Bonus question: What is an invention that was really important and there is no telling how long we would have to wait for it to appear had it not been discovered by the one credited with it?
Bonus question: What is an invention that was really important and there is no telling how long we would have to wait for it to appear had it not been discovered by the one credited with it?
I think time is an important variable, I should have stressed it more in the question. Sure, we would eventually get to the same ideas, but how long would it take? I suspect some development are somewhat expected as multiple people are simultaneously looking at the same underlying problem, while others come as a little more surprising.
Maybe you know it but iron was known in Center Africa before than in Europe or Middle East… but they didn’t know bronze at that time.
Time and “order” are very unimportant with discoveries.
Im pretty sure historians would disagree with this statement.