[pmart123]

Peter Norvig had a point several years ago regarding the power of data. For instance, he mentioned some of the data Google collected could measure the effects of relativity. So in some ways, having the data makes it easier to “discover” something versus one genius toiling away in a room. This seemed to be where the lowest hanging fruit has been, particularly at grasping human or social behavior. Due to the need for data and tooling initially, research and discoveries shifted from academy to corporations. In some ways though, FOSS packages and the cloud are bringing research back into academia. In some ways you could make the argument that the government with the Manhattan project, NSA, etc. has driven technology more than academia for the last 70 years. I think you also could make the argument or an interesting research project could be investigating whether there historically has been cyclicality to theory and then practice, ie french enlightenment movement vs. US founding fathers.