Wow, that's even better than Douglas Adams' "discover the Ultimate Question to destroy the universe"... and most likely the inspiration for it as well
But yeah, that story vaguely rings a bell... might have been Heinlein, might have been Asimov, one of those awesome writers
Heck, Asimov even tackled sciences that you wouldn't even think of in his fiction, such as economics... I remember one story of his where people had built so many robots that the robots got out of control producing goods, and since it was for some reason impossible to shut the robots down (I think they would have gone on strike because robots live for work, or something
), it was decided that to curb the resulting market disaster, that more robots would be built for the express purpose of WASTING things!
And then there was the "numerics" story, where people became so reliant on calculators that they completely forgot how to do math - but apparently computers were still quite bulky, expensive, and slow, as this guy who was able to "predict" the results that the calculator would give using his "numerics" techniques was hailed as a genius, and it was decided that it would be more efficient to have someone aboard all the warships and even some of the guided missiles to perform course calculations!
Oh yeah, and then there was the one (though I don't think this was Asimov) where a scouting party of some feline looking aliens invaded the earth, landing their starship... and out came a bunch of these aliens dressed in chainmail, wielding swords, and anxious more than anything to use an outhouse... when they were surrounded by humans with machine guns and grenades, they quickly surrendered, as no one but humans had thought to develop more than the most primitive of weapons, armor, or latrines! Everyone else had focused their research first into bare-bones life support technology and then into propulsion; the felines and the humans were apparently the only two aggressive races in the galaxy, and since the humans never happened upon spaceflight while the felines did ages ago, the felines had plenty of time to expand their empire without much difficulty, not needing more than primitive weapons or waste disposal (hey, space is a big trash can!), while the humans needed to fight each other for room on the earth!