Technology Predictions that have Failed

Top 30 Failed Technology Predictions
Throughout history man has been making predictions of the future. With the advent of technology, the
predictions moved away from religious topics to scientific and technological. Unfortunately for the speakers,
many of these failed predictions have been recorded for all future generations to laugh at. Here is a selection
of the 30 best.
Predictions 1 - 10
1. “There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home.” — Ken Olson, president, chairman and
founder of Digital Equipment Corp. (DEC), maker of big business mainframe computers, arguing against the
PC in 1977.
2. “We will never make a 32 bit operating system.” — Bill Gates
3. “Lee DeForest has said in many newspapers and over his signature that it would be possible to transmit the
human voice across the Atlantic before many years. Based on these absurd and deliberately misleading
statements, the misguided public … has been persuaded to purchase stock in his company …” — a U.S.
District Attorney, prosecuting American inventor Lee DeForest for selling stock fraudulently through the mail
for his Radio Telephone Company in 1913.
4. “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).
5. “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
6. “A rocket will never be able to leave the Earth’s atmosphere.” — New York Times, 1936.
7. “Flight by machines heavier than air is unpractical (sic) and insignificant, if not utterly impossible.” -
Simon Newcomb; The Wright Brothers flew at Kittyhawk 18 months later.
8. “Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible.” — Lord Kelvin, British mathematician and physicist,
president of the British Royal Society, 1895.
9. “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
10. “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.
Predictions 11 - 20
11. “This is the biggest fool thing we have ever done. The bomb will never go off, and I speak as an expert in
explosives.” — Admiral William D. Leahy, Chief of Staff to the Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy
during World War II, advising President Truman on the atomic bomb, 1945.[6] Leahy admitted the error five
years later in his memoirs
12. “The energy produced by the breaking down of the atom is a very poor kind of thing. Anyone who expects
a source of power from the transformation of these atoms is talking moonshine.” — Ernest Rutherford, shortly
after splitting the atom for the first time.
13. “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
14. “The cinema is little more than a fad. It’s canned drama. What audiences really want to see is flesh and
blood on the stage.” -– Charlie Chaplin, actor, producer, director, and studio founder, 1916
15. “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, Horace Rackham, not to invest in the Ford Motor
16. “The Americans have need of the telephone, but we do not. We have plenty of messenger boys.” — Sir
William Preece, Chief Engineer, British Post Office, 1878.
17. “This ‘telephone’ has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication.
The device is inherently of no value to us.” — A memo at Western Union, 1878 (or 1876).
18. “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.
19. “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.
20. “X-rays will prove to be a hoax.” — Lord Kelvin, President of the Royal Society, 1883.
Predictions 21 - 30
21. “The idea that cavalry will be replaced by these iron coaches is absurd. It is little
short of treasonous.” — Comment of Aide-de-camp to Field Marshal Haig, at
tank demonstration, 1916.
22. “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.
23. “Fooling around with alternating current is just a waste of time. Nobody will
use it, ever.” — Thomas Edison, American inventor, 1889 (Edison often
ridiculed the arguments of competitor George Westinghouse for AC power).
24. “Home Taping Is Killing Music” — A 1980s campaign by the BPI, claiming that people recording music
off the radio onto cassette would destroy the music industry.
25. “Television won’t last. It’s a flash in the pan.” — Mary Somerville, pioneer of radio educational
broadcasts, 1948.
26. “[Television] won’t be able to hold on to any market it captures after the first six months. People will soon
get tired of staring at a plywood box every night.” — Darryl Zanuck, movie producer, 20th Century Fox,
1946.
27. “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
28. “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(?).
29. “Rail travel at high speed is not possible because passengers, unable to breathe, would die of asphyxia.”
— Dr Dionysys Larder (1793-1859), professor of Natural Philosophy and Astronomy, University College
London.
30. “The wireless music box has no imaginable commercial value. Who would pay for a message sent to no
one in particular?” — Associates of David Sarnoff responding to the latter’s call for investment in the radio in
1921.