http://www.rudyh.org/silly-science-funny-scientific-jokes-quotes-quotations.htm

There is a theory which states that if ever anybody discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened. Douglas Adams

In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move. Douglas Adams

The good Christian should beware the mathematican and all those who make empty prophecies. The danger already exists that the mathematicans have made a covenant with the devil to darken the spirit and to confine man in the bonds of hell. Saint Augustine

First, . . . to want to affirm that in reality the sun is at the center of the world and only turns on itself without moving from east to west, and the earth . . . revolves with great speed around the sun . . .is a very dangerous thing, likely not only to irritate all scholastic philosophers and theologians, but also to harm the Holy Faith by rendering Holy Scripture false. Nor can one answer that this is not a matter of faith, since if it is not a matter of faith "as regards the topic," it is a matter of faith "as regards the speaker"; and so it would be heretical to say that Abraham did not have two children and Jacob twelve, as well as to say that Christ was not born of a virgin, because both are said by the Holy Spirit through the mouth of the prophets and the apostles. Cardinal Bellarmine, in a Letter to Foscarinin, April 12, 1615

Lord Kelvin

In science there is only physics; all the rest is stamp collecting.

Science is bound, by the everlasting vow of honour, to face fearlessly every problem which can be fairly presented to it.

X-rays will prove to be a hoax.

The two most common elements in the universe are hydrogen and stupidity. But not in that order.

Brian PickrellThere is more stupidity than hydrogen in the universe, and it has a longer shelf life.

Frank Zappa Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the

former.Albert Einstein

Silly Science & Technology

Usually, terrible things that are done with that excuse that progress requires them are not really progress at all, but just terrible things. Russell Baker

Chaos Theory is a new theory invented by scientists panicked by the thought that the public were beginning to understand the old ones. Mike Barfield

Drill for oil? You mean drill into the ground to try and find oil? You're crazy. Anonymous drillers who Edwin L. Drake tried to enlist to his project to drill for oil in 1859.

I haven't failed, I've found 10,000 ways that don't work. Thomas Edison (1847-1931)

Isn't it strange? The same people who laugh at gypsy fortune tellers take economists seriously. Cincinnati Enquirer

Albert Einstein

I don't believe in mathematics.

Do not worry about your problems with mathematics, I assure you mine are far greater.

As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality.

Since the mathematicians have invaded the theory of relativity, I do not understand it myself anymore.

Descended from the apes? Let us hope that it is not true. But if it is, let us pray that it may not become generally known. FA Montagu

Science may be described as the art of systematic over-simplification. Sir Karl Raymund Popper

Louis Pasteur's theory of germs is ridiculous fiction. Pierre Pachet, Professor of Physiology at Toulouse, 1872

If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe. Carl Sagan

Science is the only self-correcting human institution, but it also is a process that progresses only by showing itself to be wrong.Allan Sandage

The only perfect science is hind-sight. Anon

The surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that it has never tried to contact us. Bill Watterson

Communication & media

It is only righteous that Joshua Coppersmiths, who has tried to find investors to finance the development of a so-called telephone, is arrested for fraud!Article in the Boston Post (1865)

The most important service rendered by the press and the magazines is that of educating people to approach printed matter with distrust. Samuel Butler (1612-1680)

This report, by its very length, defends itself against the risk of being read. Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

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

The radio has no future!Lord Kelvin, British Mathematician (1897)

Radio is just a fashion contrivance that will soon die out. It is obvious that there never will be invented a proper receiver!Thomas Edison

The wireless music box has no imaginable commercial value. Who would pay for a message sent to nobody in particular? Anonymous associates of David Sarnoff's in response to his urgings for investment in the radio in the 1920s.

Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?H. M. Warner, founder of Warner Brothers film studios, 1927

Computers –

I think there is a world market for maybe five computers. Thomas Watson, Chairman of IBM, 1943

I have traveled the length and breadth of this country and talked with the best people, and I can assure you that data processing is a fad that won't last out the year. Prentice Hall, editor in charge of business books, 1957

But what ... is it good for? Anonymous engineer at the Advanced Computing Systems Division of IBM, 1968, commenting on the microchip.

So we went to Atari and said, `Hey, we've got this amazing thing, even built with some of your parts, and what do you think about funding us? Or we'll give it to you. We just want to do it. Pay our salary, we'll come work for you.' And they said, `No.' So then we went to Hewlett-Packard, and they said, `Hey, we don't need you. You haven't got through college yet.' Steve Jobs, founder of Apple Computer Inc. on attempts to get Atari and H-P interested in his personal computer.

There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home. Ken Olson , President, Chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977

640Kb ought to be enough for anybody. Bill Gates, 1981

The great thing about a computer notebook is that no matter how much you stuff into it, it doesn't get bigger or heavier.Bill Gates

Progress

In a few years, all the great physical constants will have been approximately estimated, and ... the only occupation which will then be left to the men of science will be to carry these measurements to another place of decimals.James Clerk Maxwell, 1871

The more important fundamental laws and facts of physical science have all been discovered, and these are now so firmly established that the possibility of their ever being suplanted in consequence of new discoveries is exceedingly remote ... Our future discoveries must be looked for in the sixth place of decimals. Albert A. Michelson, 1894

Everything that can be invented has been invented. Attributed to Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, U.S. Office of Patents, 1899.

Technological progress has merely provided us with more efficient means for going backwards. Aldous Huxley

Transport & Travel

So many centuries after the Creation, it is unlikely that anyone could find hitherto unknown lands of any value.Spanish Royal Commission, rejecting Christopher Columbus' proposal to sail west.

I believe in the horse. The automobile is merely a passing phenomonon. Emperor Wilhelm II

Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible. Lord Kelvin, 1895

Professor Goddard does not know the relation between action and reaction and the need to have something better than a vacuum against which to react. He seems to lack the basic knowledge ladled out daily in high schools. New York Times, in editorial about Robert Goddard's revolutionary rocket work, 1921

Space travel is bunkSir Harold Spencer Jones, Astronomer Royal of Britain, 1957, two weeks before the launch of the Sputnik

Why don't they make the whole plane out of that black box stuff.Steven Wright

You're planning to make a ship sail against wind and tide by lighting a fire below deck?? I don't have time to listen to that kind of nonsense!"Napoleon, about Robert Fultons plans to make a Steamboat.

Flight by machines heavier than air is unpractical and insignificant, if not utterly impossible. Simon Newcomb , 1902, eighteen months before Kitty Hawk

Airplanes suffers from so many technical faults that it is only a matter of time before any reasonable man realizes that they are useless!"Scientific American (1910)

Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value.Marechal Ferdinand Foch, Professor of Strategy, Ecole Superieure de Guerre.

To throw bombs from an airplane will do as much damage as throwing bags of flour. It will be my pleasure to stand on the bridge of any ship while it is attacked by airplanes."Newton Baker, US minister of defense (1921)