Skeptics

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Skeptics who declared discoveries and inventions impossible

 

Almost every pioneer of science or technology was derided and ignored by skeptics among their contemporaries at the time of their discoveries. It is only later that they have become elevated to the status of heroes. Here are some classic examples.

 

A completely idiotic idea

 

When Alexander Graham Bell Invented the telephone he also made a remarkable leap of imagination. He correctly foresaw how people would use his invention; that they would speak on the phone instead of writing a letter -- an early form of electronic mail. Keen to sell his invention, Bell approached the Post Offices and commercial organisations responsible for carrying mail. The U.S. Post Office turned him down, as did Western Union. Then he approached the British Post Office, whose Chief Engineer, Sir William Preece was one of Britain's most distinguished scientists.

 

Preece was a Fellow of the Royal Society who had studied under the great Michael Faraday himself. Preece examined Bell's invention, but he, too, rejected it on the grounds that, "England has plenty of small boys to run messages."

 

Preece later surpassed even this judgment. When told that Thomas Edison was researching an incandescent electric lamp with a high-resistance filament, Preece described it as "A completely idiotic idea."