Pushing into New Energy Range

I came across this Steven Hawking quote today from the October 11, 2008 issue of Science News.

We don't know what we will find when we run the LHC.
If we did, it wouldn't be worth spending all that time and money of doing the
experiment. The most exciting result would be something we don't expect. That
has often been our experience in the past when we have pushed our studies to a
new energy range.

-Steven Hawking told BBC on September 9, the day before
researchers successfully sent a beam of protons around the large hadron
collider's 27-kilometer tunnel.

Are there thing in your life that you are so devoted to that you "push your studies to a new energy range?"

Have you ever gotten so into an art or ceramics project that you felt like you had pushed yourself into that new range? Were the results predictable?