I've been reading Von Neumann's "Theory Of Self-Reproducing Automata" (freely available on Internet Archive and very much worth it!) and he constantly reference

I've been reading Von Neumann's "Theory Of Self-Reproducing Automata" (freely available on Internet Archive and very much worth it!) and he constantly references and credits Turing. Nor have I ever heard anyone claim Turing's insights were sparked in a vacuum (or anyone's, for that matter ... the closest to a "lone genius" I can think of is Newton maybe? -- This is a good tangential question perhaps: who have made the most "out of thin air" discoveries in math or science?).