10 World-Changing Inventions People Thought Were Useless

2. Mathematics

Mathematics is inadequate to describe the universe, since mathematics is an abstraction from natural phenomena. Also, mathematics may predict things which don't exist, or are impossible in nature.Ludovico delle Colombe, Criticizing Galileo, early 17th Century (paraphrased)

Okay, so he wasn't completely disregarding the entire field of mathematics, but show this quotation from Ludovico delle Colombe to literally any physicist and they will laugh right in your face.

Not only is he wrong in his assertions that you cannot describe the universe with maths, but most modern physicists agree that the universe appears to actually be made of maths. One of the greatest mysteries of modern times is that life, the universe and everything appears to be computable, this is so odd that it has even led some to believe that it must be that we're actually living in a vast computer simulation.

Perhaps we should exercise some caution here though, as there are some things that we cannot currently adequately describe with maths - the singularity of a black hole, for example - but this is more likely to be because we're not good enough at maths yet, not that it can't be done.