Seneca the Younger explicitly set out such a vast intergenerational project: The time will come when diligent research over long periods will bring to light things which now lie hidden. A single lifetime, even though entirely devoted to the sky, would not be enough for the investigation of so vast a subject… And so this knowledge will be unfolded only through long successive ages. There will come a time when our descendants will be amazed that we did not know things that are so plain to them… Let us be satisfied with what we have found out, and let our descendants also contribute something to the truth… Many discoveries are reserved for ages still to come, when memory of us will have been effaced.