CRACKED CRYSTAL BALLS!!

                           WISE  PEOPLE SAID THESE THINGS
   

Man will never reach the moon regardless

of all future scientific advances."

-- Dr. Lee DeForest, father of radio and grandfather of television, in 1957.

 
"The bomb will never go off. I speak as

an expert in explosives."

- - Admiral William Leahy, about the US atomic bomb project

   

"There is no likelihood man can ever tap

the power of the atom."

-- Robert Millikan, Nobel laureate in physics,1923

 
"Computers in the future may weigh no more

than 1.5 tons."

-- Popular Mechanics, forecasting the relentless march of science, 1949

 
"I think there is a world market for maybe

five computers."

-- Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943

"I have travelled 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

     

"But what is it good for?"

-- Engineer at the Advanced Computing Systems Division of IBM,

commenting on the microchip,1968.

   

"640K [of computer memory] ought to be

enough for anybody."

-- Bill Gates, 1981

      

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.

   

"The wireless music box has no imaginable

commercial value. 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.

            

"The concept is interesting and well-formed

but, in order to earn better than a 'C' [grade],

the idea must be feasible."

-- A Yale University management professor in response to Fred Smith's

paper

proposing reliable overnight delivery service. Smith went on to found

Federal Express Corp.

"I'm just glad it'll be Clarke Gable who's

falling on his face and not Gary Cooper,"

--Gary Cooper on his decision not to take the leading role in

"Gone With The Wind."

  
"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.

    
"We don't like their sound, and guitar music

is on the way out,"

-- Decca Recording Co. rejecting the Beatles, 1962.

 

"Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible,"

-- Lord Kelvin, president, Royal Society, 1895.

"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

3-M "Post-It" Notepads.

  
"Drill for oil? You mean drill into the ground to

try and find oil? You're crazy,"

-- Drillers whom Edwin L. Drake tried to enlist for his project to drill for

oil in 1859.

      

"Stocks have reached what looks like a

permanently high plateau."

-- Irving Fisher, Professor of Economics, Yale University, 1929.

"Airplanes are interesting toys

but of no military value,"

-- Marshall Ferdinand Foch, Professor of Strategy, Ecole Superieure

de Guerre, France .

    

"Man will not fly for 50 years."

-- Wilbur Wright to his brother Orville in 1901

"No flying machine will ever fly from

New York to Paris."

Orville Wright, in 1908

     

"Everything that can be invented

has been invented,"

-- Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, US Office of Patents, 1899.

"The super computer is technologically

impossible. It would take all of the water

that flows over Niagara Falls to cool the

heat generated by the number of

vacuum tubes required."

-- Professor of Electrical Engineering, New York University

   
"I don't know what use any one could find

for a machine that would make copies of

documents. It certainly couldn't be a

feasible business by itself."

-- Thomas Watson, head of IBM, refusing to back the idea,

forcing the inventor to found Xerox.

  
"Louis Pasteur's theory of germs

is ridiculous fiction."

-- Pierre Pachet, Professor of Physiology at Toulouse, 1872

   

"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.

      

"There is no hope for the fanciful idea of

reaching the moon, because of insurmountable

barriers to escaping the earth's gravity."

University of Chicago astronomer F. R. Moulton in 1932

And last but not least ...

"There is no reason anyone would want a

computer in their home."

-- Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of

Digital Equipment Corp., 1977