It's interesting to me how many scientific breakthroughs we've seen in the past few years. I wonder if hard science hasn't been slowing down; but rather waiting on technological advances that would give them the data they needed to make the leaps. With technological catching up these leaps are now happening.
Rather, it's my impression that there's been a pretty consistent pace of scientific discoveries for the past 80 years. Advancing technology certainly helps, but technology has been advancing rapidly for quite some time.
The last 20 years hasn't been a big difference from the 20 before it on the hardware end of things.
Recent science has seen an increase in discoveries added by "big data" science (CERN, astronomy) but that's just one more tool in the researchers toolbelt.