Re: OT Famous Opinions
- From: George Shouse <usenet@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 06 May 2007 18:26:27 -0500
On 6 May 2007 12:12:36 -0700, s_knight8@xxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
http://bigpicture.typepad.com/http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Bill_Gates
An updated version of our prior look at famous opinions:
"Man will never reach the moon regardless of all future
scientific advances."
-Dr. Lee DeForest, "Father of Radio & Grandfather of Television."
"The Atomic bomb will never go off. I speak as an expert in
explosives."
-Admiral William Leahy, US Atomic Bomb Project
"There is no likelihood man can ever tap the power of the atom."
-Robert Millikan, Nobel Prize in Physics, 1923
"Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons."
-Popular Mechanics, forecasting the relentless march of science,
1949
"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers ."
-Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943
"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
"But what is it good for?"
-Engineer at the Advanced ComputingSystems Division of IBM, 1968,
commenting on the microchip.
"640K ought to be enough for anybody."
-Bill Gates, 1981
640K ought to be enough for anybody.
Often attributed to Gates in 1981. Gates considered the IBM PC's
640kB program memory a significant breakthrough and was
surprised at how quickly it became a problem,[1] but he has
denied saying that programs would never need more than 640kB.
I've said some stupid things and some wrong things, but not
that. No one involved in computers would ever say that a certain
amount of memory is enough for all time... I keep bumping into
that silly quotation attributed to me that says 640K of memory
is enough. There's never a citation; the quotation just floats
like a rumor, repeated again and again.
Bloomberg Business News (19 January 1996); also WIRED (16
January 1997)
Do you realize the pain the industry went through while the IBM
PC was limited to 640K? The machine was going to be 512K at one
point, and we kept pushing it up. I never said that statement ?
I said the opposite of that.
U.S. News & World Report (20 August 2001)
Transcription of a recording of a talk on the subject made in
1989
.
"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 Sarnoff's associates in response to his urgings for
investment in the radio in the 1920s.
"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.)
"I'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."
"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.
"We don't like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out,"
-Decca Recording Co. rejecting the Beatles, 1962.
"Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible,"
-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 who Edwin L. Drake tried to enlist to 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,"
-Marechal Ferdinand Foch, Professor of Strategy, Ecole Superieure
de Guerre, France.
"Everything that can be invented has been invented,"
-Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, US Office of Patents, 1899.
"The super computer is technologically impossible. It would take
all of the water that flows over Niagara Falls to cool the heat
generated by the number of vacuum tubes required."
-Professor of Electrical Engineering, New York University
"I don't know what use any one could find for a machine that would
make copies of documents. It certainly couldn't be a feasible business
by itself."
-the head of IBM, refusing to back the idea, forcing the inventor
to found Xerox.
"Louis Pasteur's theory of germs is ridiculous fiction."
-Pierre Pachet, Professor of Physiology at Toulouse, 1872
"The abdomen, the chest, and the brain will forever be shut from
the intrusion of the wise and humane surgeon,"
-Sir John Eric Ericksen, British surgeon, appointed Surgeon-
Extraordinary to Queen Victoria 1873.
And last but not least...
"There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home."
-Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment
Corp., 1977
- References:
- OT Famous Opinions
- From: s_knight8
- OT Famous Opinions
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