited.
  4. ^ [1]
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Simanek, Donald. "It'll Never Work!". Retrieved 2007-04-29.
  6. ^ "Vacuum Cleaners Eyeing the Atom" (PDF fee required). New York Times. 1955-06-11. Alex Lewyt said last week that self-operating [vacuum] cleaners powered by nuclear energy would probably be a reality a decade from now. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  7. ^ Truman, Harry S. (1955). Memoirs, Volume I: Year of Decisions. Garden City, New York: Doubleday. p. 11.
  8. ^ Leahy, William D. (1950). I Was There. New York: Whittlesey.
  9. ^ [2]
  10. ^ Al Feldstein site

External links

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