From the Article:

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It didn’t always go smoothly, I’ll admit. Frank Whittle, the inventor of the turbojet engine, presented the idea at a meeting of his professional association, only to be told in the subsequent discussion that the idea could never work. Brunel was told by the eminent Dionysius Lardner at a meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science that it was completely impossible for a steam liner to travel across the Atlantic.