A slight amendment to your statements: in some fields of research, we've exhausted the low-hanging fruit, and "low-hanging" is defined differently for every field. In mathematics, for example, we ran out of obvious things in the 1700s, but there are still "low-hanging fruit" because the cost of investment is so low. My field, robotics, is currently new enough that we're still finding things that are obvious in hindsight. In pharmaceuticals, things are pretty easy to come up with, but really ridiculously expensive to test and verify the safety of. Making sweeping statements about "low-hanging fruit" doesn't work.
"Making sweeping statements about 'low-hanging fruit' doesn't work."
Sure it does! Extend the analogy a bit by letting the tree be a living thing. That today you picked some fruit doesn't mean that tomorrow a new pear (apple, guava, grapefruit, etc.) won't grow where you harvested.
And when the tree dies, there's always that "making lemonade from lemons" metaphor... (OK, so that's engineering, not science, but it will keep you busy and productive).
Thanks for the correction. I just have a minor wrinkle to add to your opinion of mathematics. Recreational mathematics itself could be seen as an avenue to further fields of low-hanging fruit.
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A slight amendment to your statements: in some fields of research, we've exhausted the low-hanging fruit, and "low-hanging" is defined differently for every field. In mathematics, for example, we ran out of obvious things in the 1700s, but there are still "low-hanging fruit" because the cost of investment is so low. My field, robotics, is currently new enough that we're still finding things that are obvious in hindsight. In pharmaceuticals, things are pretty easy to come up with, but really ridiculously expensive to test and verify the safety of. Making sweeping statements about "low-hanging fruit" doesn't work.
"Making sweeping statements about 'low-hanging fruit' doesn't work."
Sure it does! Extend the analogy a bit by letting the tree be a living thing. That today you picked some fruit doesn't mean that tomorrow a new pear (apple, guava, grapefruit, etc.) won't grow where you harvested.
And when the tree dies, there's always that "making lemonade from lemons" metaphor... (OK, so that's engineering, not science, but it will keep you busy and productive).
Thanks for the correction. I just have a minor wrinkle to add to your opinion of mathematics. Recreational mathematics itself could be seen as an avenue to further fields of low-hanging fruit.