Doubling Law of Scientific Progress

Scientific discovery often delivers a roughly constant increment of progress per doubling of input (people, compute, samples): as effort grows exponentially, incremental gains add linearly while marginal returns shrink. That pattern explains why bigger, better‑resourced science means steady advances but requires exponentially more resources to sustain the same absolute step. — If true, this reframes funding, industrial strategy, and public expectations: steady progress is achievable but costly, so policy must choose whether to scale inputs (and costs) or reprioritize research aims and organization.