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Both Hooke and Huygens both pioneered many ideas in universal gravitation, but the key difference as I understand it wasn't that Newton had a better theory but rather a better tool: calculus

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This is a really important point. Numberphile had an interview with mathematician Terrence Tao recently [1] and he was asked if he works on big problems like the Riemann Hypothesis. His response was that we just don't have enough mathematical tools to fully tackle the problem. However when new tools become available he and many other mathematicians go through a list of problems and ask if any breakthroughs are possible.

GUT Physics is also similar. M-Theory was a breakthrough when Witten combined many disjointed string theories together. Recently Arkani's Amplituhedron [2], based on advances in algebraic geometry, is able to calculate some previously complicated QFT integrals using simple algebra, hinting at underlying symmetries.

1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXJ-zpJeY3E 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amplituhedron

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