New candidates: Charles Babbage’s analytical engine, Barry Marshall and Robin Warren on Helicobacter pylori causing ulcers, Ada Lovelace’s idea of a general-purpose computer, Lev Vygotsky’s sociocultural cognition theory, Joseph Altman’s adult neurogenesis, Dan Shechtman’s quasicrystals.
Purported common threads: Unconventional background, polymathic skillsets, working in relative isolation.
Hasn’t really been insightful for me, but dropping it here in case it’d be useful for someone else.
I’ve tried pointing Deep Research at this, doing a three-turn search. Here’s the result, including a GPT-4.5 summary at the end.
Repeat mentions[1]: Einstein, Mendel, Ignaz Semmelweis’ antiseptic handwashing, Wegener’s continental drift, Cantor’ set theory, Emmy Noether, McClintock’s transposons.
New candidates: Charles Babbage’s analytical engine, Barry Marshall and Robin Warren on Helicobacter pylori causing ulcers, Ada Lovelace’s idea of a general-purpose computer, Lev Vygotsky’s sociocultural cognition theory, Joseph Altman’s adult neurogenesis, Dan Shechtman’s quasicrystals.
Purported common threads: Unconventional background, polymathic skillsets, working in relative isolation.
Hasn’t really been insightful for me, but dropping it here in case it’d be useful for someone else.
As in, those already mentioned by people in this post’s answers.