THE EXPERTS PREDICT EVERYTHING


 

POLITICAL EXPERTS:

“We are willing that the veil of oblivion will be dropped over the President’s silly remarks and they will be no more repeated or thought of.” – The Patriot News 1863 (on the Gettysburg Address)

 

COMMUNICATIONS EXPERTS:

“Well-informed people know that it is impossible to transmit the human voice over wires, as may be done with dots and dashes of Morse code, and that were it possible the thing would be of no practical value.” – 1865  Boston Newspaper

 

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

 

MEDIA EXPERTS:

“The problem with television is that people must sit and keep their eyes glued on a screen. The average American family hasn’t time for it, it will never be a serious competitor to radio broadcasting.” – The New York Times  1939 .

 

“Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?” – Harry Warner, co-founder of Warner Brothers, 1927

 

TRANSPORT EXPERTS:

“What can be more palpably absurd than the prospect held out of locomotives travelling twice as fast as stagecoaches?” – Quarterly Review 1825.

 

 “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

 

“With over 50 foreign cars already on sale here, the Japanese auto industry isn’t likely to carve out a big slice of the U.S. market.”– Business Week 1968

 

MUSIC EXPERTS:

 “Rock and Roll will be gone by June.” – Variety 1955

 

“We don’t like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out.” – Decca Records (turning down the Beatles) 1962

 

DIGITAL EXPERTS:

“Online 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

 

“I predict the Internet will soon go spectacularly supernova and in 1996 catastrophically collapse.” – Robert Metcalfe (inventor of Ethernet) InfoWorld 1995

 

SPACE EXPERTS:

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

 

ATOMIC EXPERTS:

 “Few scientists foresee any serious or practical use for atomic energy.” Fortune – 1938

 

HEALTH EXPERTS:

“If excessive smoking actually plays a role in the production of lung cancer, it seems to be a minor one.”  National Cancer Society – 1954