List of multiple independent discoveries

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Multiple independent discoveries in science — termed "multiples" by Robert K. Merton — are instances in which similar discoveries are made by scientists working independently of each other.[1]

"Sometimes," Merton writes, "the discoveries are simultaneous or almost so; sometimes a scientist will make a new discovery which, unbeknown to him, somebody else has made years before."^{[citation needed]}

By contrast, a discovery that has been made uniquely by a single scientist or group of scientists working together, is termed a "singleton."

Multiple independent discovery, rather than an exceptional phenomenon, may, as Merton believed, constitute the common pattern in science.

Contents 1 List of multiple independent discoveries 1.1 16th century 1.2 17th century 1.3 18th century 1.4 19th century 1.5 20th century 1.6 21st century 2 References 3 See also

[edit] List of multiple independent discoveries

[edit] 16th century

[edit] 17th century

• Calculus — Isaac Newton, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz and others.

[edit] 18th century

• Oxygen — Antoine Lavoisier, Joseph Priestley and others.

[edit] 19th century

• Evolution — Charles Darwin, Alfred Russel Wallace.

[edit] 20th century

[edit] 21st century

[edit] References

• Robert K. Merton, The Sociology of Science: Theoretical and Empirical Investigations, University of Chicago Press, 1973.
• Harriet Zuckerman, Scientific Elite: Nobel Laureates in the United States, Free Press, 1979.

[edit] See also

• Historic recurrence

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