People build bridges and magnificient cathedrals for at least a thousand years before Newton. I think it was possible to do so because the building blocks of these objects are familiar to us, we can get a sense of their behaviour, we can touch and feel them. On the other hand, the behaviour of electrons in solids in hard to imagine. I still find it hard to believe that an electron can glide through a perfect crystal like a plane-wave in complete disregard for the ions and other electrons.