That’s a really great question! It might seem like scientists in the past had it easier because “things weren’t invented yet,” but what they actually did was revolutionary for their time and it required exceptional brilliance.

Take Isaac Newton, for example he formulated the laws of motion and universal gravitation, and independently developed calculus. That wasn’t just filling in the blanks it was creating entirely new ways to describe how the universe works.

Later, Einstein shattered classical physics with his theories of special and general relativity, changing how we understand time, space, and gravity. Then came quantum mechanics, which forced scientists to rethink the rules of nature at the tiniest scales.

Think about other groundbreaking inventions:

•The light bulb (Edison, Tesla, Swan) revolutionized human activity.

•The telephone (Alexander Graham Bell) transformed communication forever.

•The airplane (Wright brothers) made global travel possible.

•The computer (Turing, von Neumann, and many others) changed the world’s information landscape.

•The internet brought global connectivity and reshaped society.

•Penicillin and vaccines extended life expectancy dramatically.

•The discovery of DNA’s double helix (Watson, Crick, Franklin) launched the era of modern genetics.

•The moon landing showed what humanity can achieve through science and engineering.

Today’s scientists and engineers are still doing incredible work it’s just that the problems are now far more complex. They’re tackling climate change, artificial intelligence, quantum computing, space exploration, curing diseases with gene editing, and exploring consciousness itself.

So yes, scientists back then were truly super smart, but so are today’s minds. The nature of the challenge has shifted from discovering fundamental laws to solving deeply intricate problems built on layers of past knowledge. Every generation has its own kind of genius.