[kick]

It's been shown repeatedly. Arthur Whitney is another example. In fact, basically every major technological innovation of the past two centuries has been because of people doing this.

The first was just to share an example. The second paragraph is common knowledge.

[Symmetry]

We do depend in a profound way on people trying the impossible for our civilization to progress. But at the same time most attempts to do the impossible do end in failure and I think it would be mistake to say that people trying do the impossible do better on average than those who don't. Rather, we should encourage play, tilting at windmills, etc knowing full well that we're accepting the danger of failure now but making an investment in the future.