What, sir?
under her decks? I pray you excuse me. I have no time to listen to such nonsense.” Napoleon Bonaparte to Robert Fulton, upon hearing of the latter’s plans for a steam-powered engine. “I have not the smallest molecule of faith in aerial navigation other than ballooning.” Lord Kelvin, engineer and physicist (c. 1890) “In all fairness to those who by training are not prepared to evaluate the fundamental difficulties of going from one planet to another, or even from the earth to the moon, it must be stated that there is not the slightest possibility of such journeys.” F.R. Moulton, American astronomer (1935) “The Panama Canal is actually a thing of the past, and Nature in her works will soon obliterate all traces of French energy and money expended on the Isthmus.” Scientific American (1981) A committee, organized to study Columbus’ plan to sail west to discover a shorter route to the Indies, reporting to King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain in 1486 that the trip was impossible becau
