[PopsiclePete]

There was less competition but it was also tremendously difficult to even see what others are doing, or to learn from them, or to even talk to them....just being in possession of scientific texts was enough to get you killed not too long before Newton's time. That makes his accomplishments more impressive to me, not less.

Here's an analogy.

I'd be more impressed by a medieval European serf if that serf could create the Intel 8086 than by you if you designed the next AMD 32-core processor.