I'd argue that the low-hanging fruit of science has been picked. That's why we're not seeing "Einsteins" everywhere.
In fact, there's an Asimov short story (I can't recall the name) where certain members of society exist only to make connections between unrelated fields because the knowledge of humanity has become so vast. In fact, I'd say we're not far from that now, as there are more and more stories along the lines of "an obscure corner of maths has been found to explain 'X' in physics".
I think much of it is caused by the way we work on problems. We work on individual problems that get more and more complex and demand an ever increasing entry hurdle to be able to have a meaningful conversation on the subject. We zoom into existing problems. Yet most of the fundamental breakthroughs were often in hindsight "trivial". Because very often what it needs is a new perspective that allows for the creation of much more efficient alternatives. True innovation.
Add to that the ever increasing time pressure and funding problem. Remember, Einstein was a patent clerk. Most people simply cant afford to invest their time into allowing themselves to think freely. I am confident we could get the genius rate back up with something like UBI.
> there's an Asimov short story (I can't recall the name) where certain members of society exist only to make connections between unrelated fields because the knowledge of humanity has become so vast.
> I'd argue that the low-hanging fruit of science has been picked.
I think people always believe that, and people 20 years from now will think the same about today's time. That's because hindsight is always 20/20, as they say. It is difficult to come to terms with the fact that things that seem very simple and obvious might've taken a colossal effort to come up with.
Also as things get older they get better and better explained.
Some things, like relativity are simple mind-blowing concepts, but other very important aspects of physics can feel like no one is doing such groundbreaking work because you're actually looking at a modern interpretation of something which has been condensed over a century e.g. a lot of papers from the early 1900s are very long winded, so the utterly beautiful ways they may be now treated (Noethers theorem may be an example) are not representative of how they burst onto the scene 100 years ago.
In fact, there's an Asimov short story (I can't recall the name) where certain members of society exist only to make connections between unrelated fields because the knowledge of humanity has become so vast. In fact, I'd say we're not far from that now, as there are more and more stories along the lines of "an obscure corner of maths has been found to explain 'X' in physics".