Two years before their first flight, Wilbur Wright confided to Orville that man would not fly for 50 years. It took until two years before the first atomic bom

Two years before their first flight, Wilbur Wright confided to Orville that man would not fly for 50 years. It took until two years before the first atomic bomb for Enrico Fermi to be convinced that one could be built at all. Even the foremost experts in a field have a terrible prognostication record, because their predictions are necessarily based on what they do and do not know how to do at the moment. Within a year or two, a breakthrough could be made by someone else—or by they themselves!—that changes everything.