the present vogue of the big laboratory is a new thing in science. there are those of us who wish to think that it may never last to be an old thing, for when the scientific ideas of this generation are exhausted, or at least reveal vastly diminishing returns on their intellectual development, I do not foresee that the next generation will be able to furnish the colossal ideas on which colossal projects naturally rest.
norbert wiener, the human use of human beings (p126).
