Who did we consider cray-cray until history proved them right all along?

Harry Markopoulos spent years trying to convince everyone, investors, journalists, regulatory agencies and stuff,

that Bernie Madoff was a fraud based on forensic accounting.

Madoff was one of the most respected names on Wall Street, and despite the overwhelming evidence,

nobody was willing to entertain the thought he might be running a Ponzi scheme. Harry's book,

No One Would Listen, is a great account of financial detective work, and just the abject

frustration of being absolutely certain you're right, but nobody believing you. If it ever

comes out that we're in a simulation, this guy being named

Madoff will be the Easter egg I point to when I convince people that the devs used interns

from time to time. Ludwig Boltzmann. His equations and formulas explained the physical

properties of matter, but as it went against the accepted laws of physics at the time,

he was ridiculed and ignored for

years while fighting for atom theory to be accepted. Sadly, he self-deleated just three years

before Ernest Rutherford discovered the nucleus of an atom, proving Boltzmann's theory.

Ignace Semmelweis, that guy who suggested that it might be a good idea to wash your hands before performing

surgery. Semmelweis supposedly suffered a nervous breakdown and was committed to an asylum by his colleagues.

He died 14 days later after being beaten by guards from a gangrenous wound on his right hand,

which might have been caused by the beating. Semmelweis' practice earned widespread acceptance only

years after his death when Louis Pasteur confirmed the germ theory. Hemingway, before he finally

ended things himself, became extremely paranoid the FBI was following him. His wife and people

around him just thought he was mentally ill and grew deeply concerned.

Hemingway went as far as getting electrotherapy at a psychiatric hospital to try and help with the perceived delusions.

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