vannevar

vannevar /van'*-var/ 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, a prediction 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.