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| | *Lord Kelvin claiming heavier than air flight, radio, and radioactivity were impossible.<ref>http://zimmer.csufresno.edu/~fringwal/stoopid.lis</ref> | | *Lord Kelvin claiming heavier than air flight, radio, and radioactivity were impossible.<ref>http://zimmer.csufresno.edu/~fringwal/stoopid.lis</ref> |
| | *Albert Einstein thought nuclear power would never be commercially viable. | | *Albert Einstein thought nuclear power would never be commercially viable. |
| − | *Opposition by experts to the United States Patent Office, because supposedly everything useful has been invented.<ref>This opposition can be found in many forms, from weakening the strength of patents by small inventors today to repetition of a quote attributed to Charles Duell, Commissioner of the Patent Office, in 1899: "everything that can be invented has been invented." While this quote may be apocryphal, "this saying has been so often quoted that it has been gradually accepted as a truth, and thus being still repeatedly quoted again and again even by prominent scholars." [http://www.intertic.org/Policy%20Papers/Pretnar.pdf Bojan Pretnar, "Two Sources of Persistent Patent Controversy," p.4]</ref> | + | *Opposition by experts to the United States Patent Office, because supposedly everything useful has been invented.<ref>This opposition can be found in many forms, from weakening the strength of patents by small inventors today to repetition of a quote attributed to Charles Duell, Commissioner of the Patent Office, in 1899: "everything that can be invented has been invented." While Charles Duell never said such a thing and it doesn't reflect his position on patents at all, "this saying has been so often quoted that it has been gradually accepted as a truth, and thus being still repeatedly quoted again and again even by prominent scholars." [http://www.intertic.org/Policy%20Papers/Pretnar.pdf Bojan Pretnar, "Two Sources of Persistent Patent Controversy," p.4]</ref> |
| | *Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM in the 1960s, believed there would never be a market for more than a handful of computers in the entire world. | | *Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM in the 1960s, believed there would never be a market for more than a handful of computers in the entire world. |
| | *Irving Fisher, professor of economics at Yale, declared a few days before the 1929 stock market crash, "Stock prices have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau. I do not feel there will be soon if ever a 50 or 60 point break from present levels, such as (bears) have predicted. I expect to see the stock market a good deal higher within a few months."<ref>Quoted on Oct. 17, 1929.</ref> | | *Irving Fisher, professor of economics at Yale, declared a few days before the 1929 stock market crash, "Stock prices have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau. I do not feel there will be soon if ever a 50 or 60 point break from present levels, such as (bears) have predicted. I expect to see the stock market a good deal higher within a few months."<ref>Quoted on Oct. 17, 1929.</ref> |