On two occasions I have been asked, — Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out? […]

I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question.1

—Charles Babbage (1791–1871) – father of the computer and early pioneer of the facepalm.

  1. From: Passages from the Life of a Philosopher (1864), ch. 5 Difference Engine No. 1 ↩