When people are credited with a discovery it is not like no one else could do it. It is more like a puzzle with all the pieces lying on the table and one person figured out with of the pieces go where. Example: Penicillin was always available, and someone figured which chemicals to mix to make it. Was the internet an invention or an blend of the television the phone and radio?
I'm glad I discovered this thread. So what do you think the difference is between "discover" and "invent"? Perhaps it's just a syntax issue.
The discoverer is often the first to find his way to the patent office. MS-DOS, Microsoft's flagship product was the work of a team of people, most of whom believed they were working on a freeware application until Bill Gates patented it. Even then, other people had come up with similar operating systems. In other cases, new products were invented in different parts of the world, seemingly independently. As for the Internet, that was simply an improvement on computer bulletin board systems, which have everything the Internet has except for the infrastructure.
Honestly, I'm not sure. Some mysteries of our universe are no longer mysteries. The cameras in space have revealed what is out there even when we are not searching specially for them. Some things were invented by accident meaning it was always there but no one had stumbled on to it. Madam Curie discovered radium and uses for it were invented. Does that make sense?
Most things universal mysteries are still mysteries where invented things consist of matter, although not sure if wind or electricity is matter, maybe by products of the spiritual realm like in humans possibly animals too. I believe there is matter and non-matter aka spiritual. Where do the ion's in soil come from, which I studied a little in Hort class plant science? I studied this kind of thing ever since I had paranormal experiences. Still no answer. We invented AI which is un-natural imo, or did we?
Yes it does. Example: Gravity was always here and perhaps no one ever thought anything about it until Newton “discovered” it and its attributes and how it aligned with the laws of motion. After which, he “invented” calculus which set in motion the very foundation of physics which in total is a matter of discovery And invention. Good thread Steven !
As I understood it, Gates stole DOS from a friend's stuff in his garage. So you could say, he discovered it in a garage.
Yup. We have a conversation starting here about bread making throughout the ages and yeast. Leavening has been in use since the days of the Old Testament, although they had no idea what the mechanism was. Some peoples used the dregs of beer-making as a starter. Somewhere along the line, someone discovered that technique, even though they had no idea what the fermentation mechanism was. Pasteur "discovered" yeast in the 1800s when he was on a mission on behalf of France to make better beer than the Germans...but he had the advantage of the microscope, which was invented by a Dutch father-son team, Hans and Zacharias Janssen. I knew a woman who made bread from yeast she captured from the surrounding air. Upon further investigation, I "discovered" that people had been doing this for a long time. You gotta wonder who discovered that.
The bigger bru-ha-ha back in the 1980s was that Gates stole (or plagiarized) the Apple GUI to create the Windows interface. I don't know if that was ever settled; never cared enough to look it up but I remember the Apple fanboy rage.
Microsoft prevailed. It was the first "Look & Feel" lawsuit. I was in the industry when all that crap hit the fan. I forget why Microsoft won. It was a clear ripoff.
How many people can answer this question off the top of their heads?" What causes wind to blow? I can't.