The point of paradigms is to identify what lines of attack are important. The result is that our identification of how important recent milestones were is informed by our understanding of the value of the lines of future inquiry they either resolved or opened up.
Therefore our judgement of what to try next is directly tied to our judgement of what past accomplishments were important in our current aims.
To offer an example, gravitational waves are important for physics both as a fulfilled prediction of general relativity, and for the potential of what we stand to learn about things like how neutron stars merge.
Therefore our judgement of what to try next is directly tied to our judgement of what past accomplishments were important in our current aims.
To offer an example, gravitational waves are important for physics both as a fulfilled prediction of general relativity, and for the potential of what we stand to learn about things like how neutron stars merge.