&gt; In the hard sciences there are a lot of esoteric sub-disciplines that do rigorous work that seems to be of little consequence.<p>I think people systematically under-estimate the value of all those small seemingly-inconsequential tweaks, variations, and improvements. We all prefer simpler narratives that &quot;person X invented Y for the very first time in year Z and that was good.&quot;<p>Many times when you break down a world-changing invention or innovation, it&#x27;s actually an older idea that is finally possible due to thousands of incremental improvements being turned to the combined use.