#Physics is such an old field it's a real bitch.
1. Have a nice promising idea all by yourself
2. Find out a well-known guy had it 30 years ago
3. Refine the question so as to go further than the 1st dude.
4. Find out another even better-known guy who looked at this particular question 50 years ago.
5. Look at references in the paper.
6. Find out that Eddington first had a look at this in the early 1930s.
7. Give up and go back to your usual infinitesimally incremental shit or persevere by reading the 200 papers that you discovered along the trail of references, at the risk of facing an even more depressing surprise.
So, after thinking I had an original thought on Monday, here's me studying papers from a century ago to figure out if idea can be salvaged somehow.