I’d guess materials science as a field with several discontinuous leaps. Bessemer process, duraluminium, carbon fiber reinforced plastics: I think these are the most famous candidates. (It’s hard to put it into metrics, but nearly all non-immobile things were structurally built out of wood until Bessemer/Martin steel came around.)
Rocketry is intimately related to nuclear bombs. The impetus to develop it came from the fact that now a small payload could destroy a city. (In WW2, a V2 occasionally leveled an apartment block or two. This is not a performance that justifies investing in an ICBM.) The early space race was largely a demonstration of this capability, as a rocket capable of accelerating a multiple-ton payload into near-circular orbit required to hit the other side of the earth is necessarily capable of accelerating a few-hundred-kg payload into low earth orbit, and vice versa.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_telegraph preexisted the electric telegraph for speed of information over land. (Although it has some related systems, such as heliographs.)
I’d guess materials science as a field with several discontinuous leaps. Bessemer process, duraluminium, carbon fiber reinforced plastics: I think these are the most famous candidates. (It’s hard to put it into metrics, but nearly all non-immobile things were structurally built out of wood until Bessemer/Martin steel came around.)
Rocketry is intimately related to nuclear bombs. The impetus to develop it came from the fact that now a small payload could destroy a city. (In WW2, a V2 occasionally leveled an apartment block or two. This is not a performance that justifies investing in an ICBM.) The early space race was largely a demonstration of this capability, as a rocket capable of accelerating a multiple-ton payload into near-circular orbit required to hit the other side of the earth is necessarily capable of accelerating a few-hundred-kg payload into low earth orbit, and vice versa.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duga_radar for power used in an active sensor (mostly searchlights and radars)?