I'm not convinced that it always works like this. Flight, for example, was always one of the "big" ideas that people were quixotically chasing. It just needed the right technical solution.
It involved a revolution in the theory and practice of aerodynamics and the ground-up engineering of a complex system unlike anything that existed before. But it worked and it changed the world.
It involved a revolution in the theory and practice of aerodynamics and the ground-up engineering of a complex system unlike anything that existed before. But it worked and it changed the world.