The missing point here is that as the same time as electricity was being worked on in one small lab, there were people (even in the same lab) who would publish things we would not even consider to be research today.

This is a silly article by someone who has no concept of the scope and breadth of science through the ages.

Time suppresses weaker discoveries, but there is no way to know what will last beforehand.

I think though that just proves the point that there was so much low hanging fruit back then- and not so much now. You’re not going to discover something as fundamental as electricity again, for instance.

To continue, the Nobel prize of today is more akin to a lifetime award than a cutting edge starting out award.

Is would have been better to compare grants awarded to young scientists instead.