n. A bogus technological prediction or
a foredoomed engineering concept, esp. one that fails by
implicitly assuming that technologies develop linearly,
incrementally, and in isolation from one another when in fact the
learning curve tends to be highly nonlinear, revolutions are
common, and competition is the rule. The prototype was Vannevar
Bush's prediction of 'electronic brains' the size of the Empire
State Building with a Niagara-Falls-equivalent cooling system for
their tubes and relays, made at a time when the semiconductor effect had
already been demonstrated. Other famous vannevars have included
magnetic-bubble memory, LISP machines,
videotex, and a paper from
the late 1970s that computed a purported ultimate limit on areal
density for ICs that was in fact less than the routine densities
of 5 years later.