This is mostly uneducated postulation, but I think as we become more technologically advanced, technological advancements (and the knowledge of mechanics necessary to allow for them) become fewer and more far between as advancements occur.

I feel like the industrial revolution was a perfect storm of many advancements all happening in the same blip, and it allowed us to go from Wright to the moon in one lifespan, but 100 years later, we're still not far from that point, technologically.

I mean, look at radiological half life - that's the point at which there's a 50% chance that any one atom will decay, but when that atom decays seems to be mere chance more than anything. It's perplexing and maddening. But the more we stare at that, the more sure we are in the belief that the void, nothingness, is actually rife with energy just flitting in and out of perceivable existence, affecting observable particles, but we just can't see this vacuum energy. Almost like quantum mechanics is used as a workaround to try to make sense of those unseen forces (and when we can observe them, it'd likely be able to be described in a more classical sense).

Maybe the industrial revolution gave us some hopium lol, but we've been butting our heads into a wall for a century pining for a magical microscope. Maybe in 500 years it'll all look mostly the same, who knows