Prognostication -- to predict by using present indications as a
guide -- is a difficult pursuit. The future arrives when you are
preparing for other possibilities. It can arise from any source or
direction and in its totality it is always nonlinear. Those
well-situated in a scientific or cultural field, what we call experts,
are often the last to recognize change. Ripples must become swells
before they take notice, and by then, it may be too late to respond.
January is a great month for predictions, and as you can see from the
predictions listed below, when experts use present indications to
predict the future, they are often simply looking to the past. 

     "I think there is a world market for maybe five computers." -
Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943. 

     "Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons." -
Popular Mechanics, 1949. 

     "But what is it good for?" - Engineer, Advanced Computing 
Systems Division of IBM, 1968, commenting on the  microchip. 

     "There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their 
home." - Ken Olson, founder of Digital Equipment Corp.,  1977. 

     "I have travelled the length & 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. " - Editor in 
charge of business books for Prentice Hall, 1957. 

     "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
Sarnoffs' associates in response to his urgings for investments in the
radio in the 1920's. 

     "Who wants to hear actors talk?" - H. M. Warner, Warner Brothers,
     
1927. 

     "l'm just glad it'll be Clark 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. 

     "We don't like their sound, and guitar music is on the way 
out." - Decca Recording Co., rejecting the Beatles, 1962. 

     "Radio has no future. Heavier-than-air flying machines are 
impossible. X-Rays will prove to be a hoax." - 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 in
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." -
Marshal Ferdinand Doch, later Commander of French Troops in World War
I. 

     "Everything that can be invented has been invented." - Chas H.
Duell, Commissioner, US Office of Patents, 1899. 

     "There will never be a bigger plane built." - A Boeing engineer,
after the first flight of the 247, a twin engine plane that carried
ten people. 

     "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. 

     "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. 

     "It will be years - not in my time - before a woman will become
Prime Minister." - Margaret Thatcher, 1974. 

     "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. 

     "The bomb will never go off. I speak as an expert in 
explosives." - Admiral William Leahy, US Atomic Bomb Project.

     "No matter what happens, the US Navy is not going to be caught
napping." - US Secretary of Navy, December 4, 1941. 

     "While theoretically & technically television may be feasible,
commercially and financially it is an impossibility." - Lee DeForest,
inventor. 


-> Quote of the day:
How many of you believe in telekinesis? Raise my hand...