Predictions Which Were Wrong

One prediction I remember was sending some companies and even people into a panic. It was predicted there would be a catastrophe when the date advanced to 1 January 2000. The rational was many computers were not made to have a date that far in the future and this would lead to a monumental collapse of some computers which controlled important functions in the government and private businesses. The date came and went without hardly a whimper. It had been believed on the day after 31 December 1999, the next date would be 1900 since some computers only adjusted the last two numbers. Even the editor of a computer magazine of the time said it was going to be a crisis without precedent in human history.

One of the former heads of the United States Patent Office, named Charles H. Duell must have been bored with his job. The year was 1889 and he made a prediction about his office. He said it would begin to shrink and eventually go out of business because everything that could be invented will be. Talk about being short sighted.

One of the things which has been predicted many times was the end of the world.  It was predicted that when 1000 A.D. was reached the world would end. It is believed the Maya predicted it and that was why their calendar ended at a certain year which we passed. In 1910 it was predicted Halley’s Comet would come so close to the earth it would destroy it. In Germany a famous mathematician and astrologer predicted a flood that was going to destroy life on earth which would hit on February 3, 1524. There were far more of these predictions I could mention. In more recent times a Harvard biologist in 1970 stated the earth had only between 15 and 30 years left unless all its problems were solved. I assume he was talking climate.

It is just so amazing to me as I look back and see how wrong some of these predictions were. An article appeared in Time magazine where the author made a prediction. People at that time were starting to talk about shopping remotely, that is without leaving their homes. The author said it would never work and here is the reason he gave. He said women like to get out. He also said they like to handle the merchandise and like to change their minds. I don’t know if the article mentioned men. Jeff Bezos was only 2 years old when the article came out in 1966, so I have to think he never read it. I have to wonder if things were different and the article came out much later if he would have still opened Amazon?

Predicting the future can be tricky for sure. In 1936 the New York Times ran an article stating a rocket will never be able to leave earth’s atmosphere. Before that, in 1920, they ran another article stating spaceflight was impossible. Here is the reason they gave. An exhaust would have nothing to push against because there was nothing in the cosmic void. Here is the funny part of it. They issued a retraction to the article and according to an internet source it was in 1969 and one day after the launch of Apollo 11.

One prediction which was made by the president of a bank who said in 1903 the horse will be here forever and the automobile is only a fad. Imagine if he was still around today to see how many automobiles there are.

Here is a guy that must have thought we would be even more advanced than we are. He was the Postmaster General under Eisenhower. His name was Arthur Summerfield and he predicted in 1959 that mail would be delivered by rockets and it would only take a couple of hours to get from New York to Australia. While he was wrong about the service taking hold, it was accomplished once when a submarine launched a missile containing a compartment with mail and the trip took only 22 minutes. That was the end of rocket mail.

When a nuclear bomb was being talked about in 1939, Winston Churchill said, “Atomic energy might be as good as our present-day explosives but it is unlikely to produce anything very much more dangerous.” Years before even Einstein thought nuclear weapons were impossible and in later years afterward said he was unable to predict chain reactions happening.

Some people in the early 1900s predicted we would have wiped out disease by the year 2000. They never thought about the fact new diseases could also appear. They also predicted people would normally live to be 100 and older and the population of the United States would reach 200 million people.

Lord Kelvin had something to say when he heard about X-rays. He proclaimed they were a hoax. Three years later he changed his mind when his hand was X-rayed.

When we talk about human health, in some cases politics may play a part. Smoking was popular, and tobacco companies had powerful lobbies in Congress. It’s been said some knew it caused lung cancer and a study had come out in 1950 by Doll and Hill in the United Kingdom indicating this. An article appeared on the Technology Networks quoting W.C. Heuper of the National Cancer Institute in 1954 where it stated he said, if excessive smoking actually plays a role in the production of lung cancer, it seems to be a minor one.

Talking about cars again there was an article in the New York Times in 1904 where a debate took place in Paris. The debate was between a brain specialist and a physician. One side indicated the human brain would never be able to keep up with the control of a car doing 8 miles per hour and anything going faster would be out of control to paraphrase what was said. Today the land speed record for an automobile is 763.035 mph.