[extropy-chat] Re: Bad Forecasts!

[Mike Lorrey]

--- Christian Weisgerber <naddy at mips.inka.de> wrote:

> 
> > "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.
> 
> Well, that showcases that the editorial writer didn't understand
> the conservation of momentum.  And he didn't have today's excuse
> of seeing it all the time violated in movie/TV fiction.  Of course
> a lack of understanding (or willful neglect of) the conservation
> of momentum is pretty much required to become a science fiction
> writer.  You see, this very thing that makes rockets work also makes
> it darn hard to fly around with rockets in the solar system.

Ignorance was even more widespread than just one editor. Goddard had to
run an experiment of shooting a pistol in a vacuum chamber to prove
that the recoil still existed...

> 
> > "Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value."
> > --Professor of Strategy, Ecole Superieure de Guerre.
> 
> Rather true at the time the statement was made.  Initial use of
> planes was limited to battlefield reconnaissance.  The statement
> obviously fails to account for the amazing progress aviation would
> make in the subsequent three decades, but then it isn't phrased as
> a prediction.  Military history buffs correct me, but I don't think
> any major military failed to catch on to the importance of planes
> in the time between WWI and WWII.

You stand corrected. Airplanes were of immense use during wwi to
destroy zeppelins (used to bomb with heavy loads as well as observe)
and observation balloons. Observation itself is a rather important
military value, being the key to intelligence gathering. They also
fought against each other to prevent enemy fighters from shooting down
one's own zeppelins and balloons.

Secondly, Col. Billy Mitchell, who served with Rickenbacher and Hap
Arnold during WWI, advocated air power in the immediate postwar period,
and demonstrated its potential by bombing and sinking several
Battleships and cruisers captured from Germany that were slated for
destruction. 

However, all this is immaterial to the quote above, since it was made
prior to 1914. 

> 
> > "Everything that can be invented has been invented." 
> > --Commissioner, U.S. Office of Patents, 1899.
> 
> Known to be an urban legend.  (As I suspect are some more in the
> list.)

I thought this was said by the head of the Smithsonian. Don't depend on
Snopes for your authority. If they can't find it on the web, they
generally call something an urban legend until someone proves
otherwise.

> 
> > "Louis Pasteur's theory of germs is ridiculous fiction". 
> > --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." 
> > --British surgeon, appointed Surgeon-Extraordinary to Queen
> Victoria 1873.
> 
> Oh yes, the history of medicine is very interesting.  Much of modern
> medicine that we are so used to only dates from the late 19th and
> early 20th century.  The quackery that was previously dominant is
> truly appalling.

Actually, this quote was made at a time when human experimentation was
considered immoral, and only unethical quacks messed around with dead
bodies, a la the Frankenstein story got its premise...

> 
> > "640K ought to be enough for anybody." 
> > -- Bill Gates, 1981
> 
> I'm still confounded by this.  As those of us who understand a bit
> how those PC-thingies work and who are old enough to remember those
> times know, the 640kB limit is an artifact of IBM's original PC
> architecture, something outside of Gates's control.
> 
> And of course the IBM PC was only a quick hack and never designed
> as the starting point of a computing architecture for decades to
> come--undoubtedly IBM could have done a much better job if they had
> understood what role the PC would play.  Which leads us back into
> failed prediction territory.

The PC architecture was developed to be a modularly assembled personal
computer from mostly off the shelf components that were used in other
applications. The 640k limit was an artifact of this off the shelfness,
to which designers found they could program quite a bit (though most
applications we take for granted today were not even dreamed of or at
least on the drawing boards) with it, much as programmers today are
learning the art of programming for the Palm OS, a limited resource
architecture.

Of course, Bill grew up in an incredibly competitive family, where the
siblings and neighbors kids all engaged in extremely competitive games
and contests all the time. The "ought to be enough for anybody" I think
is actually a statement of bravado amongst programmers, much like
someone saying they can name that tune in three notes....

=====
Mike Lorrey
Chairman, Free Town Land Development
"Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom.
It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves."
                                         -William Pitt (1759-1806) 
Blog: http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=Sadomikeyism


		
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