Forgive me for this dumb example, but:
The Russian guy who invented stealth surfaces that evaded radar wrote a book about it pre-World War II. Nothing was done with that book, until an engineer from Lockheed skunkworks read the book and adapted the formulas to create the first stealth aircraft. So, who was smarter the one who invented it, or the one that perfected it? I guess the best answer is that practically, the one who perfected it was the most important