[TL;DR] It's not the destination, it's the journey. Archimedes didn't reach the destination of integral calculus, but he at least started the journey, an

[TL;DR] It's not the destination, it's the journey. Archimedes didn't reach the destination of integral calculus, but he at least started the journey, and I appreciate it. [/TL;DR] I think it's a sense of wonder thing. The scope of knowledge (to my understanding) didn't exist back then to imagine infinitesimals. I believe they were having issues with irrationals, let alone things that approached 0 but weren't exactly 0. There's a sibling comment along the lines of "what if calculus had been discovered 2,000 years earlier" that touches on this, but I think for me there's added the idea that there's proof that some people, some times, can almost see what's next in terms of discoverable knowledge, and it keeps me hopeful. Most of us have some "off" theory/fantasy/hope with no rigid proof of validity. And many of those are just random neurons firing that might make a good fanfic. But there's that person over there who has a mostly fleshed out idea for (insert super tech here) and just needs to figure out step 37. It turns out she'll never invent the super tech defined. But X-2891q in the year 3971 will meme a holograph that brings that super tech into reality. While the super tech likely adds to society, the original person who came up with elements of the concept enriched herself in doing so, by my perspective.