More on the difficulty making long-term predictions

From the magazine Technical World in 1904, heralding the discovery of radioactivity and the energy in uranium and radium:

The experiments of the last eight years have marked a most notable advance in science, in that they have proven the existence of this immense store of sub-atomic energy. It seems highly improbable, however, that this energy can ever be utilized on the earth to serve man’s economic needs.
…Radium may possibly prove to be of some practical value in the cure of disease, although it is too early yet to assert even this with assurance.

 HT: Wondermark