Speaker’s corner

AMANZIMTOTI Bureau Chief, Cecil Totness, has come across a marvellous collection of quotes from eminent scholars who managed to get things magnificently wrong… yet many, like Einstein, made it to the top. Some were already there.

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

Men might as well project a voyage to the moon as attempt to employ steam navigation against the stormy North Atlantic Ocean. – Dionysus Lardner (1838) Professor of Natural Philosophy and Astronomy, University College, London.

What can be more palpably absurd than the prospect held out of locomotives travelling twice as fast as stagecoaches? – The Quarterly Review, England (March 1825).

When the Paris Exhibition closes, electric light will close with it and no more be heard of. – Erasmus Wilson (1878) Professor at Oxford University.

Well-informed people know it is impossible to transmit the voice over wires and that were it possible to do so, the thing would be of no practical value. – Editorial, Boston Post (1865).

The automobile has practically reached the limit of its development. – Scientific American, January, 1909

The abolishment of pain in surgery is a chimera. It is absurd to go on seeking it… Knife and pain are two words in surgery that must for ever be associated in the consciousness of the patient. – Dr Alfred Velpeau (1839) French surgeon.

The foolish idea of shooting at the moon is an example of the absurd length to which vicious specialisation will carry scientists working in thought-tight compartments. – A.W. Bickerton (1926) Professor of Physics and Chemistry, Canterbury College, New Zealand.

Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible. – Lord Kelvin, c 1895, British mathematician and physicist. Radio has no future. – Lord Kelvin, ca. 1897. While theoretically and technically television may be feasible, commercially and financially I consider it an impossibility, a development of which we need waste little time dreaming. – Lee DeForest, 1926 (American radio pioneer).

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.

Where a calculator on the ENIAC is equipped with 19 000 vacuum tubes and weighs 30 tons, computers in the future may have only 1 000 vacuum tubes and perhaps only weigh 1.5 tons. – Popular Mechanics, March 1949. (Would the journal have believed a laptop, or an iPhone?)

There is no need for any individual to have a computer in their home. – Ken Olson, 1977, president, Digital Equipment Corp.

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

I have travelled 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 books for Prentice Hall, 1957.

I recently received a letter from Alicia Steiner who wanted to know about Densa, the club I established (ie: started) 10 years ago for those too dumb for Mensa, Mensa being the club for those with an abnormally high intelligence (ie: three metres and over).

Alicia said she had designed a T-shirt for Densa, with four armholes “to fit all sizes”.

Soon after Alicia’s letter I was deluged by yet another. This time it was from Francois Malan, the well-known accountant. Francois wants to join our club (ie: Densa) but can’t remember its name (ie: Densa).

A lot of Densans have this problem (ie: remembering the club’s name, whatever it is).