>There's never a context where someone is thinking hard at the "fundamental assumptions" of an applied problem and brings a 100-year leap in the basic science,

>There's never a context where someone is thinking hard at the "fundamental assumptions" of an applied problem and brings a 100-year leap in the basic science, for example. I would argue that Turing tackling Hilbert's program qualifies. And I suspect, that the concept of DNA, and the concept of evolution itself qualify as well.