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> because breaking new ground is so much harder.

I don't think that this is true. Most things seem easier than they were once they were done. It has a little bit to do with how in NP-complete problems finding a solution is really hard, but once you have the solution, testing that it is right is really easy and that the solution looks very straight-forward.

Another nice story showing this concept is the egg of columbus: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egg_of_Columbus



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