This approach of assuming some basic things and seeing how far you can get with just those assumptions always makes it surprisingly further than I would have th

This approach of assuming some basic things and seeing how far you can get with just those assumptions always makes it surprisingly further than I would have thought in advance. I remember reading an article once about how if you make some really basic but reasonable assumptions about how the laws of physics should work (e.g. probabilities add up to 1 at all times), you can get almost all the way to the Schrödinger equation. I was quite impressed.