[doctoboggan]

No, I don't think you are missing anything. Only recently have engineers been inventing things from "first principles". I think for the majority of human civilization we've mostly invented and improved through trial and error.

[jareklupinski]

yea all of modern semiconductors were built on a guy going "wouldnt it be cool if i could write using metal instead of ink"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Czochralski_method

[willis936]

How many computing or mathematical constructs fall into that category? You don't accidentally land on a new algorithm typically.

The author shouldn't have discussed inventions when the nugget is about "original thought".