9 Life-Changing Inventions the Experts Said Would Never Work

by Mike Sowden on August 22, 2008 in Sex

The lightbulb. The telephone. Email. If you’re a specialist in your field, there are two ways to become a household name: create something new…or claim it can never be done. If you want to be remembered on the Internet, choose the second one. Here are 9 examples of breakthroughs, inventions and innovations the experts were completely wrong about.

1. The Electric Lightbulb

Image: Marcin Wichary

“… good enough for our transatlantic friends … but unworthy of the attention of practical or scientific men.” British Parliamentary Committee, referring to Edison’s light bulb, 1878.

“Everyone acquainted with the subject will recognize it as a conspicuous failure.” Henry Morton, president of the Stevens Institute of Technology, on Edison’s light bulb, 1880.

The Brits get sniffy about American innovation (not for the first time) – and miss the invention of the century. Now our light bulbs comes in all shapes and sizes, and we’re eco-innovating faster than ever. Not too shabby for a conspicuous failure.

2. The A/C

Image: wander lima ~

“Fooling around with alternating current is just a waste of time. Nobody will use it, ever.” Thomas Edison, 1889.

Oh Tom, you were doing so well. Edison enjoyed sniping at the efforts of his rival George Westinghouse (who bought the patent for a/c transmission from Nikola Tesla), and look where it got him. Fact is, it’s easier and far more efficient to distribute power with a/c than with Edison’s darling direct current. Oops.

3. The Personal Computer

Image: OneLaptopPerChild

We have reached the limits of what is possible with computers. John Von Neumann, 1949

Somewhat wide of the mark. Along came the integrated circuit (better known as the microchip), and things went crazy. Computers have allowed our species to really connect. We can even study and regulate our own planet – and there’s still no computing limits in sight.

4. The Microchip

Image: Nokia Eco Sensor Concept phone.

“But what… is it good for?” An engineer at the Advanced Computing Systems Division of IBM, commenting on the microchip in 1968.

Hardly anything – well, apart from virtually every piece of electronic equipment in gadgets, vehicles, computer networks, power stations, homes, offices and every other conceivable part of everyday life for this century and probably the next. But otherwise, yes – useless.

5. Data Transmission

Image: anomalous4

“Before man reaches the moon, your mail will be delivered within hours from New York to Australia by guided missiles. We stand on the threshold of rocket mail.” Arthur Summerfield, U.S. Postmaster General under Eisenhower, 1959.

“Transmission of documents via telephone wires is possible in principle, but the apparatus required is so expensive that it will never become a practical proposition.” Dennis Gabor, British physicist, 1962.

A brilliant scientist, Gabor received the Nobel Prize for inventing holography – but entirely failed to anticipate e-mail and the modem. (To be fair, so did everyone else). Nowadays, entire bookshelves can be transmitted for a few cents in the blink of an eye, making scientific collaboration a truly global enterprise. And all without rockets.

6. Online Shopping

Image: i’m george

“Remote shopping, while entirely feasible, will flop – because women like to get out of the house, like to handle merchandise, like to be able to change their minds.” TIME, 1966.

It’s true that both sexes like the tactile experience of shopping in person. But e-commerce? As PayPal‘s proft margins will attest, remote shopping is here to stay – and helps get money to where it’s most needed.

7. The Automobile

Image: Cyberesque

“The ordinary “horseless carriage” is at present a luxury for the wealthy; and although its price will probably fall in the future, it will never, of course, come into as common use as the bicycle.” Literary Digest, 1899.

If only that were true. But the infernal combustion engine shows no signs of slowing – in 2005, an estimated 53 million new cars hit the world’s streets, fuelling all sorts of problems. Happily, we’re fast rediscovering the bicycle and rethinking the automobile.

8. The Television

Image: Narisa

“While theoretically and technically television may be feasible, commercially and financially it is an impossibility, a development of which we need waste little time dreaming.”
Lee DeForest, American radio pioneer and inventor of the vacuum tube, 1926.

Dream on. There are currently around 220 million “impossibilities” in the United States alone. TV is everywhere. It’s just a shame the old types are full of lead – but every year sees a cleaner version, like the new Philips Eco FlatTV here.

9. Possibility

Image: Jake Shears

“Everything that can be invented has been invented.”

Supposedly said by Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, U.S. Office of Patents, 1899 – except he probably didn’t. So the last word goes to actor and humorist Peter Ustinov:

“If the world should blow itself up, the last audible voice would be that of an expert saying it can’t be done.”

In green tech, there are some truly audacious ideas that plenty of “experts” have been quick to write off. As they relate to every day living and things you can do to help the environment, we’ll be covering them here, so be sure to bookmark us. If the history of technology offers any lesson, it’s that today’s most cynical eco experts could very well end up with egg on their faces. Naturally we’ll be diligently reporting on it all.

Further reading: 87 bad predictions about the future, courtesy of 2Spare.

Main image: Fabbio

Shonna
August 22nd, 2008 at 11:21 AM

Great post Mike! So important to remember what can be accomplished and that really nothing is impossible! Well done!
Crusoe
August 23rd, 2008 at 9:54 AM

I believe Tesla is generally credited with the development of A/C power; and being Edison’s rival in that venture. Tesla sold his patent to Westinghouse.
Mike S.
August 26th, 2008 at 1:18 PM

Thanks, Shonna! It was a lot of fun to write and research. And fun to be reminded about how foolish it is to write off new inventions before they’ve had time to show their quality…..
Mike S.
August 26th, 2008 at 1:21 PM

Hi, Crusoe. That’s correct – Nikola Tesla developed the first practical way of transmitting A/C over large distances, although it was William Stanley Jr. who designed the first working A/C device. Stanley Jr. went on to become Westinghouse’s chief engineer.
josh f.
August 26th, 2008 at 6:33 PM

Mike – interesting post. You’re wrong about Von Neumann though. He was saying, quite correctly, that (by 1949) we had shown that computing could never do anything that a Turing machine could not, in principle (of course, machines have memory limits, etc.). He wasn’t saying we wouldn’t use them in new ways. He was Von Neumann, after all, and that would have been a pretty naive quote, even in 1949. Sadly, this quote is all over the net–completely misunderstood.
James
October 2nd, 2008 at 6:20 PM

“Nikola Tesla developed the first practical way of transmitting A/C over large distances” – Mike S.

To me that’s number one. It dwarfs the light bulb in comparison. They should call light bulbs mini electric heaters since they’re not efficient at giving off visible light at all.
Jean Naimard
December 29th, 2008 at 9:05 PM

The fax machine was actually invented 101 years ago, by the french engineer Ãƒ”°douard Belin:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89douard_Belin

So mr Gabor was more than 50 years out of whack when he uttered his famous remark.

Newspapers had been sending picures via telegraph for decades before”¦
phonono
January 12th, 2009 at 9:21 PM

IIRC, Edison took umbrage to people wanting to use the phonograph for the recording and playback of music. He thought such uses were frivolous and useless, as compared to what he had envisioned for his invention : recording diaries and quotes of the stock exchange.

phonono’s last blog post..{~} Bonne année/Happy New Year/HyvÃƒ¤Ãƒ¤ uutta vuottaa/Gott nytt Ãƒ¥r 2009!{~}
Pax
January 30th, 2009 at 7:35 AM

In regards to your last paragraph, just to be entirely fair, it’s important to look up all the truly amazingly crazy inventions people have patented over the years and how certain those people were that their invention would have civilization-changing effects.

So while it is exceptionally interesting to look up these 9 amazing inventions and the pooh-poohing people have spouted about them, those same critics were probably right about the other 99% of “complete balderdash” they threw at the not-so-successful ones.

All ideas have their critics and usually for good reasons… at least at the time.

The green movement is not without an amazing quantity of truly bizarre thoughts and wackiness in addition to the blatantly obvious and good ones. The odds insist that at least a few of the nuttier ones will work out somehow.

This practically guarantees a resulting article just like this one somewhere down the timeline.
Wayne Whig
February 20th, 2009 at 8:41 AM

hello -

I became suspicious when I clicked the link from `Dark Roasted Blend’ and came to `Eco Salon.’

Then, I understood that this was no idle list, but rather propaganda for `green’ technologies such (presumably) the electric car.

But, you could just as easily compile a list of inventions that were touted as the `next big thing’, and yet went nowhere.

the Segway anyone? Picture-telephones? Don’t forget nuclear power…
Wayne Whig
February 20th, 2009 at 8:44 AM

ps – I forgot to add.

There is a gap in logic here: just because one technology that (at least some) experts said could not work, actually did work, doesn’t mean that another invention will work in the future, just because in the present day some expert or another says will not work.

(other `next big thinga’ that went nowhere: commercial supersonic jet technology; as well as flying cars…)
Eli
February 20th, 2009 at 10:36 AM

Mr. Whig is right in that an awful lot of new inventions don’t work or just don’t catch on regardless of the enthusiasm with which they’re received, and that predictions of failure don’t automatically presage success, but the point remains that we need to exercise a degree of caution in knocking something just because it is new and doesn’t fit within our concepts of what should or shouldn’t work.
Mike Sowden
February 20th, 2009 at 11:57 AM

Many thanks for your comments, everyone!

It’s absolutely right to say that this is a list of the winners, and that the losers didn’t look any less promising before they ploughed into the dirt. And experts are indeed correct in the overwhelmingly vast majority of instances, which is why they’re experts.
But not 100%.

The spirit behind the article isn’t directly to promote green technology but instead, as Eli notes, to never regard an innovation as useless with unshakable certainty. No expert in the world can ever be truly certain of the total worthlessness of an invention. Those that are….well, they end up on lists that ridicule them!

Down with the naysayers.
Jomark Osabel
February 21st, 2009 at 10:24 AM

I love this post. Its inspirational. As the the song goes “Don’t Stop Believing”.

Jomark Osabel’s last blog post..Pentax K2000 10.2MP Digital SLR Camera: DSLR made simple
Bruce C Ziebarth
February 23rd, 2009 at 9:51 AM

I greatly enjoyed your article. These are items we use everday (even possibility) but either ignore or take for granted. I also enjoyed your writing style. I have added your site to my favorites.

Have a great day,
Bruce C Ziebarth

Bruce C Ziebarth’s last blog post..American Idol Replaces Joanna Pacitti with Felicia Barton
Rob
February 25th, 2009 at 3:09 AM

Mike

Interesting article.

I think the best comment on the expert getting predictions wrong comes from the late Arthur C. Clarke:

” if an (older) scientist tells you that something is impossible, he/she is almost certainly wrong”
happyseaurchin
June 17th, 2009 at 10:11 AM

hehehe
that made me laugh out loud twice
hehehe
thanks
E P
June 18th, 2009 at 12:07 AM

The statement under number 7, the automobile, I find pretty much correct. Currently in the world there are more bycicles than car used (example – China).

In a couple of decades when oil becomes secondary energy source for cars we might see that as a wrongful statement.
jdm
July 22nd, 2009 at 3:57 PM

Joseph Swann invented the lightbulb.
Z
February 10th, 2010 at 4:11 AM

Dennis Gabor?
He was born in Hungary as GÃ¡bor Dénes and only moved to England when he was 33 years old. This does not make him a British.
Eddie Alexander
July 30th, 2010 at 7:02 AM

I worked at Synertek and helped develop a custom I.C. for the first Apple video interface. The engineer that I worked with left the company to join Apple. I could have gone with him but I said: Who’s gonna use those things? People will put their Xmas card list and recipes on them, maybe write a letter. What more could you use them for?

That’s another million dollars I kissed off.
load shedding
August 30th, 2010 at 2:21 AM

life changing inventions well I’ve got a handful of patents but no life changing ones yet Peter Ustinov: “If the world should blow itself up, the last audible voice would be that of an expert saying it can’t be done.”
Elderly Bloke
October 30th, 2010 at 9:26 PM

There were others , in Europe who were working on developing an electric light bulb.

He patented it but that does not mean he was the only one
Anonymous
January 21st, 2011 at 1:00 PM

Wind power as it is today can be added to your list of failures as well Wayne. All these are just things which can be done but haven’t been done correctly. The flying car by the way is off the ground now, I just watched a special about it.
Blounsb999
January 22nd, 2011 at 3:44 PM

Incandescent bulbs, yes. I’m a big fan of LED tech. Forget about the intermediate step of CFLs with their mercury. LEDs give off light with minimal heat. They cost more up front, but over the life of the unit it’s not too bad.
Rose
March 9th, 2011 at 1:49 PM

FedEx. Remember how many people said that overnight delivery of packages would never be viable? Well now it’s standard. Amazing.