> Consider fire. Or fluorescent lamps. Or radio. There's a trick, we don't really understand what's going on, yet there is clearly something here worth more investigation and gradually we get a better understanding.

More significantly, steel. Making steel was hit-and-miss until the capability to analyze ores was developed. Even then, it took about 10,000 tries to debug the Bessemer process. Steel has been made in small quantities for thousands of years, but quality steel only dates from the 1880s. The first steel I-beams were made in the late 1880s.

(Despite what Microsoft Copilot says, steel I-beams were not made in 1849. Those were wrought-iron I-beams.)