Everyone Knows the ‘Titanic’ Was an Unsinkable Ship
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
I Famous Past Expectations (Not updated – this is identical to the part in the Third Time Line) So just playing the devil’s advocate: everyone knows the ‘Titanic’ was an unsinkable ship. That was its design and everybody was sure about that. In retrospect, there are many interesting claims by experts and specialists that turned out to be way off. Here is a selective list of them, illustrating the absurdity of predictions of experts of their time, in hindsight, starting in the 4th century BC. • “The seat of the soul and the control of voluntary movement –in fact, of the nervous functions in general- are to be sought in the heart. The brain is an organ of minor importance. Aristotle, De motu animalium, 4th century BC *9) • According to the Maya Calendar the next great event of a certain nature will occur at December 21th, 2012. Popular expectations around this event ar that it will be: the end of this creation, the next pole shift or, the end of history and events as "novel" as the origin of life on Earth, which we could not possibly imagine. Other, more mundane speculations involve a worldwide catastrophe, such as a pole shift. 36 BCE http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesoamerican_Long_Count_calendar • “Bees are generated from decomposed veal.”St. Isedore of Seville (Spanish prelate and scholar) 7th Century AD *9) • “If the motion of the earth was circular, it would be violent and contrary to nature, and could not be eternal, since… nothing violent is eternal…. It follows, therefore, that the earth is not moved with a circular motion. (st. Thomas of Aquinas (Commentario in libros Aristotelis de caeclo et mundo c.) 1270 *10) • "..so many centuries after the Creation it is unlikely that anyone could find hitherto unknown lands of any value." - committee advising Ferdinand and Isabella regarding Columbus' proposal, 1486, *3) • “Animals, which move, have limbs and muscles: the earth has no limbs and muscles, hence it does not move. “Scipio Chiaramont (Prof. of Philosophy and Mathematics at the University of Pisa, 1633 *10) • “A diamond, which is the hardest of stone, not yielding unto steel, emery or any other thing, is yet made by the blood of goats” Sir Thoams Browne (British physician) 17th Century A.D. *9) • “[J.S. Bach’s] compositions are deprived of beauty, of harmony and of clarity of melody.“ John Adolph Scheide, German composer, musician and music critic, 14/4/1737 *9) • “The population is constant in size and will remain so right up to the end of mankind.” ‘Population’ in L’encyclopédie, 1756 *9) • Four or five frigates will do the business without any military force. British prime minister Lord North, on dealing with the rebellious American colonies, 1774. • “It is entirely impossible for man to rise into the air and float there.” Joseph de Lalande, Member of the French Academy, May 18, 1782 about ballooning *9) • “It is quite impossible that the bobble organs of human speech could be replaced by ignoble, senseless metal.”Jean Bouillaud, member of the French Academy of Sciences, comment before viewing a demonstration of Thomas Edison’s phonograph. 1787 *9) • For fear people would laugh.” Conductor of Beethoven’s skipping the first part of the First Symphony. 1801 *9) • “What, Sir? Would you make a ship sail against the wind and currents by lighting a bonfire under her deck. I pray to excuse me. I have no time to listen to such nonsense.” 1805 Napoleon Bonaparte *9) (And he was not the only one.) • "I would sooner believe that two Yankee professors lied, than that stones fell from the sky" - Thomas Jefferson, 1807 on hearing an eyewitness report of falling meteorites. *3) • I would say that this does not belong to the art which I am in the habit of considering music. A Oulibicheff, reviewing Beethoven's Fifth Symphony 1808. *13) • 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)*1) • “[A] physicist who professed such ideas was unworthy to teach science. “German Minister of Education, reacting to Professor George Simon Ohm’s discovery of mathematical relationship between the intensity of electric currents and the resistance of circuits through which they pass. 1827 *9) • “It may be safely asserted…that population, when unchecked, increases in geometrical progression of such a nature as to double itself every twenty-five years.”Thomas Robert Malthus (British economist and demographer) in A summary View of the Principle of Population, 1830 *9) • - ../../1830: In his "Cours de philosophie positive" (a six volume piece of work, published between 1830 and 1842), Auguste Comte said that we would never know anything about its composition, because it was unbelievable to remotely determine its chemical composition. (Googled after a reference on pg173 of The Black Swan, The Impact of the Highly Improbable”” ; Nassim Nicholas Taleb; 2007) • Rail travel at high speed is not possible, because passengers, unable to breathe, would die of asphyxia. Dr Dionysius Lardner (1793-1859), professor of Natural Philosophy and Astronomy, University College London. ± 1833 *13)) • If Beethoven's Seventh Symphony is not by some means abridged, it will soon fall into disuse. Philip Hale, Boston Music Critic, 1837. *13) • “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 (1838) Professor of Natural Philosophy and Astronomy, University College, London,*1)) • The abolishment of pain in surgery is a chimera. It is absurd to go on seeking it. Knife and pain are two words in surgery that must forever be associated in the consciousness of the patient. (Dr. Alfred Velpeau (1839) French surgeon,*1)) • “Nothing could be more anti-biblical than letting women vote.”Harper's Magazine, Editorial November 1953 *9) • “He [Victor Berlioz] does not know how to write.”Pierre Scudo, French music critic 1852 *9) PM Suimilar negative comments were made for Johannes Brahms, Frederic Chopin, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozrt, Jacques Offenbach, Igor Stravinsky, Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Giuseppe Verdi, Richard Wagner • The Suez Canal: “A most futile attempt and totally impossible to be carried out.” Benjamin Disraeli (British chancellor); 1858 *9) Similar statements came from other (former) government officials, a King, an egyptologists, an explorer, a scientific journal. • "Drill for oil? You mean drill into the ground to try and find oil? You're crazy." - Drillers who Edwin L. Drake tried to enlist to his project to drill for oil in 1859. *3) • Lt. Joseph Ives after visiting the Grand Canyon in 1861: “Ours has been the first, and doubtless to be the last, to visit this profitless locality.”*6) • “I am tired of all this thing called science…. We have spent millions in that sort of thing for at last few years, and it is time it should be stopped.” Siman Cameron, US Senator for Pennsylvania, demanding that the funding of the Smithsonian Institute be cut off, 1861 *9) • They couldn't hit an elephant at this distance - Last words of Gen. John Sedgwick, spoken as he looked out over the parapet at enemy lines during the Battle of Spotsylvania Court House in 1864. *13) • No one will pay good money to get from Berlin to Potsdam in one hour when he can ride his horse there in one day for free. King William I of Prussia, on hearing of the invention of trains, 1864. *13) • “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),*1)) • "I see no good reasons why the views given in this volume should shock the religious sensibilities of anyone." -- Charles Darwin, The Origin Of Species, 1869. *12) • "Louis Pasteur's theory of germs is ridiculous fiction." - Pierre Pachet, Professor of Physiology at Toulouse, 1872 *7) • "The abdomen, the chest, and the brain will forever be shut from the intrusion of the wise and humane surgeon." - Sir John Eric Ericksen, British surgeon, appointed Surgeon-Extraordinary to Queen Victoria 1873.*3) • "This 'telephone' has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us." - Western Union internal memo, 1876. (Note, this might be a hoax and the memo a forgery.) *3) • "The Americans have need of the telephone, but we do not. We have plenty of messenger boys." -- Sir William Preece, chief engineer of the British Post Office, 1876. *12) • [Telephone} It's a great invention but who would want to use it anyway? Rutherford B. Hayes, U.S. President, after a demonstration of Alexander Bell's telephone, 1877. *13)) • “When the Paris Exhibition closes electric light will close with it and no more be heard of.” (Erasmus Wilson (1878) Professor at Oxford University,*1)) • Light bulb 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. *13)) • “[Edison’s ideas are] good enough for ou transatlantic friends … but unworthy of the attention of practical and scientific men.” Report of a committee set up by the British Parliament to look into Edison’s work on the incandescent lamp. After viewing the demo he pronounced it a fake and attributed the demo to ‘ventriloquism’. 30/9/1878 *9) • Light bulb Such startling announcements as these should be deprecated as being unworthy of science and mischievous to its true progress. William Siemens, on Edison's light bulb, 1880. *13)) • Light bulb; Everyone acquainted with the subject will recognize it as a conspicuous failure.