Originally posted by newworld
reply to post by RussianScientists

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Thanks for the link. Although I knew about 80% of the things in there, it is still interesting to read these facts again.

However, I will disagree with the expanding universe and big bang theory in that they are still heavily debated today. Personally, I'm convinced those two theories are sound, but the evidence may still not be enough to convince a great deal of the population.

Expect to see at least those two theories be debated here if your thread is not ignored.

They were sure it couldn't be done


"No possible combination of known substances, known forms of machinery, and known forms of force, can be united in a practical machine by which man shall fly long distances through the air..."
Simon Newcomb (1835-1909), astronomer,
head of the U.S. Naval Observatory



"Men might as well project a voyage to the Moon as attempt to employ steam navigation against the stormy North Atlantic Ocean".
Dr. Dionysus Lardner (1793-1859)
Professor of Natural Philosophy and Astronomy



"There is no hope for the fanciful idea of reaching the Moon because of insurmountable barriers to escaping the Earth's gravity".
Dr. Forest Ray Moulton, University of
Chicago astronomer, 1932.



"Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible".
Lord Kelvin (1824-1907)
British mathematician and physicist



"To place a man in a multi-stage rocket and project him into the controlling gravitational field of the moon where the passengers can make scientific observations, perhaps land alive, and then return to earth--all that constitutes a wild dream worthy of Jules Verne. I am bold enough to say that such a man-made voyage will never occur regardless of all future advances".
Lee DeForest,
American radio pioneer, 1926.



"Rail travel at high speed is not possible because passengers, unable to breathe, would die of asphyxia".
Dr. Dionysus Lardner (1793-1859)
Professor of Natural Philosophy and Astronomy



"What can be more palpably absurd than the prospect held out of locomotives travelling twice as fast as stagecoaches?"
The Quarterly Review, England (March 1825)



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



"Well informed people know it is impossible to transmit the voice over wires and that were it possible to do so, the thing would be of no practical value".
Editorial in the Boston Post, 1865




Nuclear power:

"There is no likelihood man can ever tap the power of the atom. The glib supposition of utilizing atomic energy when our coal has run out is
a completely unscientific Utopian dream,a childish bug-a-boo. Nature has introduced a few fool-proof devices into the great majority of elements that constitute the bulk of the world, and they have no energy to give up in the process of disintegration."
Robert A. Millikan (1863-1953)
Speech to the Chemists' Club (New York)



"Any one who expects a source of power from the transformation of these atoms is talking moonshine..."
Ernest Rutherford (1933)



"There is not the slightest indication that [nuclear energy] will ever be obtainable. It would mean that the atom would have to be shattered at will."
Albert Einstein, 1932.