> While it is never safe to affirm that the future of Physical Science has no marvels in store even more astonishing than those of the past, it seems probable that most of the grand underlying principles have been firmly established and that further advances are to be sought chiefly in the rigorous application of these principles to all the phenomena which come under our notice.

That's Albert Michelson, famous by the Michelson-Morley interferometer, that you know, helped destroing some of those "grand underlying principles" of physics and lead the way to the modern relativity theories.

By the way, he said that after the experiment, when he already had the result. But before the most interesting consequences of it were explored. If you search for him on the web, there's another famous phrase with him impressed, saying that it only took one extra decimal to change everything.