You would find things in there that were already close to QM and relativity. The Michelson-Morley experiment was 1887 and Lorentz transformations came along in 1889. The photoelectric effect (which Einstein explained in terms of photons in 1905) was also discovered in 1887. William Clifford (who _died_ in 1889) had notions that foreshadowed general relativity: "Riemann, and more specifically Clifford, conjectured that forces and matter might be local irregularities in the curvature of space, and in this they were strikingly prophetic, though for their pains they were dismissed at the time as visionaries." - Banesh Hoffmann (1973)

Things don't happen all of a sudden, and being able to see all the scientific papers of the era its possible those could have fallen out of the synthesis.

It's only easy to see precursors in hindsight. The Michelson-Morley tale is a great example of this. In hindsight, their experiment was screaming relativity, because it demonstrated that the speed of light was identical from two perspectives where it's very difficult to explain without relativity. Lorentz contraction was just a completely ad-hoc proposal to maintain the assumptions of the time (luminiferous aether in particular) while also explaining the result. But in general it was not seen as that big of a deal.

There's a very similar parallel with dark matter in modern times. We certainly have endless hints to the truth that will be evident in hindsight, but for now? We are mostly convinced that we know the truth, perform experiments to prove that, find nothing, shrug, adjust the model to be even more esoteric, and repeat onto the next one. And maybe one will eventually show something, or maybe we're on the wrong path altogether. This quote, from Michelson in 1894 (more than a decade before Einstein would come along), is extremely telling of the opinion at the time:

"While it is never safe to affirm that the future of Physical Science has no marvels in store even more astonishing than those of the past, it seems probable that most of the grand underlying principles have been firmly established and that further advances are to be sought chiefly in the rigorous application of these principles to all the phenomena which come under our notice. It is here that the science of measurement shows its importance — where quantitative work is more to be desired than qualitative work. An eminent physicist remarked that the future truths of physical science are to be looked for in the sixth place of decimals." - Michelson 1894

I presume that's what the parent post is trying to get at? Seeing if, given the cutting edge scientific knowledge of the day, the LLM is able to synthesis all it into a workable theory of QM by making the necessary connections and (quantum...) leaps

Standing on the shoulders of giants, as it were

If (as you seem to be suggesting) relativity was effectively lying there on the table waiting for Einstein to just pick it up, how come it blindsided most, if not quite all, of the greatest minds of his generation?

This would still be valuable even if the LLM only finds out about things that are already in the air.

It’s probably even more of a problem that different areas of scientific development don’t know about each other. LLMs combining results would still not be like they invented something new.

But if they could give us a head start of 20 years on certain developments this would be an awesome result.

With LLMs the synthesis cycles could happen at a much higher frequency. Decades condensed to weeks or days?

I imagine possible buffers on that conjecture synthesis being epxerimentation and acceptance by the scientific community. AIs can come up with new ideas every day but Nature won't publish those ideas for years.

Then that experiment is even more interesting, and should be done.

My own prediction is that the LLMs would totally fail at connecting the dots, but a small group of very smart humans can.

Things don't happen all of a sudden, but they also don't happen everywhere. Most people in most parts of the world would never connect the dots. Scientific curiosity is something valuable and fragile, that we just take for granted.

I agree, but it's important to note that QM has no clear formulation until 2025/6, it's like 20 years more of work than SR.