Even when we credit individuals, and rightly so, as we do, for example with Einstein, ideas don't spring ex nihilo into existence. Rather, as I like to think of

Even when we credit individuals, and rightly so, as we do, for example with Einstein, ideas don't spring ex nihilo into existence. Rather, as I like to think of it, they grow and emerge out of a certain intellectual environment. There is a reason Pythagoras didn't discover the Theory of Relativity. My point was simply that asking "who invented (discovered, created) X" is almost always the wrong question. We have a strong tendency to assign credit (and especially blame)to a person because that is what we are wired to do. One thing science has showed us is that the world isn't that simple.