[extropy-chat] What's the Greatest Innovation?

[Damien Broderick]

I like Frank Wilczek's reply:

The greatest innovation in physics, and I think in all of science, 
was the discovery that important behaviour of natural objects can be 
described with mathematical precision.  This was the centrepiece of 
the 17th century scientific revolution, after which we've never 
looked back. It sharply divides the sort of rough-and-ready intuitive 
semi-understanding that comes to us naturally, and even satisfied 
such powerful and such sophisticated minds as Aristotle and Thomas 
Aquinas, from today's science.

All the subsequent 'revolutions', including electromagnetic field 
theory, relativity, and quantum mechanics, were inevitable after that 
discovery; as were the technologies of the Industrial and Information 
revolutions. You can't find what you're not looking for; but if you 
know what to look for, and it's there, eventually you'll find it!