Precarious Prediction

"Everything that can be invented has been invented."
Charles H. Duell, Director of U.S. Patent Office, 1899

"Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?“
Harry Warner, Warner Bros. Pictures, c. 1927

"Sensible and responsible women do not want to vote."
Grover Cleveland, 1905

"There is no likelihood man can ever tap the power of the atom."
Robert Milliken, Nobel Prize in Physics, 1923

"Heavier than air flying machines are impossible." 
Lord Kelvin, President, Royal Society, c.1895.

"A late-1970's market research study commissioned by Bell Labs .. predicted a (cell phone) subscriber base of only 800,000 by (the year) 2000, and concluded there was no market at any price.'" "...by next year (2000) there were in fact be an estimated 80,000,000 subscribers in the U.S. alone.."

"In 1876, a Western Union internal memo predicted, this 'telephone" has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication." Magazine, January 2000, page 64

"Stocks have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau."
Irving Fischer, Yale Economics Prof., 1929

"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers."
Watson Sr., President of IBM, 1943

""With over 50 foreign cars already on sale here, the Japanese auto industry isn't likely to carve out a big slice of the US market." 
Business Week, August 2, 1968.

"We are probably nearing the limit of all we can know about astronomy."
Simon Newcomb, astronomer, 1888.