Physics disgusts me a little bit now, but I used to enjoy doing physics. Why did I enjoy it? I used to play with it. I used to do whatever I felt like doing – it didn’t have to do with whether it was important for the development of nuclear physics, but whether it was interesting and amusing for me to play with.
Which led to looking at spinning plates, which led to him developing a diagram for analysing their movement, and ultimately led to his Nobel prize.
An archetypal example might be Richard Feynman:
Which led to looking at spinning plates, which led to him developing a diagram for analysing their movement, and ultimately led to his Nobel prize.