Now we’re halfway through. So while my previous posts focused on science and technology, in this installment, we move away from that. Rather, in this edition we’ll focus more on the social development in our history. In many ways, our society is always changing even if it can be hard for some people and institutions to accept it. For instance, in 2007, many people thought that Americans would never elect a black guy as their president. Given that African Americans were treated as slaves and second class citizens who were segregated to the crap parts of town. And the enduring racism in this country that’s embedded in the American culture. But in 2008, that’s exactly what happened with the election of Barack Obama. Another thing Americans didn’t imagine in 2007 was the nationwide legalization of gay marriage. The Republican dominated Supreme Court did just that 8 years later and there was much rejoicing. Nevertheless, gay marriage has become substantially less controversial in recent years and it’s a relatively easy issue to get behind. Then you have travel which pertains to places that some thought were of little tourist value like the Grand Canyon and the Effiel Tower. Finally, we have business and economics which people tend to get the wrong idea about that it’s often been politicized. Seriously, back in August of 2014, I wrote a blog post on the Federal Reserve to explain why Ron Paul’s call to “End the Fed” was an incredibly stupid idea. So without further adieu, here is my next installment of Beyond Future Imperfect for your reading pleasure.

Society? Sorry, Never Gonna Change

Yes, I’m sure women have been traditionally seen as housewives and stay-at-home moms. But I’m positive that women have made plenty of contributions outside the home, since, well, ever. Nevertheless, at least feminism helped make that much more acceptable by the 1970s. Still, look at this WWII poster for yourselves. Doesn’t look like a housewife to me.

“I see no good reasons why the views given in this volume should shock the religious sensibilities of anyone.” — Charles Darwin, The Origin Of Species, 1869. (Well, he wasn’t totally wrong as I do believe God did play a role in the evolution of life through the process of natural selection, which was probably His divine intention anyway. Besides, there’s the story of Jacob breeding goats so he could trick his father-in-law into giving him the greater share of the flock. Not to mention, Christians have long considered the Genesis creation story as an allegory long before Darwin even developed his theory of evolution. For instance, Saint Augustine believed that everything was created by God in the same instant and not in 6 days as Genesis would require. Also, there’s the fact that many people lived on farms at the time who are familiar breeding livestock and crops. However, Darwin wasn’t counting the notion of Biblical literalists who believe in the Young Earth Creationism.)

“If anything remains more or less unchanged, it will be the role of women.” –David Riesman, conservative American social scientist, 1967. (Well, as far as sexual reproduction is concerned. Other than that…women’s roles will certainly change and be beyond the role of housewife.)

“The multitude of books is a great evil. There is no limit to this fever for writing; every one must be an author; some out of vanity, to acquire celebrity and raise up a name, others for the sake of mere gain.”–Martin Luther, German Reformation leader, Table Talk, 1530s(?). (Sorry, Martin Luther, but books are a great good. And no, not everyone writes to become a celebrity.)

“Not one man I have spoken to likes a woman in mini skirts.” – Coco Chanel, 1969. (Coco has obviously not been around the right kind of men. Of course, men like women in miniskirts. Well, a lot of them anyway.)

“Visionaries see a future of telecommuting workers, interactive libraries and multimedia classrooms. They speak of electronic town meetings and virtual communities. Commerce and business will shift from offices and malls to networks and modems. And the freedom of digital networks will make government more democratic. Baloney.”– Clifford Stoll in “Newsweek”, 1995. (This is happening now as we speak.)

“Assuming then my postulata as granted, I say, that the power of population is indefinitely greater than the power in the earth to produce subsistence for man. Population, when unchecked, increases in a geometrical ratio.” – Thomas Malthus, who, in 1798, argued that population growth would outpace agricultural production. (Today we have agricultural industrial complex which can feed way more people than whatever Malthus’s world had in the 1790s.)

Travel? Nobody’s Going to See That

Yeah, I’m sure this majestic natural wonder is certainly a “profitless locality.” Never mind that it’s the #1 reason why people flock from all over the world to visit Arizona. Why the hell is it called “The Grand Canyon State” then?

“Ours has been the first, and doubtless to be the last, to visit this profitless locality.” — Lt. Joseph Ives, after visiting the Grand Canyon in 1861. (Too bad this guy knew nothing about tourism. Today, the Grand Canyon is the #1 tourist destination in Arizona as well as a national icon for the state. Hell, they don’t call Arizona, “the Grand Canyon” state for nothing.)

“And for the tourist who really wants to get away from it all, safaris in Vietnam” – -Newsweek, predicting popular holidays for the late 1960s. (Thanks but no thanks, Newsweek, but I’d stay the hell out of Vietnam, especially in the late 1960s when it’s a complete hellscape thanks to the Viet Cong and American GIs. Sorry, but safaris in Vietnam in the late 1960s aren’t going to happen.)

“We, writers, painters, sculptors, architects and passionate devotees of the hitherto untouched beauty of Paris, protest with all our strength, with all our indignation in the name of slighted French taste, against the erection … of this useless and monstrous Eiffel Tower … To bring our arguments home, imagine for a moment a giddy, ridiculous tower dominating Paris like a gigantic black smokestack, crushing under its barbaric bulk Notre Dame, the Tour Saint-Jacques, the Louvre, the Dome of les Invalides, the Arc de Triomphe, all of our humiliated monuments will disappear in this ghastly dream. And for twenty years … we shall see stretching like a blot of ink the hateful shadow of the hateful column of bolted sheet metal.” – excerpt of a protest letter on the Eiffel Tower sent to Charles Alpand who was Minister of Works and Commissioner of the 1889 World’s Fair. (They had no idea that the Eiffel Tower would become the symbol of Paris and would attract a lot of tourism from all over the world.)

“The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here…”—Abraham Lincoln, “The Gettysburg Address” (the most famous speech in American history) (Yeah, really underestimated that one, especially since people know “The Gettysburg Address” by heart.)

Business and Economics? That Won’t Pay Off

Let’s just say, whoever started this company shouldn’t have gotten a C on his term paper proposing an overnight delivery service. Because all this shows that it was a very good idea.

“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 Fred Smith’s paper proposing reliable overnight delivery service. (Smith went on to found Federal Express Corp. We can now determine that the ‘C’ he got from his Yale management professor was undeserved.)

“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. (Thankfully, Mrs. Fields had the business sense to ignore this response and found a company that survives to this day.)

“Stocks have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau.” — Irving Fisher, Professor of Economics, Yale University, 1929. (Come October and Irving Fisher would be eating his own words when the stock market crashed and the Great Depression later ensued.)

“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. (TIME really had no idea what it was talking about. Because online shopping is incredibly popular right now.)

“We will bury you.” –Nikita Krushchev, Soviet Premier, predicting Soviet communism will win over U.S. capitalism, 1958. (Sorry, Kruschev, but US capitalism would win over the Soviet Union instead. Yet, I’m not so sure about US democracy would win over whatever Russia has though. Because Putin has been in power there for a very long time.)

“In all likelihood world inflation is over.”–International Monetary Fund CEO, 1959. (Inflation is still going on and is happening all the time.)

“This antitrust thing will blow over.”–Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft. (No, it won’t, Bill, but it will drag on until 2001.)

“Capitalist production begets, with the inexorability of a law of nature, its own negation.”-Karl Marx. (Sorry, Karl, but capitalism is still alive and well thanks to government regulations, trade unions, and consumerism.)

“Your cigar-ettes will never become popular.”— F. G. Alton (cigar maker, turning down Mr. John Player), 1870 (Yes, they did, unfortunately. And there’s a lot of lung cancer to prove it.)

“By the year 1982 the graduated income tax will have practically abolished major differences in wealth.” – Irwin Edman, professor of philosophy Columbia University, 1932. (The graduated income tax is still around and has never abolish major differences in wealth.)

Crime, Law, and Order? What’s That a Show?

“The case is a loser.” -– Johnnie Cochran, on soon-to-be client O.J.’s chances of winning, 1994. (It should’ve been, but thanks to Johnnie Cochran’s thing about the glove, it wasn’t.)

Environment? C’mon, This is Nonsense

“By 1985, air pollution will have reduced the amount of sunlight reaching earth by one half … ” – Life magazine, 1970. (Not really, except maybe in China. Not to mention, this didn’t take climate change into account.)

“(The world will be) 11 degrees colder in the year 2000.” – Kenneth Watt, 1970. (Sorry, but it was warmer by the 2000s as I recall. Because you know, climate change.)

Disasters? Dream On

“The deliverance of the saints must take place some time before 1914.”— Charles Taze Russell (founder of Jehovah’s Witnesses), 1914 (Apocalypse predictions always never come true.)

“The deliverance of the saints must take place some time after 1914.”— Charles Taze Russell (founder of Jehovah’s Witnesses), 1923 (Now that’s a little better.)

” … civilization will end within 15 or 30 years unless immediate action is taken against problems facing mankind,” George Wald, Harvard University, 1970 (As of 2016, it’s still going strong. Still, Apocalyptic prophecies never come true.)

“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, 1970. (46 years later and that many people isn’t dying of starvation.)

As you’ve seen so far, you notice that a lot of a lot of these bad predictions pertain to science and technology. After all such ideas tend to shape our lives. Yet, back when scientific theory was being formulated, there were many critics who dismissed such ideas. Sure some of it had to do with religion which usually gets blamed nowadays, particularly when we talk about certain Christian groups not wanting their kids to be taught about evolution in public schools (though as a practicing Catholic, I do believe in evolution through natural processes and divine intervention. Not sure what role God played in this, but then again, the Lord works in mysterious ways.) However, when it comes to criticizing science, it’s not always about religion. Rather it might be the fact that the theory in question seems so crazy to some people that it absolutely makes no sense to them whatsoever. Technology is also changing as well and you’ve seen a lot of how people dismissed big breakthroughs as flops, fads, or failures. One of these breakthroughs in science and technology was space travel that was originally seen as something straight out of Jules Verne. So for your reading pleasure, I now bring you my third installment of Beyond Future Imperfect.

Science? You Mean Bullshit

Yes, I know that Galileo’s condemnation by the Catholic Church tends to serves as an example of how science and religion don’t tend to get along. However, we tend to forget that the a lot of scholars secular and otherwise didn’t think heliocentrism made a lot of sense. Mostly because they couldn’t wrap their heads around the idea of an earth in motion while everything in their world remained in place. After all, if the earth moves, you should be able to feel it.

“I am tired of all this sort of thing called science here… We have spent millions in that sort of thing for the last few years, and it is time it should be stopped.”–Simon Cameron, U.S. Senator, on the Smithsonian Institute, 1901. (And you thought the Republicans’ war on science was a new thing since so many of them deny climate change as a manmade thing that’s happening as we speak.)

“People give ear to an upstart astrologer who strove to show that the earth revolves, not the heavens or the firmament, the sun and the moon… Whoever wishes to appear clever must devise some new system, which of all systems is of course the very best. This fool wishes to reverse the entire science of astronomy; but the sacred scripture tells us that Joshua commanded the sun to stand still, not the earth.”— Martin Luther, 1540 (Seems like he wasn’t a big fan of Copernicus, a Polish priest who was proven right about heliocentrism by the way.)

“I can accept the theory of relativity as little as I can accept the existence of atoms and other such dogma.”— Professor Ernst Mach (as in speed-of-sound measurement), 1913 (So how is this guy a scientist? I can understand Einstein’s relativity theory with him. But atoms?)

“The most 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 supplemented by new discoveries is exceedingly remote.”— Forest Ray Moulton, Astronomer, 1935 (There’s still more to be discovered, man. Just watch PBS on Wednesday night.)

“Mathematics is inadequate to describe the universe, since mathematics is an abstraction from natural phenomena. Also, mathematics may predict things which don’t exist, or are impossible in nature.”- Ludovico delle Colombe, 1633 (Uh, you might want to reconsider.)

“Animals, which move, have limbs and muscles. The earth does not have limbs and muscles; therefore it does not move.”- Scipio Chiaramonti [Professor of philosophy and mathematics at University of Pisa, arguing against the heliocentrc system, 1633] (Uh, just because something doesn’t have limbs and muscles doesn’t mean it doesn’t move. For instance, the earth moves around the sun by invisible forces like gravity. Reminds me of the witch sketch from Monty Python and the Holy Grail.)

“Just as in the microcosm there are seven `windows’ in the head (two nostrils, two eyes, two ears, and a mouth), so in the macrocosm God has placed two beneficent stars (Jupiter, Venus), two maleficent stars (Mars, Saturn), two luminaries (sun and moon), and one indifferent star (Mercury). The seven days of the week follow from these. Finally, since ancient times the alchemists had made each of the seven metals correspond to one of the planets; gold to the sun, silver to the moon, copper to Venus, quicksilver to Mercury, iron to Mars, tin to Jupiter, lead to Saturn.

From these and many other similar phenomena of nature such as the seven metals, etc., which it were tedious to enumerate, we gather that the number of planets is necessarily seven… Besides, the Jews and other ancient nations as well as modern Europeans, have adopted the division of the week into seven days, and have named them from the seven planets; now if we increase the number of planets, this whole system falls to the ground… Moreover, the satellites are invisible to the naked eye and therefore can have no influence on the earth, and therefore would be useless, and therefore do not exist.”– Francesco Sizzi, astronomer at Florence. [Arguing against Galileo’s 1610 announcement of his discovery of four moons of Jupiter.] (Someone get this guy a telescope. Because that’s how Galileo discovered them. Also, there are way more than 7 metals.)

“It is difficult to deal with an author whose mind is filled with a medium of so fickle and vibratory a nature…; We now dismiss…the feeble lucubrations of this author, in which we have searched without success for some traces of learning, acuteness, and ingenuity, that might compensate his evident deficiency in the powers of solid thinking…”- Henry Brougham. [Criticizing Thomas Young’s wave theory of light.] (Let me guess who’s right here. Uh, Thomas Young.)

“Buildings and the earth itself would fly off with such a rapid motion that men would have to be provided with claws like cats to enable them to hold fast to the earth’s surface.” — Libertus Fromundus, Anti-Aristarchus, 1631 (I don’t think this guy understands how planetary motion works.)

“If we concede the motion of the earth, why is it that an arrow shot into the air falls back to the same spot, while the earth and all the things on it have in the meantime moved very rapidly toward the east? Who does not see that great confusion would result from this motion?” — Polacco, Anticopernicus Catholicus, 1644 (Uh, how about gravity?)

“There is nothing new to be discovered in physics now; All that remains is more and more precise measurement.” – Lord Kelvin, 1900. (Einstein’s Theory of Relativity is a start as far as he’s concerned.)

Technology? That’s Science Fiction

And IBM thought the founders of Xerox could only sell 5,000 of these things. Today, the word Xerox is now synonymous for “photocopier.” So the joke’s on IBM.

“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. (Boy, this guy didn’t know what he just accomplished with “Post-It” Notepads.)

“You want to have consistent and uniform muscle development across all of your muscles? It can’t be done. It’s just a fact of life. You just have to accept inconsistent muscle development as an unalterable condition of weight training.” — Response to Arthur Jones, who solved the “unsolvable” problem by inventing Nautilus. (And people have been using that ever since.)

“Drill for oil? You mean drill into the ground to try and find oil? You’re crazy.” — Workers whom Edwin L. Drake tried to enlist to his project to drill for oil in 1859. (Apparently, drilling for oil ended up becoming one of the most profitable enterprises ever. Hell, this world basically runs on oil drilling which isn’t helping our fossil fuel dependency.)

“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 (Today, these are at almost every office building, school, or business you can think of. And Xerox is now synonymous with photocopier.)

“Inventions reached their limit long ago and I see no hope for further development.”— Julius Sextus Frontinus, prominent Roman engineer (c. 40-103 AD) (I can see plenty after the first century AD, thank you very much.)

“In my own time there have been inventions of this sort, transparent windows, tubes for diffusing warmth equally through all parts of a building, short-hand which has been carried to such a pitch of perfection that a writer can keep pace with the most rapid speaker. But the inventing of such things is drudgery for the lowest slaves; philosophy lies deeper…”- Roman poet Lucius Annaeus Seneca (4 B.C.E.-65 C.E.) (Seems like the Romans weren’t fans of scientific innovations.)

“There is a young madman proposing to light the streets of London—with what do you suppose—with smoke!”– Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832) [On a proposal to light cities with gaslight.] (Gas would be the dominant source of lighting throughout the late 19^th and early 20^th century.)

“Theological: It is an intervention in God’s order, which makes nights dark…

Medical: It will be easier for people to be in the streets at night, afflicting them with colds…

Philosophical-moral: Morality deteriorates through street lighting. Artificial lighting drives out fear of the dark, which keeps the weak from sinning.” –The Kölonische Zeitung [Köln, Germany, 28 March 1819] on why there shouldn’t be street lighting. (I can give you plenty of good reasons for it. For one, it keeps you safe. Second, it helps you navigate through the area. Third, it helps you determine where to avoid the horseshit.)

“Given a compact power source…the house of the future would have no roots tying it to the ground. Gone would be water pipes, drains, power lines; the autonomous home could therefore move, or be moved, to anywhere on earth at the owner’s whim. The time may come, therefore, when whole communities may migrate south in the winter, or move to new lands whenever they feel the need for a change of scenery.” Arthur C. Clarke describing 2001 in 1966. (Nice way to picture the future which didn’t happen yet, especially in 2001.)

“Printed books will never be the equivalent of handwritten codices, especially since printed books are often deficient in spelling and appearance.” – Trithemius in his treatise, “In Praise of Copying.” (Actually printed books are better in appearance and spelling, thanks to Johannes Gutenberg in the 1400s.)

Space Travel? Seriously, You’re Delusional

And there were so many people who didn’t think this moment on July 20, 1969 wouldn’t be possible. But it happened and Buzz Aldrin is still alive to tell the tale. There were 5 other landings after that with 9 other men on the moon ever since. Unfortunately, despite it being televised, many people believed that the moon landing was faked in Arizona.

“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 revolutionary rocket work. The remark was retracted in the July 17, 1969 issue. (Yeah, I can see where the New York Times would regret that one. Because rockets have been sent to space since the 1950s.)

“A rocket will never be able to leave the Earth’s atmosphere.” — New York Times, 1936 (Man, it seems like the NYT is really stuck with the impossibility of rockets in space thing. Wonder how that worked out.)

“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). (Boy, that’s sure going to bite him in the ass 4 years later. And yes, we do use commercial satellites nowadays.)

“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 (Note: This was how Apollo 11 pulled it off the moon landing in 1969.)

“There has been a great deal said about a 3000 miles high angle rocket. In my opinion such a thing is impossible for many years. The people who have been writing these things that annoy me have been talking about a 3000 mile high-angle rocket shot from one continent to another, carrying an atomic bomb and so directed as to be a precise weapon which would land exactly on a certain target, such as a city.

“This foolish idea of shooting at the moon is an example of the absurd length to which vicious specialization will carry scientists working in thought-tight compartments. Let us critically examine the proposal. For a projectile entirely to escape the gravitation of earth, it needs a velocity of 7 miles a second. The thermal energy of a gramme at this speed is 15,180 calories… The energy of our most violent explosive–nitroglycerine–is less than 1,500 calories per gramme. Consequently, even had the explosive nothing to carry, it has only one-tenth of the energy necessary to escape the earth… Hence the proposition appears to be basically impossible.”– W. A. Bickerton, Professor of Physics and Chemistry at Canterbury College (Christchurch, New Zealand), 1926. (Yet, somehow NASA seemed to pull this off in 1969.)

“There is not in sight any source of energy that would be a fair start toward that which would be necessary to get us beyond the gravitative control of the earth.”– Forest Ray Moulton (1872-1952), astronomer, 1935. (How about a fancy type of gasoline called rocket fuel?)

“Space travel is utter bilge.”– Dr. Richard van der Reit Wooley, Astronomer Royal, space advisor to the British government, 1956. (Apparently, Sputnik would orbit the following year. I’d like to see his reaction.)

So we’re off to a good start. As you may see, sometimes the future is never what we imagine it. And sometimes what we think was impossible is made possible. And none of that can be emphasized than in this post. In this edition of Beyond Future Imperfect, we go over what people initially surmised about energy, computers, and communication. To people who lived before these caught on, they would’ve thought such things were the stuff of science fiction. For instance, before the late 1800s, nobody would imagine lights being powered by electricity. Then the light bulb was invented and it took a savvy inventor named Thomas Edison to popularize it. And before WWII, nobody thought nuclear power was possible, even Albert Einstein. Yes, that Einstein. Then there’s the development of computers which people in your grandparents’ generation wouldn’t dream of having due to them being incredibly expensive and the tendency to take up a whole room. But the development of the microchip changed all that which led to the rise of Silicon Valley as well as the emergence of Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and the Internet. And there’s communication which before the Industrial Revolution, hadn’t seen much development since Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press and movable type in the 1400s. Yet, messages were still delivered through horse, coach, and messenger. But the Industrial Revolution saw the development of the telegraph which led to the telephone. Later on, you then had the invention of radio and television. And in the 1980s and 1990s, you had the Internet, whose development for the massses was funded by the US government in a bill passed through Congress that was sponsored by a little known Senator named Al Gore. So without further adieu, I now bring you my second post in the series of Beyond Future Imperfect.

Electricity? Just a Phase

Sure Edison didn’t really invent the light bulb and he knew it. But it was his light bulb that turned out more practical, long lasting, and commercially viable among the masses. And they said electricity was just a phase. Well, his idea of direct current, that is.

“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 (Boy, he had no idea that Edison’s lightbulb would help bring electricity into people’s homes and that it’s still around to this day. Some failure that turned out to be.)

“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 (Seems like Professor Wilson is sorely mistaken, since everyone in industrialized world uses electric lights to this day.)

“There is no plea which will justify the use of high-tension and alternating currents, either in a scientific or a commercial sense.”— Thomas Alva Edison, 1889 (We still use the alternating current today. Direct current, on the other hand….)

“Such startling announcements as these should be deprecated as being unworthy of science and mischievous to its true progress.”— Sir William Siemens (on Edison’s announcement of light bulb), 1880 (Clearly this guy has no idea how the light bulb will change the world.)

“Do not bother to sell your gas shares. The electric light has no future.” —Professor John Henry Pepper, Victorian-era celebrity scientist, sometime in the 1870s (Yes, it has a future like you wouldn’t believe. Seriously, we still use it in the 21^st century.)

Nuclear Power? Forget It

And Einstein thought this wouldn’t be possible in the 1930s. Guess that’s one of the few things he was definitely wrong about. Nevertheless, would I say it’s safe? No freaking way.

“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. (This is probably one of the few instances in the history of science where Einstein is wrong. Seriously, splitting the atom was done in his own lifetime for God’s sake. And yes, nuclear energy does exist for that.)

“There is no likelihood man can ever tap the power of the atom. The glib supposition of utilizing atomic energy when our coal has run out is a completely unscientific Utopian dream, a childish bug-a-boo. Nature has introduced a few fool-proof devices into the great majority of elements that constitute the bulk of the world, and they have no energy to give up in the process of disintegration.”— Robert Millikan, Nobel Prize winner in physics, 1920 (Man, he’s going to be in for a shock come the 1940s.)

“All the waste in a year from a nuclear power plant can be stored under a desk.”— Ronald Reagan, 1980 (Seriously, can someone please school Ronald Reagan on how nuclear energy works. Tell him how much waste a nuclear plant generates a year. It’s a matter of tons.)

“The energy produced by the breaking down of the atom is a very poor kind of thing. Anyone who looks for a source of power in the transformation of the atom is talking moonshine.”— Ernest Rutherford, 1936 (He won’t be saying this by 1945.)

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. (Thank the Lord this didn’t happen. Noisy vacuum cleaners are bad enough. Radioactive vacuum cleaners are the stuff of nightmares.)

“There is little doubt that the most significant event affecting energy is the advent of nuclear power…a few decades hence, energy may be free—just like the unmetered air….-“- John von Neumann, scientist and member of the Atomic Energy Commission, 1955. (Uh, no, it won’t. Seriously, people receive electric bills. Also, nuclear power isn’t what it’s cracked up to be.)

Computers? You Mean These Useless Magic Machines?

Back in the day, it was said that computers in the future would weight 1.5 tons and that there would be a market for 5 of them. Guess they weren’t betting on the invention of the microchip.

“I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.” — Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943. (Today there’s a market for countless computers.)

“Where a calculator on the ENIAC is equipped with 18,000 vacuum tubes and weighs 30 tons, computers in the future may have only 1,000 vacuum tubes and weigh only 1.5 tons.” — Popular Mechanics, 1949.  (Today’s computers are made with no vacuum tubes and can fit on a desk, lap, or palm in your hand.)

“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. (Well, data processing is alive and well because it’s used in practically everything.)

But what…is it good for?” — Engineer at the Advanced Computing Systems Division of IBM, 1968, commenting on the microchip. (Well, for making computers more accessible, affordable, smaller, more useful, and more powerful. And basically changing computers as we know them.)

“There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home.” — Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977. (Yes, this is as Bill Gates and Steve Jobs showed them and got rich over it.)

“Get your feet off my desk. Get out of here. You stink. And we’re not going to buy your product.”—Joe Keenan, President of Atari, responding to Steve Jobs’ offer to sell him the rights to Apple (Atari just made a very dumb mistake.)

“It would appear that we have reached the limits of what is possible to achieve with computer technology, although one should be careful with such statements, as they tend to sound pretty silly in five years.”— John von Neumann, computer inventor, 1949

“We have reached the limits of what is possible with computers.”— John Von Neumann, 1949 (Just wait until the microchip is invented.)

“We will never make a 32 bit operating system.” — Bill Gates (Oh, yes, you will, Bill. Yes, you will.)

“The whole conception is flawed at the top because people don’t read anymore.”—Steve Jobs discussing the Kindle (Newsflash: they do.)

“I’m sorry… but really? This is really what you think the iPad will cause? What we have now with this tablet craze is a trend, like Pogs. (…) I don’t know how anyone can possibly think that the iPad will be some sort of paradigm shift.”— moocat commenting on this Gizmodo article about the iPad being the future. (Sorry, but the he iPad is a hit that they’ve made other computer tablets as well. In fact, I have an LG Tablet from Verizon which I got for Christmas.)

“For the most part, the portable computer is a dream machine for the few … On the whole, people don’t want to lug a computer with them to the beach or on a train to while away hours they would rather spend reading the sports or business section of the newspaper.” – Erik Sandberg-Diment, The New York Times, 1985. (Clearly this guy has never foreseen laptops, Kindles, or iPads.)

Communication? Come Back to Reality

Wonder why Western Union turned down Alexander Graham Bell’s offer of $100,000 for his telephone company? Seriously, isn’t transmitting voices better than Morse Code? Oh, well, their loss.

“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. (Of course, telephones made wire communication much easier due to a speaker and receiver you can talk into and hear through. Sure beats Morse code. Phones are still around to this day. Western Union, on the other hand is not.)

“The Americans have need of the telephone, but we do not. We have plenty of messenger boys.” — Sir William Preece, chief engineer of the British Post Office, 1876. (I’m sure messenger boys aren’t as efficient as communicating through wires.)

“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. (Uh, a lot of people since David Sarnoff knew what he was doing and he got rich on it.)

“The radio craze…will die out in time.”— Thomas Alva Edison, 1922 (No, it won’t, Mr. Edison.)

“The Internet will catastrophically collapse in 1996.”— Robert Metcalfe, internet inventor (date unknown) (The Internet is still around and it’s 20 years after 1996.)

“The Internet? We are not interested in it.” –Bill Gates, 1993. (Really, Bill? Think you’d better start.)

“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 to do so, the thing would be of no practical value.” – Boston newspaper, 1865. (Guess what happened within the next decade.)

“Radio has no future.”– Lord Kelvin (1824-1907), British mathematician and physicist, ca. 1897. (Once again, Lord Kelvin is wrong. Dead wrong.)

“What use could this company make of an electrical toy?”— William Orton, Western Union President, turning down Alexander Graham Bell’s offer to sell his telephone company for $100,000 (As a matter of fact, the $100,000 for that electric toy was worth it.)

“[Apple’s iPhone] is the most expensive phone in the world and it doesn’t appeal to business customers because it doesn’t have a keyboard which makes it not a very good e-mail machine…”–Steve Ballmer, Microsoft’s CEO, 2007. (Meanwhile, Steve Jobs just earned Apple millions of dollars and is laughing his way to the bank.)

“The telephone is a curious device that might fairly find place in the magic of Arabian Tales. Of what use is such an invention?”—A newspaper reporter, 1876. (Uh, talking to people over long distances.)

“The coming of the wireless era will make war impossible, because it will make war ridiculous.”–Guglielmo Marconi, pioneer of radio, Technical World Magazine, October, 1912, page 145. (Just because something makes war ridiculous doesn’t make it impossible. Also, guess what happens 2 years later.)

“The truth is no online database will replace your daily newspaper, no CD-ROM can take the place of a competent teacher and no computer network will change the way government works.” – Clifford Stoll, 1995. (Maybe not, but the Internet is changing everything as we speak. Ever heard of Amazon?)

Foresight is never 20/20. Anyone who’s seen the weatherman get the forecast wrong on the news would know that. But that doesn’t stop people from guessing what the future would be like. And people in the past were no different. And it’s not expected to get these predictions wrong as you may well know from weather forecasts. However, when it comes to the weather, the predictions usually center on the immediate future like this week or the next 24 hours. And the weatherman’s predictions usually make some sense even if they turn out to be wrong. But this isn’t a series for weather predictions because they’re boring. This a series about the stuff people predicted about the future and getting it horribly wrong. In this edition, I’ll cover transportation which really has changed a lot in since the Industrial Revolution. For a long time in history, the primary modes of transportation were by foot, by horse, and by wooden ship. But the Industrial Revolution changed all that with railways and steamships as well as paved the way for cars, aviation, submarines, an more. But not everyone imagined it this way, as you can see. Thus, for your reading pleasure, here are some bad predictions about transportation.

Aviation? Nah, That Won’t Fly

And they said that manned flight was impractical or impossible. Seems like somebody forgot to tell these two bicycle shop owning brothers from Dayton, Ohio. And just look what they did on December 17, 1903 near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.

“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. (I guess this guy would later be fired. Because planes today hold way more than 10 people.)

“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). (Guess Wilbur was off by 48 years.)

“I have not the smallest molecule of faith in aerial navigation other than ballooning.”— Lord Kelvin, President of Royal Society, 1890 (Guess what happened in 1903.)

“Flight by machines heavier than air is impractical and insignificant, if not utterly impossible.”— Simon Newcomb, astronomer, 1902 (Guess what happened the next year.)

“…no possible combination of known substances, known forms of machinery, and known forms of force, can be united in a practical machine by which man shall fly long distances through the air…”- Simon Newcomb (1835-1909), astronomer, head of the U. S. Naval Observatory (Somehow the Wright brothers managed to pull this off in 1903.)

“If man were meant to fly, God would have given him wings.” – Bishop Milton Wright, father of the Wright brothers. (The brothers who, you know, would be the first to fly their own plane at Kitty Hawk. Yes, that was their father.)

“Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible.” — Lord Kelvin, British mathematician and physicist, president of the British Royal Society, 1895. (Apparently, two brothers in Dayton, Ohio didn’t think so. And look what they did in North Carolina 5 years later.)

“Hence, if it requires, say, a thousand years to fit for easy flight a bird which started with rudimentary wings, or ten thousand for one which started with no wings at all and had to sprout them ab initio, it might be assumed that the flying machine which will really fly might be evolved by the combined and continuous efforts of mathematicians and mechanicians in from one million to ten million years–provided, of course, we can meanwhile eliminate such little drawbacks and embarrassments as the existing relation between weight and strength in inorganic materials.” The New York Times, Oct 9, 1903, p. 6. (Guess what two guys from Dayton did in North Carolina that year.)

“It would fill the world with innumerable immoralities and give such occasion for intrigues as people can not meet with. You would have a couple of lovers make a midnight assignation upon the top of the monument and see the cupola of St. Paul’s covered with both sexes like the outside of a pigeon house. Nothing would be more frequent than to see a beau flying in at a garret window or a gallant giving chase to his mistress like a hawk after a lark.”- Joseph Addison. [Concerns about where manned flight might lead (1713)] (What the hell does he imagine the future being like? Aladdin? Seriously, there’s a reason flying contraptions aren’t as available for consumers as skateboards.)

“Before Man reaches the moon, mail will be delivered within hours from New York to California, to Britain, to India or Australia by guided missiles. We stand on the threshold of rocket Science.”—George Summerfiled (Yes, that sounds awesome. But the US landed on the moon in 1969 and we still don’t have rocket mail. We have drones and Internet instead, which is so much better.)

“Automobiles will start to decline almost as soon as the last shot is fired in World War II. The name of Igor Sikorsky will be as well known as Henry Ford’s, for his helicopter will all but replace the horseless carriage as the new means of popular transportation. Instead of a car in every garage, there will be a helicopter…. These ‘copters’ will be so safe and will cost so little to produce that small models will be made for teenage youngsters. These tiny ‘copters, when school lets out, will fill the sky as the bicycles of our youth filled the prewar roads.”– Harry Bruno, aviation publicist, 1943. (I’m sure every family had their own helicopter after WWII. Not really. Seriously, there are no such things as privately owned helicopters unless one is stinking rich. I guess the brown acid was around in the 1940s.)

Cars? Are You Nuts?

And they thought this wouldn’t replace the horse. Well, guess they didn’t bet on Henry Ford’s Model T assembly line in Detroit. Did they? Available only in black.

“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, August 2, 1968. (Businessweek severely underestimated how well the Japanese made cars that are affordable and reliable with Honda, Toyota, Mazda, Isuzu, Nissan, Mitsubishi, and Subaru.)

“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 (Obviously, Michigan Savings Bank had no idea what they were dealing with. Nowadays, cars are everywhere and horses are no longer seen as a mode of transportation.)

“It is an idle dream to imagine that automobiles will take the place of railways in the long distance movement of passengers.”— American Railroad Congress, 1913 (But it did happen as we know now because Amtrak isn’t doing so well these days.)

“The Edsel is here to stay.”— Henry Ford II, 1957 (Sorry, but the Edsel was one of the biggest flops in automotive history.)

“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, January 2, 1909. (I’m sure there are plenty of ways to improve a car. Because nobody drives a Model T these days.)

“A new source of power… called gasoline has been produced by a Boston engineer. Instead of burning the fuel under a boiler, it is exploded inside the cylinder of an engine.

The dangers are obvious. Stores of gasoline in the hands of people interested primarily in profit would constitute a fire and explosive hazard of the first rank. Horseless carriages propelled by gasoline might attain speeds of 14 or even 20 miles per hour. The menace to our people of vehicles of this type hurtling through our streets and along our roads and poisoning the atmosphere would call for prompt legislative action even if the military and economic implications were not so overwhelming… [T]he cost of producing [gasoline] is far beyond the financial capacity of private industry… In addition the development of this new power may displace the use of horses, which would wreck our agriculture.”– U. S. Congressional Record, 1875. (Yeah, right. Nowadays, because of gas, the oil industry is one of the most important and most profitable. Also, gasoline didn’t wreck our agriculture.)

“Within the next few decades, autos will have folding wings that can be spread when on a straight stretch of road so that the machine can take to the air.” — Eddie Rickenbacker, ‘Popular Science,’ July 1924 (Yeah, I can see that but only in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.)

Railroads? That Train Ain’t Gonna Come

And they thought nobody would pay to travel by rail if they already had a horse. Yet, this soon became a dominant mode of transportation by the end of the 19th century.

“Rail travel at high speed is not possible because passengers, unable to breathe, would die of asphyxia.” – Dr. Dionysius Lardner, 1830 (I’ve been on a high speed rail at Disney World and suffered no such problems.)

“No one will pay good money to get from Berlin to Potsdam in one hour when he can ride his horse there in one day for free.” – King William I of Prussia, on trains, 1864 (Oh, yes, they will because it would be cheaper and easier. Also, had no idea why liveries existed in the first place. Or what it takes to care for a horse.)

“I should say that no railway locomotive ought to exceed 40 miles per hour on the most favorable gradient, but on a curved line the speed ought not to exceed 24 or 25 miles per hour.”— George Stephenson, 1841 (They go more that 40 mph now.)

“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(?). (Well, railroads were dangerous since they killed more people than some wars. However, 15 mph is certainly breakneck speed, for a turtle.)

“What can be more palpably absurd than the prospect held out of locomotives traveling twice as fast as stagecoaches?”–The Quarterly Review, March, 1825. (I can name a lot of things but not that. Actually, trains may travel more than twice as fast as stagecoaches.)

Maritime? That Ship Ain’t Gonna Sail

Ships powered by steam? Such nonsense! How’s that going to catch on? Oh, wait, it did. In fact, Mark Twain worked on one of these.

“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 (Seems like Napoleon had no idea on how a steam engine worked. Too bad for him.)

“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 (Thankfully, Jules Verne thought otherwise since 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea features nuclear subs. Still, he has no idea how submarines work.)

“The Titanic is well able to withstand almost any exterior damage and could keep afloat indefinitely after being struck.”— P. Franklin, Vice President, White Star Line, April 15th 1912 (Does 3 hours after hitting an iceberg count?)

”I cannot conceive of any vital disaster happening to this vessel. Modern shipbuilding has gone beyond that.”—Captain Edward J. Smith of the Titanic before its maiden voyage in 1912. (How about sinking for 3 hours after being hit by an iceberg?)

”There is no danger that Titanic will sink. The boat is unsinkable and nothing but inconvenience will be suffered by the passengers.”– P. Franklin, Vice President, White Star Line, April 15th 1912 (Inconvenience? I think the passengers suffered more than inconvenience when it sank after hitting an iceberg. That’s putting it mildly.)

“I. A Voyage to Asia would require three years.

II. The western Ocean is infinite and perhaps unnavigable.

III. If he reached the Antipodes he could not get back.

IV. There are no Antipodes because the greater part of the globe is covered with water, and because St. Augustine said so.

V. Of the five zones, only three are habitable.

VI. So many centuries after the Creation, it is unlikely that anyone could find hitherto unknown lands of any value.”– Report of the committee organized in 1486 by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain to study Columbus’ plans to find a shorter route to India. (Well, they were right about the impossibility or a shorter route to India. They were wrong about the other points but the first one for the time.)

“Men might as well project a voyage to the Moon as attempt to employ steam navigation against the stormy North Atlantic Ocean.”– Dr. Dionysus Lardner (1793-1859), Professor of Natural Philosophy and Astronomy at University College, London. (Later on, humanity accomplishes both.)