'Drill for oil? You mean drill into the ground to try and find oil? You are crazy!' - Response to Edwin L. Drake's project to drill for oil in 1859

'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 memo from 1876

'Radio has no future. Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible. X-rays will prove to be a hoax.' - William Thomson, Lord Kelvin, British scientist, in 1899

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

'Who the hell wants actors talk?' - H. M. Warner, Warner Brothers, in 1927

'Stocks have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau.' - Irving Fisher, economics professor at Yale University in 1929, before the Wall Street Crash later that year.

'While theoretically and technically television may be feasible, commercially and financially it is an impossibility.' - Lee de Forest, inventor

'I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.' - Thomas J. Watson, Snr, chairman of IBM, in 1943

'We dont like their sound, and the guitar music is on the way out.' - Decca Recording Company rejecting the Beatles in 1962

'But what ... is it good for?' - Engineer at the Advanced Computing Systems Division of IBM, commenting on the microchip, in 1968
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