How does a major breakthrough in science happen? Is it because noone has thought of it that way? Are there major breakthroughs in the future of medicine and technology because noone thought of it that way?
In: Technology
Not necessarily.
In some cases, like Einstein’s relativity, it could very well be what you said, no one had thought of something that way before.
In other cases, it may be that the theory had always predicted something but the breakthrough is finally finding evidence that definitively supports a theory – this is like the discovery of the Higg’s Boson 7 years ago. It was theorized that this particle should exist but an experiment finally found strong evidence of it.
The same goes for medicine and technology. There are sometimes just brand new ideas perhaps spurred on by new materials or methods (like better computers). More often, the breakthrough was something that the people working on it had wanted to achieve and finally found a method that worked.
Since science is pretty advanced nowadays and computing tools and simulations are pretty powerful, it is rare that breakthroughs are something someone stumbles upon by accident. It is much more likely that breakthroughs are the result of painstaking and exhaustive and deliberate effort by a team of experts.
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