We can all make guesses about how the future will go, and sometimes, we're even right. After all, with a little forethought and intelligence, one can make an educated guess about what's to come.
Then again, even the smartest people can't always be right.
Below are 23 predictions from some of the world's most successful, intelligent people - all of which turned out to be 100% wrong. Check out their quotes below for a reminder that even the upper echelons of wealth, power, and brinas can't always call it correctly. We're betting the guy who predicted №16 is feeling pretty dumb right about now, or №10 is so wrong it’s funny.
1."Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?" - H. M. Warner, founder of the Warner Brothers.
2. "It will be gone by June." - Variety Magazine, giving a prediction on the future of rock-and-roll in 1955.
3. "X-rays will prove to be a hoax." - Lord Kelvin, President of the Royal Society, spoken in 1883.
4. "A rocket will never be able to leave the Earth's atmosphere." - What the New York Times surmised in 1936.
5. "The abdomen, the chest, and the brain will forever be shut from the intrusion of the wise and humane surgeon." - Sir John Eric Ericksen, a British surgeon in the 1870's.
6. "There will never be a bigger plane built." - A Boeing engineer, shorty after the company had built a twin engine plane that only held 10 people.
7. "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." - a rare bad conclusion made by Albert Einstein in 1932.
8. "Everyone acquainted with the subject will recognize it as a conspicuous failure." - President of the Stevens Institute of Technology Henry Morton's thoughts on Edison's lightbulb.
9. "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 not to invest in the Ford Motor Company in 1903. Good thing he didn't listen.
10. "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." - The official response to Debbi Fields' idea of starting Mrs. Fields' Cookies.
11. "Television won't last because people will soon get tired of staring at a plywood box every night." - Darryl Zanuck, a very misguided movie producer in 1946.
12. "It will be years - not in my time - before a woman will become Prime Minister." - Margaret Thatcher, who herself became Prime Minister of England.
13. "Rail travel at high speed is not possible, because passengers, unable to breathe, would die of asphyxia." - Dr. Dionysius Lardner, an 1823 professor of Natural Philosophy and Astronomy.
14. "There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in his home." - Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC). He said this in a speech at the 1977 World Future Society meeting in Boston.
15. "The world potential market for copying machines is 5000 at most." - IBM, to the eventual founders of Xerox, saying the photocopier didn't actually have a large enough market for mass production.
16. "Children just aren’t interested in Witches and Wizards anymore." - Anonymous publishing executive in a note to JK Rowling when she tried to get them to publish the Harry Potter series.
17. "And for the tourist who really wants to get away from it all, safaris in Vietnam" - Newsweek, predicting popular holidays for the late 1960s, before the Vietnam War.
18. "If excessive smoking actually plays a role in the production of lung cancer, it seems to be a minor one." - W.C. Heuper of the National Cancer Institute in1954.
19. "No, it will make war impossible." - Hiram Maxim, the inventor of the machine gun. He said this when asked if the machine gun would make war more or less terrible.
20. "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 on radio in 1921.
21. "We are probably nearing the limit of all we can know about astronomy." - Simon Newcomb, Canadian-born American astronomer. Basically, he thought we were done learning in 1888.
22. "I am tired of all this sort of thing called science here... We have spent millions in that sort of thing for the last few years, and it is time it should be stopped." - Simon Cameron, U.S. Senator, on the Smithsonian Institution in 1901.
23. "Stocks have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau." - Irving Fisher, economics professor at Yale University. He said this in 1929, just before the Great Depression.
