[fn-mote]

I don’t know about “close”, but there are certainly results in math that are considered deep because they require the use of a “Hard Theorem” at some point. That kind of building on top of something Very Difficult is still possible without understanding the “Very Difficult” part. I’d say a lot of not-amazing math is built by believing the platform works but not being able to built it yourself.

I couldn’t build an internal combustion engine or even a plastic box, so maybe there’s nothing wrong with this approach.