Many scientific advancements throughout history have had very clever scientists and a lot of hard work behind them. Many have also seemingly had a good measure of luck, coincidence, intuition, or something perhaps less “scientific” or less “logical” behind them.
Here’s a coincidence for you: On Monday, Nov. 17, research teams at Stanford University and Google separately announced that they'd developed artificial neural networks able to recognize complex photos using machine learning and pattern recognition.
Jordan Pearson of Motherboard magazine investigated and discovered that neither team was aware of the work of the other until very recently.
“It’s an insane coincidence that the research announcements came so hot on each other’s heels,” Pearson wrote. “But in many ways [it’s] an understandable one.” He said it’s a case of current technology being poised for this development—there is a demand right now for this capability, and the work on neural networks already accomplished was likely to produce this development soon.
Is it that the simultaneous and independent emergence of ideas can usually be explained this way? Alexander Graham Bell and Elisha Gray both developed the telephone in 1876. In 1773 and 1774, Carl Sheele and Joseph Priestly independently discovered oxygen. Around the time of 1915 to 1918, Mary Pattison and Christine Frederick were working on ways to use mechanical engineering to improve efficiency in domestic work.
MORE:
- 11 Accidental Discoveries: Potato Chips, Plastic, and More
- Frontier Science: Dr. Bernard Beitman on Coincidence Studies
