Up to SCIENCE HOBBYIST |

                      Weird Research, Anomalous Physics

Please leave COMMENTS!

THE OFFICIAL TRUTH

Passed to me by The Outrageous On-Line Uncle Al

"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.

"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.

"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.

"Everything that can be invented has been invented." - Charles H.
Duell, Commissioner, U.S. Office of Patents, 1899.

"Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible." - Lord Kelvin,
president, Royal Society, 1895.

"Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value." - Marechal
Ferdinand Foch, Professor of Strategy, Ecole Superieure de Guerre.

"Professor Goddard does not know the relation between action and
reaction and the need to have something better than a vacuum against
which to react.  He seems to lack the basic knowledge ladled out daily
in high schools." - 1921 New York Times editorial about Robert
Goddard's revolutionary rocket work.

"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.

"Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?" - H.M. Warner, Warner
Brothers, 1927.

"Stocks have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau." -
Irving Fisher, Professor of Economics, Yale University, 1929.

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

"Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons." - Popular
Mechanics, forecasting the relentless march of science, 1949

"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

"We don't like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out." -
Decca Recording Co. rejecting the Beatles, 1962.

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

"There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home." - Ken
Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp.,
1977

"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.

"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 3M
"Post-It" Notepads.

"So we went to Atari and said, 'Hey, we've got this amazing thing,
even built with some of your parts, and what do you think about
funding us? Or we'll give it to you.  We just want to do it.  Pay our
salary, we'll come work for you.'  And they said, 'No.' So then we
went to Hewlett-Packard, and they said, 'Hey, we don't need you.  You
haven't got through college yet.'" - Apple Computer Inc. founder Steve
Jobs on attempts to get Atari and H-P interested in his and Steve
Wozniak's personal computer.

"You want to have consistent and uniform muscle development across all
of your muscles? It can't be done.  It's just a fact of life.  You
just have to accept inconsistent muscle development as an unalterable
condition of weight training." - Response to Arthur Jones, who solved
the "unsolvable"problem by inventing Nautilus.

"640K ought to be enough for anybody." - Bill Gates, 1981

Thanks to uncleal0@ix.netcom.com

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

This page is on the Eskimo North service, in Seattle, WA.  Try the
Main Eskimo home page, and users'
Individual
home pages too.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Stats for all pages
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Mail me at: billb@eskimo.com

If you are using Lynx, type "c" to send me a comment. billb@eskimo.com.