That's the issue - trial and error. A human can try a couple ideas in a day, but realistically, there are not that many sane ideas.
replyComputer can iterate without frustration on a completely random garbage. Once in a while it stumbles upon a gem. Even if it's one in 10000, that's still hundreds of good ideas in a day (provided enough GPUs).
Your comment assumes math and science are some kind of closed systems that can mechanistically pursue any endeavour but reality (whatever it is (e.g. the universe)) is much more complex than that, and there are realities that are outside of those systems. Not saying that humans can see all those realities though.
replyMaybe? I'm targeting math, which doesn't need any kind of reality check. It has axioms though, so in a sense it's closed.
replyYou can generate completely random ideas (a couple proofs I saw where you define some weird set, pick an element and derive a contradiction when the set is empty or whatever).
Some of these will reach a conclusion: proof or a counterexample. And that's how speed can outperform creativity, if the speed bump is fast enough. It's the same as with those monkeys and Shakespeare.