Multiple Discovery

Phenomenon where the same discovery or invention occurs independently to different people at nearly the same time.

Bell and Gray filed telephone patents within hours on February 14, 1876. Newton and Leibniz developed calculus independently in the 1670s. Darwin received Wallace’s letter describing natural selection while writing On the Origin of Species. William Ogburn and Dorothy Thomas documented 150 cases in 1922. Robert Merton found 261 by 1961 — and noted that the study of multiple discovery was itself a multiple discovery.

The pattern suggests inventions become “ripe” when enough preconditions exist. Stuart Kauffman’s adjacent possible: ideas can only emerge once the supporting knowledge has matured. You can’t invent the internet in 1850.

Multiple discovery argues against the lone genius myth. The same ideas emerge because the same possibilities opened.

Related: adjacent possible, scenius