The Astronomer Royal, Airy, opined that laying an under-sea telegraph cable was a “mathematical impossibility.” The silly goofus. Though, of course, if he were a modern day politician, he and his cohorts would continue to repeat it, in the teeth of the evidence, at news conferences and at every opportunity. And by year end 50% of the population would believe him.
– From the margins of a set of notes on Fourier Analysis, Professor Venaktesh
