On: Inventions they said would never work

[qwph]

Yeah, I'd agree - but making predictions is a notoriously tricky business.

Any statement about the future (which is, by definition, uncertain) has some percentage chance of looking absurd in retrospect - and it's a lot harder to make a correct prediction than a wrong one.

[mojuba → qwph]

making predictions is a notoriously tricky business

Was it too tricky for a physicist like Lord Kelvin, the founder of Thermodynamics, to see that birds are heavier than air?

Was it too tricky for Edison to see that direct current loses the battle at long distances (because of resistance issues)?

How about Einstein rejecting the possibility of using nuclear power 10 years before he started working on just that?

Aren't these examples of narrow-mindedness of these people, who otherwise invented great stuff?

[qwph → mojuba]

(I'm not really disagreeing with you, but) you have the benefit of hindsight.

Admittedly, I haven't invented any great stuff, but if I were to claim that it'll never be possible for a human being to travel at greater than light speed, am I going to look narrow-minded in n years time? (where n=10, 100, 1000)

[mojuba → qwph]

In physics, it is always smarter to predict possibilities, as opposed to impossibilities ;)