While I would consider Newtionian physics to be much more fundamental, I would challenge the notion that it had the most impact. Compare the ~1900 feeling that

While I would consider Newtionian physics to be much more fundamental, I would challenge the notion that it had the most impact. Compare the ~1900 feeling that almost everything had already been invended. Newtonian physics impact to technology was mainly mechanics. Then came thermodynamics which gave us (steam &) combustion engines and more. Nuclear & quantum physics lead to bombs, reactors and finally seminconductors and so on. I would say todays thnological relevance of thermodynamics and quantum physics is at least as high as that of Newtonian physics. Also: most of todays physicists do not look for Bosons, they do things like advancing semiconductor masking technology, liquid crystal physics and the like - i.e. they are not "fundamental" but "applied" physicists. Also - with respect to the original article - isn't the much faster exponential growth of the resources invested in science since around 1900 mostly an indicator of expected technological returns by society at large? Science is a huge economy success story since about a century ;-) The question then would be how long can we afford to sustain the current exponent?