I think this is absolutely correct. Huge advances are driven by war, for obvious reasons -- survival is at stake. John Napier discovered the logarithm due to hi

I think this is absolutely correct. Huge advances are driven by war, for obvious reasons -- survival is at stake. John Napier discovered the logarithm due to his work on artillery. A lot of Archimedes's innovations were driven by the desire to build weapons. The demand for accurate clocks was driven by the Navy, giving rise to many innovations. And of course in the 20th Century, integrated circuit design was driven by a desire to build computers that could be embedded in ballistic missiles and withstand large amounts of heat. Fairchild semiconductors' first big contracts were primarily for defense and NASA.