"Le Verrier-without leaving his study, without even looking at the sky-had found the unknown planet [Neptune] solely by mathematical calculation, and, as it were, touched it with the tip of his pen!"

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It is notorious that the same discovery is frequently made simultaneously and quite independently, by different persons. Thus, to speak of only a few cases in late years, the discoveries of photography, of electric telegraphy, and of the planet Neptune through theoretical calculations, have all their rival claimants. It would seem, that discoveries are usually made when the time is ripe for them - that is to say, when the ideas from which they naturally flow are fermenting in the minds of many men.

— Francis Galton