Interesting read. Inevitable if preconditions are in place, unknowable in advance, and not dependent upon single inventor. Based largely on a list of 148 invent

Interesting read. Inevitable if preconditions are in place, unknowable in advance, and not dependent upon single inventor. Based largely on a list of 148 inventions with multiple independent inventors more or less at the same time. http://www.jstor.org/stable/985546 http://www.jstor.org/stable/985546 is a closely related 1961 paper by Robert Merton, whose work is mentioned in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_discovery https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_discovery Would love a pointer to a current literature summary on this question!