X-rays are a hoax, TV will fail because people will soon get tired of staring at a plywood box every night, the light bulb is a conspicuous failure and everything that can be invented has been invented already.
All of these statements have been made in the past by people considered at the time to be experts.
History is littered with inventions and ideas now taken for granted which were once considered weird, unusable, unpopular and - in some cases - the work of some form of witchcraft or sorcery.
It is perhaps best summed up by the actor Sir Peter Ustinov, who said: "If the world should blow itself up, the last audible voice would be that of an expert saying it can't be done."
So what else have the experts got wrong and who got it right?
Erzgebirgische Volkskunst
how to hit fairway woods correctly