We humans have this funny habit of conflating “impossible” and “we don’t know how.” History is littered with brilliant minds — people most of us would agree were ahead of their time — declaring something couldn’t be done, only for it to become so commonplace later that we barely think about it. The line between “impossible” and “not yet figured out” is razor-thin, and it’s often only hindsight that shows us the difference.
From “Impossible” to Everyday
For centuries, the idea of humans soaring through the skies was a fantasy, a myth, something reserved for birds and gods. One of the most famous skeptics was Lord Kelvin, president of the Royal Society in the late 19th century and a titan of science. In 1896, he reportedly declared, “I have not the smallest molecule of faith in aerial navigation other than ballooning.” He wasn’t alone, and most of the scientific establishment agreed that human flight was “impossible” because heavier-than-air machines couldn’t defy gravity. Yet, just seven years later, in 1903, the Wright brothers, two bicycle mechanics with no formal scientific credentials, launched their rickety plane at Kitty Hawk. Today, we hop on planes without a second thought.
Benjamin Franklin gave us our first real introduction to electricity in the 18th century, but back then, it was little more than a parlor trick with sparks and kites. It wasn’t until 1881, when Thomas Edison lit up New York with the first commercial power station, that we saw evidence electricity could do more than amuse. Nikola Tesla’s own teacher, Professor Poeschl, reportedly scoffed at the designs for his early inventions, insisting the AC motor was an “impossible” perpetual motion machine. Edison himself believed it would never be possible to use AC either safely or cost-effectively. Yet by the 1890s, AC systems were powering machines and lighting entire cities. You’re probably reading this by that same invisible hum. What was “impossible” became mundane in less than a lifetime.
How Long Does It Take to Change Minds?
Shifting the public’s view on what’s possible doesn’t happen quickly and it’s not all invention and research. It’s about unlearning old “truths,” and it can take decades for new knowledge to sink in. Why? People learn something as “fact” from respected sources — teachers, scientists, parents — and accept it without needing to know where it came from. Facts, by definition, are things you only need to learn once, so there’s little need or motivation to question “facts.” When breakthroughs reveal that what we once knew as “impossible” was merely “we didn’t know how” until now, people don’t rush to update the “facts” they already know. The first flight took off in 1903, yet the public and critics questioned whether heavier-than-air flight could ever be reliable until the 1920s and 30s. Similarly, after Edison’s power station lit up New York in 1881, skeptics dismissed electricity as a “passing fad,” doubting it could ever power homes until four decades later in the 1920s.
Learning Perfect Pitch Was Also “Impossible”
We’ve known for ages that perfect pitch, the ability to identify or produce a musical note without a reference tone, was unlearnable for adults. This “fact” was drilled into us by science: the adult brain lacked neuroplasticity — the ability to form new neural connections — after a certain age. Before the 1990s, studies linking perfect pitch to neural wiring could reasonably conclude it was a trait fixed during childhood. It’s why Bachem, in his 1955 “Absolute Pitch” study, wrote that perfect pitch must be a “spontaneous phenomenon […] not acquired by practice.” Even though “spontaneous phenomenon” translates literally to “we don’t know how,” the case was still closed for adults.
In the 1990s, brain imaging technology challenged this narrative. The development of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in 1991 let us peek inside living adult brains in real time. Suddenly, we saw it: adults could reforge neural pathways. And like that, neuroplasticity wasn’t just for kids — sorry, Trix. New findings keep coming in, reinforcing this knowledge — like Jeffrey M. Schwartz’s The Mind and the Brain (2002), which shows how deliberate focused attention can reshape the brain. It’s amazing what you can learn once the “don’t study past here” sign gets removed. Even with this breakthrough, it took nearly 20 years for the idea to stick. Science has now widely accepted adult neuroplasticity since the 2010s, yet the belief that perfect pitch can’t be learned persists over a decade after its core reasoning was overturned.
In 2000, if you’d told me you’d learned perfect pitch as an adult, I’d have assumed you were mistaken, lying, or worse. But this familiar story has a predictable ending: research consistently confirms learnability as the number of adults who’ve learned perfect pitch steadily grows. Many still cling to the old “truth” because it’s a “fact” they learned, and letting go of that is understandably tough. I’ve found perfect pitch very rewarding myself, but its value will vary from person to person and I don’t consider it the musical holy grail some might purport it to be. The point is, you have the right to decide whether you want it for yourself or your children, and calling it “impossible” robs you of your choice.
Your Turn
History repeatedly demonstrates the fleeting nature of “impossible.” Flight, electricity, neuroplasticity — all deemed out of reach by the brightest minds until someone cracked the code. If you like the idea of having perfect pitch, download HarmoniQ and join the ranks of those who challenged the old “truth” and learned anyway.