Looking for Big or Little Patterns?

Doing scientific research one looks for patterns. A single observation, may connect with another one, and then another, until we have a set of observations that may indicate the existence of a bigger pattern, maybe a theory, like General Relativity.

One interesting aspect of these mathematical and physical theories is that sometimes they hung together with a single principle. Einstein's Theory of Gravity is the quintaessential physico-mathematical theory glued together by a simple principle. Galileo discovered that objects of similar size but different weights fall at the same rate, Einstein saw geometry behind it, and postulated that the presence of matter bends space and time causing all nearby objects to follow the paths of minimal length.