If you're ever thinking "oh my work will never come to anything" spare a thought for Robert Recorde of Tenby in Wales. 
He invented the equals sign (=) in 1557 (the year before he died) "to auoide the tediouſe repetition of theſe woordes : is equalle to" - and was promptly ignored for 61 years before being picked up again in 1618.