10 expert predictions about technologies that are completely erroneous

The 20th century was a time of great technologicalachievements, discoveries and innovations. We have moved from horses and carts to motor vehicles and space travel, from boy messengers to the telephone and the Internet, from candles to nuclear energy. And yet, despite such rapid technological progress and changes, the fact that many experts initially failed to appreciate the greatest inventions that ultimately shaped our modern society was very surprising. A number of surviving famous quotes from the same inventors, the media and world leaders that we will talk about today, perfectly demonstrate this. Looking at these statements now, you are well aware of how much wrong the people who made them.

No one wants to have a computer at home.

It seems strange to read such a statement while sitting atby computer. Personal PCs, laptops, tablets and smartphones have become an integral part of our daily life. Today in the world, billions of devices are connected to the Internet. Therefore, of course, it is very strange to realize that even some of the pioneers of modern computer technology did not initially believe in the future success of their inventions.

In 1943, Thomas Watson, President of IBMsaid the following: "I think that there will be a place for perhaps five computers on the world market." At that time, computer-assisted vacuum tubes and lamps were truly gigantic, so it is not surprising that some might have thought that only a small number of people around the world would want to have such things at home. Nevertheless, it is likely that the phrase said by Watson was initially taken out of context (and some say that he never uttered it at all). It is quite possible that his statement was related to huge national data centers that occupy really large areas on the premises, and not microcomputers, which he probably did not even suspect at that time and which we use today.

However, the founder of a technical corporation,having a hand in the development of the first personal computers in the world was not the only person who underestimated the potential of public interest in “being in touch”. In 1977, Ken Olson, founder and president of Digital Equipment Corp., decided to repeat Watson's mistake and said: "No one can have a computer in their home."

Today, more than two billion people use personal computers in the world, and more than three billion people use the Internet every day.

Television is just a fad

Today, many complain that they are boredtelevision, although not to the extent described by one of the pioneers of modern cinema in the 1940s. By the time TVs began to gain real popularity, Darryl Zanuck, one of the founders of the 20th Century Fox film corporation, had already had a hand in creating more than 100 films. Mechanical TVs appeared in the 1920s, but only a few thousand people owned them, because the devices were very expensive. That all changed with the arrival of televisions with a cathode-ray tube in the United States in 1938, when they began to gain their popularity.

The fact that the pioneermodern cinema considered television as a regular coming and leaving fun. In 1946, in one of the interviews, Zanuk stated: “Having appeared in any market, TV sets will not be able to hold out for more than 6 months. People will very quickly get tired of staring at plywood boxes every night. ”

Today, at least one TV is in 1.4 billion homes worldwide.

Phones are useless

Today it’s hard to imagine a world without phones, a worldin which not the telephones were used for communication, but only “turtle” mail and messenger boys. Nevertheless, some specialists in communication technology couldn’t see the importance and potential of the new technology when Alexander Graham Bell patented his phone (according to some historical data, the Italian Antonio Meucci’s primacy in this invention belongs to him, but this is not the point) .

Your patent application for a modern telephone Bellfiled in 1876. However, the device did not immediately receive its deserved interest. When Bell tried to sell his patent for the invention of Western Union Telegraph Company, company president William Orton said that "the phone has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication."

A similar assessment of the device in the 1890s gaveElectrical engineer and inventor William Henry Price, saying: “Americans may need a telephone, but we don’t. We have enough messenger boys. ”

Today in the world about 7 billion phones are used.

High speed railways are not possible.

In the early 1800s, transportation by railthe roads were pretty slow. But as technology developed, trains began to grow faster, and industry experts began to sound the alarm, claiming the dangers of railroad travel to health. “They cause a problem with the brain”, “lead to vertigo” - these are just a couple of examples among the big list of ailments that connected with the introduction of faster transport. And in 1823, the Irish writer, physicist, mathematician, popularizer of science, Dionysius Lardner, said: “High-speed trains are impossible because passengers cannot breathe and die from asphyxiation” (to be fair, historians still argue about did he really say that).

Similar lack of faith in perspectivityrailways showed King of Prussia, Wilhelm I, when the branch opened Berlin-Potsdam. He stated that no one would use this transport. "No one wants to pay money for a trip from Berlin to Potsdam in an hour, if you can get a horse there in a day, but for free."

If they all knew that after some timeMillions of people around the world will use the metro daily, and the same Japanese trains will transport people at a speed of several hundred kilometers per hour.

Horses will remain forever

The first really used car withgasoline engine rolled onto the road in 1885, when German inventor Karl Benz introduced the world to Benz Patent-Motorwagen. But this transport became truly massive only after Henry Ford introduced his famous Model T - the most common car of that era.

However, not everyone saw an incredible potential.motor vehicles. On the contrary, many believed that the car will never be cheap and therefore it will not be able to buy en masse. Many expressed concerns about the safety of this type of transport, considering that the car has too high speed (23 kilometers per hour). All this led to the opinion that the car will never replace the still used at that time as the main means of transport of horses.

In 1903, Ford turned to his lawyer andbusinessman Horace Rackham with a proposal to invest in his car company. President of Michigan Savings Bank advised Rackham not to do this: "The horse will always be, and the car is just a fun, temporary hobby."

Today there are more than one billion cars in the world

No communication satellites needed

Our modern village with a land of magnituderelies on the work of communication satellites in orbit. Without them, we can not communicate with each other. Satellites retransmit signals, so that we can access the Internet every day, use mobile networks, television and radio. Therefore, it seems incredible that the pioneers of digital communication technologies literally rejected the possibility that we will ever have all this.

As an officer in the US Navy, Tunisia Craven assisted indevelopment of radio technologies. He was twice appointed to the post by the Federal Communications Commission. The second time came in the early 1960s, when the space race flared up between America and the USSR.

Shortly after the launch of the first Soviet satellitesIn 1961, Craven tried to convince the commission that "communication satellites under no circumstances can provide better telephone, telegraph, television, and radio communications in the United States."

Just three years after this statement, the Americans were able to enjoy the live broadcast of the Summer Olympics in Japan for the first time thanks to the new communication satellite Syncom 3.

Mobile phones won't replace wired systems.

Most people in the world have mobilephones The first such practical device was developed during the Second World War and was used in the field on the technique. With time, technology began to be used in expensive civilian cars, and the main communication companies began searching for ways to make a mobile phone a truly portable device.

In 1973, Martin Cooper, a researcher fromMotorola made the first call from a portable mobile device. Taking with him a device weighing 1.1 kilograms, 30 centimeters long and shaped like a brick, Cooper took to the streets of Manhattan and dialed his competitor in Bell to report that he was calling from a mobile device. However, Cooper himself underestimated his invention. In 1981, he stated: "Cell phones will definitely never replace fixed landline systems."

Today, ordinary home phones are already dinosaurs, gradually going out of use. Most people have long relied on mobile communication devices.

Nuclear power is impossible

Albert Einstein was the greatest physicist of the 20th century. Even the most recent Losers have ever heard of his general theory of relativity and the most famous formula E = mc2, expressing the equivalence of mass and energy.

Einstein also made a fundamental contribution tothe development of nuclear energy and the subsequent creation of a nuclear bomb. But even the great scientist himself could not see the potential of his discovery. In 1934, he declared: “There is not the slightest sign that nuclear energy will become subject to man. This will mean that the atom will collapse at will. "

In 1938, German scientists discovered the process of nuclear fission. This in turn led to the development of a nuclear bomb, as well as the construction of more than 450 nuclear power plants around the world.

AC - a waste of time

In the 1880s, two inventors were drawn intoelectrical war of currents. Thomas Edison, known for his invention of the bulb, phonograph and kinescope, worked on a constant current source. At the same time, his rival and former student Nikola Tesla worked on an alternating current source that would allow large amounts of energy to be transmitted over long distances. Edison argued that Tesla's alternating current was too dangerous to use: “Alternating current - what nonsense? No one will ever use it, ”he said.

Nowadays, direct current is used to charge the same batteries, Tesla's alternating current feeds cities around the world.

Online shopping is a bubble

A younger generation would be difficult todayImagine the world without online shopping. But there were times when the only alternative to going to the nearest boutique and spending a few hours on the choice of panties and bras was the opportunity to order by mail a catalog with the necessary goods, and then with the help of the same mail to arrange the purchase of the necessary thing.

Since the first in 1994Internet purchase, this method began to rapidly gain popularity among many people. Now you can easily order to your doorstep almost everything your heart desires. Ranging from fresh products and ending cars. However, back in 1966, Time magazine published an article in which he tried to predict what our life could be in the year 2000.

The article stated that “remote purchasesalthough they will be possible, women will still prefer to get out of the house for a while. Because they like to feel the goods with their hands, they like that at any moment they can change their mind and refrain from buying this or that thing. ”

Not only is this modernthe statement is rather contradictory, it will also be difficult today to find a person who is ready to abandon the convenience of buying things over the Internet. Surely, each of you at least once bought something on the web.

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