History repeats no physics

Richard Feynman, in The Character of Physical Law, (pp. 163 - 164)

"I am sure that history history does not repeats itself in physics, as you can tell from looking at the examples I have given. The reason is this. Any schemes - such as 'think of symmetry laws', or 'put the information in mathematical form', or 'guess equations' - are known to everybody now, and they are all tried all the time. When you are stuck, the answer cannot be one of these, because you will have tried these right away. There must be another way next way next time. Each time we get into this log-jam of too much trouble, too many problems, it is because the methods that we are using are just like the ones we have used before. The next scheme, the now discovery, is going to be made in a completely different way. So, history does not help us much."