On two occasions I have been asked, ‘Pray Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?’ In one case a member of the Upper, and in another a member of the Lower, House put this question. I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question.
— Charles Babbage, on politicians’ lack of understanding of (and refusal to fund) his work on the difference engine.
