Predicting the future of technology can be a tricky business with many supposed experts making startlingly wrong judgements. Here are some howlers from people who really should have known better…
 

• “We will never make a 32 bit operating system.” – Bill Gates
• “Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible.” – Lord Kelvin, British mathematician and physicist, president of the British Royal Society, 1895
• “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
• “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
• “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
• “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
• “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 he was told of Robert Fulton’s steamboat in 1800
• “Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value.” –  Marechal Ferdinand Foch, Professor of Strategy, Ecole Superieure de Guerre, 1904.
• ‘The abdomen, the chest and the brain will forever be shut from the intrusion of the wise and humane surgeon.’ – Sir John Eric Ericson, Surgeon to Queen Victoria, 1873
• “Louis Pasteur’s theory of germs is ridiculous fiction.” — Pierre Pachet, Professor of Physiology at Toulouse, 1872.
• “That virus is a pussycat.” — Dr. Peter Duesberg, molecular-biology professor at U.C. Berkeley, on HIV, 1988

On November 25 and 26 Intelligence2 is hosting the iq2 If Conference where we’ll address what world will look like in 50 years time – hopefully with a greater degree of accuracy than those listed above. For more information please follow this link:  http://www.iq2ifconference.com/