Examples:
Graphics User Interface. The iPhone seated mobile compute as a permanent fixture, it and Android bringing internet and computing to billions of humans for the first time. Not just the wealthy industrials. Or IBM DB2 for SQL. Or Ford's Model T. Or the Gutenberg. None of these were the first first. Maybe even on the n-th iteration 2 decades after coming out of DARPA or global university research, something is just ready for commercialized prime time.
Computing was solved by Lady Ada and Babbage. It's all electrical engineering, software, fabrication, productization, mfg, displays, sensors etc. after that.
Semiconductor was a big deal in making it happen. But that's almost besides the point of the theory of compute if it can be solved in other novel ways using alternative material science.
If there's anything the last few years has taught me is that hype is rarely any indication of common sense. I'm always surprised what reaches success and what doesn't. Truly revolutionary ideas are ignored and not understood while stupid but polished ideas are booming.
One example of that is the crypto space. So many actual good for humanity implications, but the "killer app" that made the news was fucking NFTs. I'm trying really hard not to come to the conclusion that humans are just mindless zombies but it's getting harder every year.
Once we reach a billion DAU you can be sure it will just be "Original Memes Tailored Just For YOU"™ instead of figuring out the logistics for solving world hunger. Mark my words.
Examples: Graphics User Interface. The iPhone seated mobile compute as a permanent fixture, it and Android bringing internet and computing to billions of humans for the first time. Not just the wealthy industrials. Or IBM DB2 for SQL. Or Ford's Model T. Or the Gutenberg. None of these were the first first. Maybe even on the n-th iteration 2 decades after coming out of DARPA or global university research, something is just ready for commercialized prime time.
Computing was solved by Lady Ada and Babbage. It's all electrical engineering, software, fabrication, productization, mfg, displays, sensors etc. after that.
Semiconductor was a big deal in making it happen. But that's almost besides the point of the theory of compute if it can be solved in other novel ways using alternative material science.